The Amish Catholic
Elsewhere: Mother Mectilde de Bar and the Prayer of Devekut
August 3, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ Leave a comment
One of the great works of Vultus Christi has been the exposure of many English-speaking Catholics to the spiritual treasures of the continental Benedictine tradition, especially the life and work of Mother Mectilde de Bar. The good nun was a profound mystic of the Eucharist and a spiritual heir to the French School. Anyone with any interest in Benedictine life, Catholicism in early modern France, or spirituality generally should take note.
Mother Mectilde de Bar (1614-1698), foundress of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. (Source)
I am very happy to refer my readers to an excellent translation of one of Mother Mectilde's letters of spiritual direction. The translator, an Oblate of Silverstream, has rendered the 17th century French into elegant and very readable English. A job well done!
Here's a particularly potent excerpt:
The whole of Christian perfection consists in continual attention to Jesus Christ, and a constant adherence or submission to His good pleasure. These two points contain everything, and their faithful practice will lead you to the highest degree of perfection. Blessed is the soul who observes them.
The first point consists in seeing Jesus Christ in everything; in all events and in all our dealings; in such way that this divine sight removes from us the sight of creatures, ourselves, and our interests, in order to see nothing except Jesus Christ. In a word, it is to have the presence of God continually.
The second point consists in being constantly submissive to His holy will; in being so much subject to His good pleasure that we no longer have any return, at least voluntarily, by which we can withdraw from this respectful obedience.
I am reminded, in reading this passage, of a concept in Jewish mysticism called devekut. To practice devekut is to cleave to God constantly, even in the midst of everyday, profane activities. The Rabbis who founded and nurtured Hasidism in the 18th century made it a central feature of their mystical praxis, though the idea has roots in the Temple traditions of the Old Testament (vide Barker 2004, 37). Dr. Margaret Barker notes that, according to the older, priestly understanding of the word "cleaving" in Hebrew, "to cleave" meant quite literally to join. However, this sense was displaced when the Moses-focused Deuteronomist tradition came to ascendance. The new meaning of "cleaving" was, instead, obedience (Ibid. 37). Mother Mectilde has here joined both meanings in a salutary way.
An icon of the Holy Eucharist, showing Christ the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. (Source)
However, I think she places a bit more emphasis on the first, as the primary and indispensable basis of the second. She goes on to write,
Have Jesus Christ imprinted and carved on the center of your soul. Have him in all the faculties of your mind. May your heart be able to think of and long for nothing except Jesus Christ. May your whole inclination be to please Him. Attach all your fortunes and your happiness to knowing and loving Jesus Christ.[1] May nothing on earth, however great it seems, prevail in you against the constant union you should have with Jesus Christ. May neither heaven, nor earth, nor hell, nor any power, ever separate you from Him.[2]
She continues on and apostraphizes Divine Love, writing
O Jesus all powerful and all love, work in us these two effects of mercy: attract us by your omnipotence and transform us by your love into Yourself.
O love, O love divine, may you burn in us, and that you may consume in us everything that is contrary to you and opposed to your workings.
O life that is not animated by love, how can you be called life? You are a hideous death, and most terrible.
O pure and holy love of Jesus Christ, do not allow a single moment of my life to be spent without love; make me die and throw me into hell a thousand times rather than not to love Jesus Christ.
The first line here is the key; this is the loving and even conjugal language of devekut, not simple obedience. But obedience is implied as the sustaining force and natural result of such attentive love.
A hesychast at prayer. (Source)
It seems appropriate to me that Mother Mectilde, a Benedictine, should advocate for this kind of "cleaving" prayer, vigilant love in every moment. It has always been the task of the monastic throughout history to preserve this kind of remembrance of God that is itself a form of His presence in the heart. Precisely this "cleaving" constitutes the positive good underlying hesychasm in the East, but it can also be found in many monastic writers of both East and West. Mother Mectilde is not speaking alone. Indeed, she expresses the perennial Wisdom that has always infused the monastic life and made it fruitful.
Read the whole thing over at Vultus Christi.
A Century on the Precious Blood
July 29, 2018 August 9, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ 8 Comments
The Golden Tree and Achievement of the Holy Grail, Edwin Austin Abbey, c. 1895. (Source)
1. When the Holy Ghost hovered over the waters, the uncreated light that shone from His face turned the waters red after the likeness of the Most Precious Blood.
2. The Most High made all things with breath and water and fire. He made all things for His love, that is to say, under the Blood. At the beginning were breath and water and fire under Blood. At the end will be breath and water and fire joined to Blood.
3. The four rivers, when traced back to their source, become one in the Garden, and the source of that one river is the well in Christ's side.
4. The juice in the fruit of the Tree of Life is the Precious Blood.
5. When Cain murdered Abel, the Lord reproached him with the words, "Thy brother's bloods cry out to me from the dust," thereby speaking for the blood of all the generations of Abel destined never to bear fruit. Likewise, when Isaac was led to sacrifice, it was the first thirst of the Precious Blood of Christ contained therein. Its presence by anticipation in Isaac's blood both set him apart as a sacrifice and saved him from death.
6. The flood that cleansed the world of sin was the earthly mirror of the heavenly flood of Divine Blood.
7. Yet even a flood that covered the whole face of the earth is as nothing before the torrents of Blood stored up in the Heart of the Most High.
8. When God set His bow in the clouds, every color spoke of some hidden secret. Red, the color of Blood, spoke silently of the mysterium tremendum.
9. The sacrifice of Isaac was a consecration of his blood into an eternal likeness of the Lamb's Precious Blood.
10. When Moses prayed, and the Nile turned to blood, that blood was but an imitation of the Heavenly Blood that would deal death to the wicked powers.
11. When the Jews covered their doors in the blood of the Passover, that blood was but a foretaste of the Heavenly Blood that would deliver the whole world from death and bondage.
12. The sea that bowed before the people of Israel but covered their persecutors worked after the pattern of the Precious Blood.
13. The Martyr is like unto the rock that sent forth pure water at Massah and Meribah. The life-giving stream let loose from the stricken flesh of the Martyr is the very Blood of Christ.
14. The name of God, Jehovah-Jireh, refers to the Blood of Christ unfurled upon the Cross Triumphant.
15. The true and eternal Israel is constituted by the anointing of the Most Precious Blood.
16. The Precious Blood covers all who seek it with a dazzling darkness.
17. When the face of Moses shone, it was because his blood had been made like the Lamb's. Truly, he had washed well in the torrent of the Word.
18. The cord of Rahab the Prostitute took its crimson hue from the Precious Blood.
19. The blood-stained cord of Rahab brought salvation to her household and joined her to the Nation of Israel. So it is with all who trust in the Precious Blood.
20. The blood-stained cord of Rahab is the earthly likeness of that heavenly cord that ties together the World.
21. The Precious Blood built the Temple.
22. The Precious Blood hallowed the Temple.
23. The Temple and the Precious Blood are, in their innermost being, one and the same.
24. The Blood belongs to the Altar, as the Altar belongs to the Blood.
25. The Precious Blood speaks from the Altar.
26. The Precious Blood is never apart from the Altar. Wherever it flows, it is an offering to the Most High.
27. The Altar of the Blood is the World's foundation. None can hope to build anything that lasts if he would forsake this cornerstone.
28. Before the third and celestial Temple was built, the Lord was content to dwell in darkness. This was the time when the Precious Blood grew and resided in the Ark.
29. The Precious Blood is a sea in which Leviathan drowns.
30. The Lord leadeth me by the still waters, lays out a table before me, anoints me with oil, and maketh my cup to run over. All of these, like the four rivers of the Garden, go up into one great deed; for the Lord has given me His Blood.
31. The Lord hath founded the Earth upon the floods, and Zion upon His Blood.
32. As the hart panteth for the water of the brooks, so must our hearts pant for the Blood of the Lamb.
33. Though our tears be our meat in this day of mourning, soon we shall have the Blood of the Lamb and His heart for an imperishable repast.
34. The Lord is my Rock because His Blood rests on the Altar.
35. The Most Precious Blood is the help of my countenance.
36. The flood and waters that speak in the Heavens are drawn from the Precious Blood.
37. When God blots out our transgressions, He uses the Most Precious Blood.
38. Idols are bloodless gods.
39. The gift of the Bride is water. The gift of the Bridegroom is Blood.
40. The Precious Blood delights, nourishes, bears, imparts, and sanctifies all Wisdom.
41. The Precious Blood is the storm out of Heaven.
42. The Precious Blood may be consumed in two ways: on a scroll, or in the cup.
43. When the Prophet came to a valley of bones, he saw that they were dry. He said this because they had lost their blood.
44. The dry bones rose again when they were watered with the Precious Blood of the Lamb, that is, when the Prophet let loose the supernal fountains of the Word.
45. Blood flows from the Temple and sweetens the Sea. The Kingdom is re-drawn from the boundaries of Blood.
46. The Kingdom and the Temple are one in its Priest-King, that is to say, they join in the Precious Blood.
47. All the fruits in the Land of Zion are watered by the Blood of the Lamb.
48. Where there is no blood, there is the Desert.
49. Some are led out to the Desert for battle. If they fight with the luminous arms of the Precious Blood, they will triumph.
50. The Desert will bloom in Blood then, and the warriors will discover surpassing delights beyond all imagining.
51. Any seed that the Precious Blood waters will bloom into a great and mighty tree, and the birds of the air will come to nest in its branches.
52. The Pearl of Great Price is hidden in the Sea of the Precious Blood.
53. Oh wonder of wonders! The Mercy of God took up matter, and manifested itself to the senses of mortal men. For it clothed itself in the red raiment of the Precious Blood.
54. The Word is written in the Precious Blood.
55. Every letter in the Word is a bottomless well and roaring flood of the Precious Blood.
56. The torrents of the Blood sing only one word, the Name.
57. The Angels take their song from the voice of the rivers, from the pulse of the High Priest's heart, from the roars of the waterfalls of His Blood.
58. The Forerunner rejoiced and cried aloud, "Behold the Lamb of God!" He did so because he saw the one who would fill the rivers of repentance with His Blood.
59. The Precious Blood is deathless life and Fleshless food.
60. The Precious Blood, let loose by wounds and sins, can heal every wound and sin.
61. We who are born of blood must be born of a new and supernal Blood, hidden from the beginning of the world.
62. We are called sheep because we have been covered in the Blood of the Lamb.
63. Providence writes the history of the Last and Everlasting Day in the ink of the Most Precious Blood.
64. Most lamps are fed with oil. The seven lampstands of the Temple are fed with oil and the Precious Blood.
65. The seven lampstands of Mount Zion take their oil from the Mount of Olives and their Blood from the hill of Golgotha.
66. The Precious Blood is the triumph, shield, and banner of the angels.
67. The firstfruits of the Lamb delight only in His Blood.
68. The Book of Life is alive indeed, for within it courses the imperishable Blood of the Lamb.
69. No name written in the Blood of the Lamb can ever die.
70. The Precious Blood bears supernal illumination.
71. The Precious Blood is at once the river and the bridge.
72. The Precious Blood is abroad in the world, riding the Green Lion.
73. The eternal marriage is consummated at the feast where the Precious Blood fills the chalice.
74. The robes of the Arch-Prophet, High Priest, and Emperor are red, for they have been dyed in the Precious Blood.
75. To live is to exist through the Blood and in the Blood and with the Blood – and for the Blood.
76. The Christian is the one who has the Precious Blood of Jesus coursing through his veins.
77. The demons tremble and quake before the Precious Blood, for it is their utter ruin.
78. If anyone should wish to confound the demons, let him call upon the Blood of the Lamb in confidence and hope.
79. There is absolute safety in the Precious Blood of Christ.
80. There can be no peace without the Precious Blood.
81. There are seven steps to the Temple: red, black, white, red, white, black, and red. The red steps take their hue from the Precious Blood.
82. No one may stand on the seventh, scarlet step but the Lamb, the Great High Priest, the Master of the Holy of Holies.
83. No one could begin the ascent if the Lamb had not cast His Blood upon the lowest step.
84. Most souls can only aspire to the middle, red step. But this step possesses nobility beyond all telling.
85. Very few souls are called to the white step above the red. Indeed, no one can mount to the second white stair without one foot ever on the middle red one. But blessed are they who may ascend to that stair!
86. On the last and deathless day, we shall all be carried up to the white step. But our feet shall be red with the Blood of the Lamb, the dye of the middle step.
87. Sober inebriation, the delight of the saints, comes from drinking of the Precious Blood without cease.
88. The wicked drink the Precious Blood as bats, cursed creatures of night. The penitent drink the Precious Blood as hummingbirds, remaining in bliss before the fragrance of Christ's wounds.
89. The blood of the martyrs is one with the Blood of the Lamb.
90. The whole of heaven and earth is watered by the Precious Blood. If that flow should fail at any second, an untold ruin would fill all things.
91. The Precious Blood hides under three veils: the black, the white, and the red.
92. The black veil is the water of cleansing.
93. The white veil is the oil of illumination.
94. The red veil is the wine of union.
95. The most perfect of these veils is the red, for it perfectly manifests the ineffable truth it conceals.
96. The black and white veils lie outside the red – but once they are removed, they can never be put back on.
97. Those who see the red veil now may hope to see it removed when the Book is opened and all have their names restored to them in the Precious Blood.
98. The Precious Blood is the red candle enkindled by the Uncreated Fire.
99. The Lamb bleeds on seven seals within the seven bloodstained pillars, and these become the seven supernal fountains.
100. When the Precious Blood is poured out, it becomes still as wine held in a chalice. The Dove broods over it, and with the Light of the Dove on the surface, the Bride can find her true face as in a mirror of crystal.
A Carmelite Daughter of St. Philip: The Venerable Serafina di Dio, O.C.D.
July 22, 2018 July 23, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ 1 Comment
One of my favorite essays to write on this blog so far has been my study of the way that St. Philip Neri embodied certain Benedictine qualities. In that piece, I argue that sometimes we can gain a deeper understanding of a saint by looking at their likenesses with saints of a different religious family or by the influence of other saints in their lives. As an extension of that essay, I'd like to introduce my readers to a Venerable whom they have probably never heard of, one who followed St. Philip in a very Benedictine spirit: the Venerable Serafina di Dio, O.C.D.
Ven. Serafina di Dio (1621-1699), Neapolitan Carmelite mystic. (Source)
The Life of a Mystic
Prudenza Pisa was born in the Kingdom of Naples in 1621. She clashed with her father at a young age when she refused to marry the young man he had chosen as her husband. She also cut her hair and donned pentiental garb. These actions did not go over well, and she soon found herself expelled from the household. Prudenza resided during this rather fraught period in what was essentially the family chicken coop. Yet she grew closer to her mother, who brought her meals secretly. Prudenza saw these sufferings as an opportunity for growth in trust of God. She also set herself to the good works of visiting the sick. In the Neapolitan Plagues of 1656, she continued her ministry even as the illness claimed her beloved mother. Her behavior at this terrible juncture was edifying:
Seraphina prepared her mother for death and actually closed her eyes when she died on August 5th 1656. Christian burial was not allowed during the plague. With her own hands, she dug a shallow grave in the backyard and personally buried her mother.
Yet her active life was soon to draw to a close. One of her uncles, a prominent priest, died of the same plague. He had been planning to found a convent of enclosed nuns on Capri. She carried on this noble work after his departure. She gathered together various companions from Naples and, on 29th of May, 1661, took the habit of the Discalced Carmelites at Naples Cathedral. It was then that she took the name of Serafina of God. Later that year, the community moved to Capri. Their residence soon proved inadequate, and they constructed a much larger monastery dedicated to the Most Holy Savior. Mother Serafina's leadership bore fruit in another six Carmelite convents in the Kingdom of Naples, a remarkable flourishing clearly drawing its power from the Holy Ghost.
The (very Dominican) arms of Pope Benedict XIII, friend of Ven. Serafina di Dio (Source)
Ven. Serafina was not without trials. Although she wrote an attack on Quietism, she was herself accused of this noxious heresy. For six years, the Inquisition conducted an investigation into her writings and activities. For two, she was confined to her cell without the benefit of Holy Communion. But at last, her name was cleared, in no small part because of the intervention of her friend, Archbishop Vincenzo Maria Orsini, the future Pope Benedict XIII.
There can be little doubt that these troubles arose from within her own religious family. Although Mother Serafina was entirely blameless in conduct, her manner of spiritual leadership won her many enemies among her more lax daughters. Perhaps some of the trouble could have been anticipated from the fact that her recruits were customarily drawn from the ranks of the Neapolitan aristocracy, not a class generally known for its ascetic rigor. The Carmelites treated their foundress poorly. For example, while Serafina was ill in her confinement, she begged to see some of the sisters. They did not come. Yet the patience with which she bore these final trials remains exemplary. As one biographer notes, "Two days before she died she asked the Prioress to look after the sisters who had been so contrary to her, making excuses for their behavior." This mercy converted the hard of heart, for, as the same writer says, "After her death on March 17, 1699, some of the sisters who were most against her became some of the most enthustiastic promoters of her Cause."
Spiritual Daughter of St. Philip Neri
An heir of the Tridentine reform, the Ven. Serafina was a great admirer of St. Teresa of Avila, whom she endeavored to emulate in all things. She was a prolific writer, composing at least 2,173 letters and enough theological writing to fill 22 books. Some of her topics included:
Ven. Serafina writing (Source).
-the prayer of faith
-mental prayer
-the love of God and the practice of the divine presence
-the common life
-conformity to the will of God.
Alas, I don't believe any of these have been translated into English. Perhaps some intrepid early modernist will someday render these works into the Anglo-Saxon tongue.
Serafina was also a visionary mystic. She went about life with a constant ability to fall into meditation. In Serafina's own words:
"…Anything I looked at I was able to turn into a meditation… When I saw it raining, I thought of the refreshment which the rain brought to the earth and that without it the earth would be arid. I would say: 'If the water of divine grace did not fall on the soul, it would dry up without providing the fruits of good works.' … The sight of fish swimming in the sea made me remember how the saints are immersed in God… And in such wise everything, even the slightest things, served me for my spiritual nourishment."
The greatest misfortunes could not turn her from the praise of God. For in all things, she perceived the benevolent Providence of God. Her unfailing rule was that "All that God did and allowed was beautiful, good, ordered for our good." Even the terrible things in life thus became for Serafina an occasion of magnification and blessing.
Serafina was also a visionary mystic. At one point, "She was so overwhelmed with her vision of the Godhead that she wondered what else could be reserved for her in heaven." The experiences she was granted were extraordinary, though she took pains to keep them discreet. Yet we do have letters attesting to some of her ecstasies.
One figure who emerges as particularly important in her religious life is St. Philip Neri. The Oratorian Fr. Francesco Antonio Agnelli tells us that she honored St. Philip by, for instance, devoutly kissing the feet of the crucifix thirty-three times in his honor; she was repaid for this act of love with a vision of the glorified St. Philip prostrate and kissing the feet of Jesus thirty-three times in her name (Agnelli 194).
Serafina's spiritual father was Fr. Vincenzo Avinatri of the Naples Oratory. She wrote him letters describing the visions she had of St. Philip. In one such letter, she reports that
"I saw the Saint, with the great Mother of God, in a flame of fire, and surrounded with light…with a sweet countenance, he told me many beautiful things…He showed me what his sons ought to be, and the dignity of the Congregation, made, so to speak, in the likeness of God and of the three Divine Persons, and especially of the Person of the Holy Spirit…Without speaking, he had explained to me the perfection we must have in order to be sons of light. It would be a monstrous thing if fire generated snow, if light brought forth darkness, if crystal produced mud…How much greater wonder would it be, if in any of the sons of St. Philip, who are called sons of the Holy Spirit, there should be any defect!" (qtd. in Agnelli 195-96)
In another vision that came to her on the vigil of St. Philip's day, she was carried way into a heavenly rapture and saw the Saint aflame with a supernal light. And in view of St. Philip, she saw her own heart on fire, as well. But it did not glow as brightly as his; therefore, she prayed to the Saint that she might receive a more perfect and ample share of Divine Love. As Agnelli describes it,
Then the Saint united his heart with hers, and thus united they sent forth a great flame; she felt so much love that she could not express it, and the Saint invited her to rejoice in the presence of the Lord, and to sing His praises, desiring her to repeat with him these words, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis [Holy, holy, holy, great is the Lord and worthy of all praise], adding that it is impossible to find in the most devout Canticles words more pleasing to God. (Agnelli 194-95).
She was thus adopted by the saint as a kind of daughter in the Spirit. She also looked upon Oratorians as her own sons. This spiritual affinity was later attested by a physical resemblance with St. Philip. When an autopsy was conducted on Mother Serafina's body, the examiners found signs of transverberation in her heart.
It may seem odd for a visionary to become so friendly with St. Philip and his sons. After all, St. Philip himself was notorious for his skepticism when it came to visions. He had treated the Ven. Ursula Benincasa with unrelenting verbal abuse to test her inspiration – a test she passed, even if the holy man never quite came around to endorsing her. St. Philip taught that, "As for those who run after visions, dreams, and the like, we must lay hold of them by the feet and pull them to the ground by force, lest they should fall into the devil's net." Though a man of tremendous supernatural gifts himself, he knew that the spiritual world was a minefield of dangers. False visionaries abounded in his day, and his prudent words have retained their perennial wisdom down into our own era.
To properly understand the nature of Ven. Serafina's visionary mysticism, and why we can properly say it breathes of a Philippine spirit, we must look at it in the context of her leadership of a Carmelite monastery.
A Liturgical Mysticism
The troubles in Serafina's life began because of her governance. As one biographer has it,
As often happens, Sr. Seraphina's strongest talents and graces became her heaviest crosses. In her foundations she shared her convictions about religious life with her sisters. She firmly believed that the best guarantee of authenticity of one's religious experience was a dogged faithfulness to the traditional forms. She was immersed in the church's liturgy, the celebration of the Eucharist, the Divine Office, the liturgical year, and the feasts of the Saints. She was often led to intimate communion with Christ Jesus at the liturgy beginning with the midnight office. She also stressed the need for silence and solitude as requisites for prayer. [emphasis mine – RTY]
Her tenacious devotion to the traditional forms of worship and to the great prayer of the Church, the Liturgy and Divine Office, shows that the Ven. Serafina was in every way a monastic. Indeed, these salutary measures evince a Benedictine sensibility.
An 18th century portrait of the Ven. Serafina di Dio. Note the prominent place of the Blessed Sacrament in this composition. (Source)
Her ecstasies were not a superfluous and shallow add-on to this liturgical life. She built the house of her prayer upon the rock of tradition, and it was illumined with the uncreated light of the Holy Ghost.
Serafina's mystical life was tied to her experience of the liturgical calendar. For instance, any of her most profound encounters with St. Philip took place on the vigil and day of his feast (Agnelli 194-95). A cynic would see in this timebound quality a mark of the merely human dimension of religion, a fine example of confirmation bias. But those who have learned of divine things will discover a deeper reality. In Serafina they will see a soul that has grown attuned to the Wisdom of God, made manifest in time through the Incarnation of Christ and the Liturgy of the Church.
High Altar of the Chiesa Santissimo Salvatore, Capri. Although it has not been a Carmelite monastery since Napoleonic times, this is the altar where the Ven. Serafina would have received communion. (Source)
These are quintessentially sound foundations for the spiritual life. Her strictly liturgical and monastic way engendered serious opposition among her daughters, but it also gave her the strength to bear that opposition with true Christian patience. One can only imagine the terrible suffering that two years without the Blessed Sacrament must have inflicted on such a soul. Yet, by grounding herself in the Liturgy, she was able to nourish that innate trust in Providence already evident in her earliest days. Surely, that sustained her in the darkest days of her old age.
The Long Road to Sainthood
It seems somehow appropriate that, as an adopted daughter of St. Philip, the Ven. Serafina should not yet have been canonized. Many of his spiritual children have had a similar fate. Witness the stalled cases of Ven. Cardinal Cesare Baronius, Bl. Juvenal Ancina, Bl. Anthony Grassi, and Bl. Sebastian Valfre, just to name a few of the many early modern Oratorians who have not yet reached the highest altars of the Church.
Still, we can pray that this Carmelite mystic will one day be recognized as the saint she was. Let us beg her intercession and emulate her profound devotion to the Liturgy of the Church.
UPDATE: A Carmelite friend pointed out to me that Ven. Serafina was in fact not subject to the jurisdiction of either Carmelite order, essentially running independent Carmelite conservatories of oblates in the Discalced habit, following an adaptation of St. Teresa's constitutions. She was a sort of Carmelite version of St. Francesca Romana. More info can be found in the works of Smet. As such, any use of the Carmelite letters after her name may be inappropriate, but given a) the unusual nature of the case, and b) the difficulty of changing my title and thus invalidating links, I have decided to keep my text as is and merely add this disclaimer.
May the Ven. Serafina di Dio pray for us! (Source)
Flannery O'Connor and the Protestant Ex Voto Tradition
July 9, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ 3 Comments
Recently I came across a very strange song from an equally bizarre album. The song was "I'm Not Handicapped, Just Inconvenienced," by Gary Dee Bradford. It was on his 1979 album of the same title. The piece is a chilling mix of bad ventriloquism, preachy Carter-era Evangelicalism, and awkwardly poor singing. Which means, of course, that I loved it.
I'm curious what's on the full album. (Source)
I soon found out that Bradford, who suffers from a rare physical disability called phocomelia (he lacks arms and has hands at his shoulders), produced a few other albums. Although he produced his most recent work in 2002, most of his output came in the 1970's and 80's. In one of the only other songs by Bradford I can find online, 1977's "Good Ole Gospel Music," we can hear the prepubescent Bradford sing in a high and eerie voice about the superiority of his chosen genre:
It is the sweetest love song
Ever heard by mortal man.
If we had more Gospel Music
We'd have a better land…a better land!
Gotta love that 70's montage work. (Source)
It's catchy, I have to admit. Even if it's not exactly Mozart.
It would be easy to make fun of the sheer cheesiness of Bradford's records and write them off as one more episode in the history of odd music. But in fact, Bradford's albums deserve more respect than that. They tell us something about the history and spirituality of mid-20th century American Christianity. Bradford wasn't working in a vacuum.
American Gospel music, particularly that brand of Gospel that flourished in the predominately white churches of the mid-century South, has roots in the musical traditions of Appalachia. One of the most common and longstanding song forms found there is the ballad. Appalachian ballads often tell stories of woe and redemption, sadness and hope. When given a religious inflection, they become the musical versions of faith-sharing, testifying to the work of God in redeeming poor sinners. They are also the Protestant equivalents of the Catholic world's longstanding folk ex voto tradition.
An example of a Mexican ex voto, 1853. (Source)
The ex voto is a little painted image offered by a devotee in thanksgiving to Christ, the Virgin, or a saint for a perceived blessing. Usually, the scene of the miracle is depicted in fairly simple (or what the art critics would call "naive") terms, with a short, handwritten narrative describing the incident below. They are emphatically not "fine art." Ex votos are the result of folk piety, and they depict the most fundamental relationship of the worshiper and the supernatural, the body and the invisible world, faith and crisis.
There's also a uniquely New-World flavor to the ex voto form. While examples abound from most historically Catholic cultures, the most exemplary tradition of ex votos can be found in Mexico. Indeed, the ex voto has become one of the country's national art forms, often stylized and reinterpreted by contemporary artists. Frida Kahlo even collected them.
An ex-voto of a woman stabbed in bed, owned by Frida Kahlo and believed to have inspired her own painting, "A Few Small Nips." (Source)
We can see the same kinds of spiritual impulses behind a whole wave of calamity-themed songs in mid-to-late-20th century Gospel. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that, in a Protestant context, the ex voto takes an audible rather than visual form. Take, for example, Jerry D. Brown's A Crippled Boy's Prayer and The Fuller Family's slightly earlier but almost identical A Little Crippled Girl's Prayer.
Not a great song, but it makes sense as a sort of ex voto. (Source)
Sometimes, the album as a physical object mirrors the makeup of an ex voto. The back of the albums often carry long messages of praise and thanksgiving in spite of the various afflictions the artists suffer from. For example, on the back of A Little Crippled Girl's Prayer, we read the words of wheelchair-bound Marsha Fuller:
It's so great to be a Christian and serving such a great God. He has given so much to me, for most children with my disease lead a quiet life and never have the opportunities that I have had. At the age of three He gave me a voice to sing with. And three years later God inspired me to write two songs. Since then, I have written four other songs and made two recordings. He has also blessed me in other ways. He gave me a wonderful Mom and Dad whom have loved and cared for me so much. He gave me a wonderful brother, Gene. You don't find too many twenty-year-old men who loves to sing for the Lord the ways he does. As a family we have had rough times together. Sometimes we didn't know where the next meal was going to come from because of hospital bills, but, God has always pulled us through. Our house might not be the biggest and our clothes might not be the finest, but as long as we stay true to Jesus someday we'll have a mansion that outshines the sun. We truly hope that you will be blessed by our message in song to you. Yours in Christ, Marsha Fuller
There was a veritable cottage industry of Christian albums by blind, amputee, or otherwise disabled artists that flourished in the middle of the twentieth century. To give a few examples:
Denise's Closer to the Savior, probably from the 1960's or 1970's. (Source)
Another blind album, It's Me Again, Lord by Judy & Barbara, the Blind Slye Twins (Source)
Benny Dean's I'd Rather Be Blind (In My Eyes Than In My Soul). A bit on the nose. (Source)
Here's Something Special from Jeff Steinberg. Note the hook. (Source)
"Truly a Miracle of God!" (Source)
Richard & Gail Miller Sing the Gospel of Love. (Source)
Sandra Kay Hyler in "Through Prayer I Found An Answer." (Source)
Another offering from "Little Richard Miller," this time with cover art that closely if unintentionally replicates the ex voto model. The full album is online for your listening pleasure. (Source)
These musical works differ from the mainstream of Protestant aural culture in that, even when the songs themselves are classic hymns or are just covers of more obscure songs by disabled artists, they take on a new, personal, and highly-charged meaning in the context of public disability. The artists are not just performing music, they are performing both disability and Christianity – indeed, they perform their disability precisely as the core of their Christianity, and their Christianity as intimately bound up with their disability. The singer born without arms or the blind crooner or the organist missing her hands can all achieve a new status as an icon of model Christian disability. Their performance points towards the hope of a transfiguration that surpasses disability in the kingdom of heaven. Moreover, their physical or mental incapacity is often an implicit analogy for the spiritual deformation, blindness, or weakness found in the more conventional Gospel ballad. The healing of both comes from Jesus.
Mary Douglas, among other anthropologists, has noted that the body physical is often used as an analogy of the body politic. The symbolic representation of the individual corpus speaks to the social body at large – culturally-coded anxieties about the limits of the physical body frequently point to an underlying anxiety about threats to the community. Should it surprise us that the most visible flowering of this disability-obsessed genre came at a time when the culture wars were starting to animate the full force of Southern and Midwestern Protestantism into a politically active bloc with an agenda for cultural change? Surely that socio-political context stands behinds Gary Bradford's "better land." The Evangelical doom song, with perhaps its best representatives in the Louvin Brothers, rose to prominence at much the same time.
The fundamentalist folk spirituality that these songs present are a major cultural context in the wonderfully disturbing, deeply Catholic work of Flannery O'Connor. In her short story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," she injects it into her description of a Southern freak show. A hermaphrodite addresses two crowds – one made up of men, another of women – before displaying its unusual genitalia. The freak says,
"I'm going to show you this and if you laugh, God may strike you the same way." The freak had a country voice, slow and nasal and neither high nor low, just flat. "God made me thisaway and if you laugh He may strike you the same way. This is the way He wanted me to be and I ain't disputing His way. I'm showing you because I got to make the best of it. I expect you to act like ladies and gentlemen. I never done it to myself nor had a thing to do with it but I'm making the best of it. I don't dispute hit." Then there was a long silence on the other side of the tent and finally the freak left the men and came over onto the women's side and said the same thing. (The Collected Stories of Flannery O'Connor 245).
Later, the hermaphrodite leads a kind of religious service centered on its own experience of God's Providence.
She could hear the freak saying, "God made me thisaway and I don't dispute hit," and the people saying, "Amen. Amen."
"God done this to me and I praise Him."
"He could strike you thisaway."
"But he has not."
"Raise yourself up. A temple of the Holy Ghost. You! You are God's temple, don't you know? Don't you know? God's Spirit has a dwelling in you, don't you know?"
"If anybody desecrates the temple of God, God will bring him to ruin and if you laugh, He may strike you thisaway. A temple of God is a holy thing. Amen. Amen."
"I am a temple of the Holy Ghost."
The people began to slap their hands without making a loud noise and with a regular beat between the Amens, more and more softly, as if they knew there was a child near, half asleep. (Ibid., 246)
O'Connor, who suffered from lupus herself, draws a parallel between the freak's preaching and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. In the two episodes, we can perceive both the sovereignty of God's Providence and the sacramental capacity of matter to bear God.
A holy card depicting a monstrance, used in Benediction. (Source)
It strikes me as intuitively sensible that O'Connor should have chosen precisely this story to contrast Protestant and Catholic music. Early on in the story, two young Church of God men try to woo a pair of Catholic sisters by singing a Gospel hymn, complete with guitar and harmonica. The girls, who have been educated at convent school, bite back their giggles and respond with the Tantum Ergo. One of their suitors is more right than he knows when, puzzled and slightly disapproving, he calls it "Jew singing." The two forms of music, though standing in an apparent contradiction, together anticipate the underlying sacramental truth presented by both the Protestant and Catholic services that conclude the story.
O'Connor makes much of Protestant devotional culture in one of her novels, The Violent Bear It Away (1955). It is the story of a boy called to prophesy, of his skeptical schoolteacher cousin, and of the battle they wage for the soul of a mentally disabled child. At one point, we come to the performance of a family of traveling musical missionaries. The high point of the act comes when their little daughter emerges from behind the curtain to preach a rousing sermon. In the course of her preaching, she delivers what may be the book's central message:
"I've seen the Lord in a tree of fire! The Word of God is a burning Word to burn you clean!…Burns the whole world, man and child…none can escape…Are you deaf to the Lord's Word? The Word of God is a burning Word to burn you clean, burns man and child, man and child the same, you people! Be saved in the Lord's fire or perish in your own! Be saved in…" (The Violent Bear It Away 134-35).
O'Connor is fond of granting the most clear-eyed spiritual vision to the children in her stories. Many have profound experiences of grace that mark them forever, or they bear testimony of the invisible world's dangerous immediacy to more skeptical characters.
This album makes me think of O'Connor's 1955 The Violent Bear It Away. (Source)
That includes O'Connor's disabled children. "The Lame Shall Enter First," one of O'Connor's most emotionally crushing short stories, is a close companion to The Violent Bear It Away. It tells the story of a well-meaning social worker, Sheppard, who takes in a clubfooted juvenile delinquent, Rufus Johnson, hoping to steer him towards a productive life. Although he can overlook Rufus's constant spite, Sheppard is exasperated by the fundamentalist beliefs he clings to. Rufus is convinced he is going to hell, and starts to talk about it with the social worker and his impressionable young son. He steadily grows into the role of preacher even as Sheppard tries desperately to "flush that out of [his] head." I won't get into any spoilers, as the story has a wrenching, unforeseen climax. I'll just say that Sheppard finally realizes he has failed only when Rufus cries at him,
"I lie and I steal because I'm good at it! My foot don't have a thing to do with it! The lame shall enter first! The halt'll be gathered together. when I get ready to be saved, Jesus'll save me, not that lying, stinking atheist, not that…" (The Collected Stories of Flannery O'Connor 480).
Sheppard attributes all of Rufus's bad behavior to the emotional effect of his clubfoot. But Rufus finds his one hope of salvation in the fact that he has a disability that, according to the logic of heaven, will ensure that he enters the Kingdom first. For Rufus, as for so many of the artists mentioned above, it represents both faith and hope (if not yet charity). Sheppard is too blinded by his prejudice and his loneliness to see that. The results are calamitous.
Rufus's underlying insight speaks to a truth often forgotten in the Church's treatment of the disabled. Those with disabilities are not "problems." It's true that they may have some special needs with regards to access, attention, etc. But at the end of the day, they are people who have the same basic spiritual needs as any other human beings. They, too, can embody and image Christ – often better than those of us who are blessed enough to be of both sound mind and body.
Gary Bradford himself has spoken publicly about this issue before. Some time in the late 1980's or early 1990's, Bradford – by then an adult – gave an interview with a Christian television network. He says,
In the past…so many of our churches, and so many of our people in our church in the past, it's been the place for the good, the well-bodied, and the abled…And the Church isn't to be like that; the Church is to take all.
Of course, the other great danger is to place too much emphasis on the disability and not enough on the person who has it. The "magical disabled person" should not become a trope in Christian life. We can't load our disabled brethren in Christ with that moral freight. It isn't fair. The disability Gospel genre fosters precisely that kind of harmful thinking; perhaps that is its greatest cultural fault.
I think we can avoid either extreme – neglect or overemphasis – by focusing instead on the individuality and personhood of every disabled Christian. Insofar as the disability Gospel song is an ex voto, it may seem to correspond to a certain type. Catholic ex votos usually do. But that's only to the outsider who beholds the ex voto. For the one who makes it (or commissions it), the story it tells carries intense and highly particular personal meaning. Put another way; Sheppard may not grasp the hidden meaning of Rufus's club foot, but Rufus does.
The same goes for the Protestant ex votos we find in this genre. They may seem to correspond to the demands of a cottage industry, but they all epitomize and present individual experiences. That particularity is the best thing we can take from this strange, lost genre of Christian music. There are no generic souls, abled or otherwise.
Novena to St. Benedict
July 3, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ Leave a comment
A print from The Holy Twins by Tomie dePaola, depicting SS Benedict and Scholastica. (Source)
I hope my readers will join me on a novena to the Patriarch of Western Monks, starting today (July 3rd) and ending on the Feast of St. Benedict, the 11th of July. Here is the prayer I will use, taken from EWTN's website:
Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God. To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things. May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom. Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you. I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.
{mention your petition}
Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Unfashionable Thoughts on the Proliferation of Bibles
June 30, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ 3 Comments
A depiction of Pentecost (and thus Our Lady of the Cenacle) in an illuminated A from a Lombard antiphonal, 1430's. Attributed to Stefano da Verona and now in the possession of the Getty Museum. Not a Bible, though. (Source)
Erasmus, that mercurial fellow of the Renaissance who did so much damage with such good intentions, hoped that the humanist scholarship then revolutionizing Biblical studies would produce a popular spiritual awakening. He foresaw a time when, the Bible having been translated into vernacular languages, "the farmer would sing parts of the scripture at the plow, the weaver hum them to the movement of his shuttle, the traveller lighten the weariness of his journey with like stories." What he got was the Reformation.
Those of us Catholics who have the benefit of historical hindsight can perhaps treat Erasmus with a degree of charity. He did not foresee the storm that he was helping to prepare. At best, his image of the Word-infused society is one that we can and ought to strive for. But things have gone rather differently in what used to be Christendom. The plurality of conflicting Biblical interpretations, stemming both from theological divisions and from theologically-motivated translations from the standard scriptural texts of pre-modernity, has eroded the communion of the full body of Christians. Though by no means the only factor in secularization, this loss of even the pretense of unity significantly impaired the Church's evangelical witness.
But of course, certain divisions along theological lines always existed in pre-modernity as well. Heretics, mystics, and scholars often disagreed with the orthodox establishment over various exegetical points, and sometimes those divisions were backed by political force. So, what made the Reformation different? Perhaps it was the material condition that stands behind Erasmus's vision – the advent of the printing press. After all, the mass dissemination of information that the printing press spread and entrenched the Reformation (and the Catholic Reformation) as early as Luther's first moves in 1517.
But I wish to speak less of early modernity and more of our own era. And, standing firmly in our present moment, I must conclude that printing the Bible was a mistake. Or, to be precise, the mass production of Bibles was a mistake.
Walk into any sizeable book store – a Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million, perhaps. Wander the shelves and you will no doubt eventually come upon the Bible section, sometimes rows and rows of it. I recently did, as I have done many times before. On this recent occasion, I came upon more Bibles than I could count. There were dozens of different translations into English, often sold by competing Bible companies.
Leaving aside that variety, I was struck by the sheer overwhelming diversity of the Bibles as physical objects. I found Bibles in boxes, Bibles in plastic, Bibles in hardcover and paperback. There was an art-journalling Bible that seemed to combine the recent coloring fad with the word of God (curiously, there seemed to be no human faces in any of the images, rather reminding one of another religion's sacred art). There was a "Rainbow Bible," not a camp copy of the scriptures but a text pre-highlighted in various hues to illustrate thematic points. There's a C.S. Lewis Bible for those who like to take their Jesus in leonine form. There's a Lego-illustrated Brick Bible, and, let the reader carefully note, it's not the same thing as The Brick Bible for Kids. Erasmus would be pleased to see that there are occupational Bibles, such as Bibles oriented to students, doctors, nurses, firefighters, police, and soldiers. There's even an American Patriot's Bible.
This is a real thing. (Source)
But perhaps the greatest division beyond the inevitable Catholic/Protestant scriptural distinction is gender. Many of the Bibles (and Bible accessories such as carrying cases) are very clearly oriented to men or women. For instance, who is the intended buyer for a Bible in pink pleather binding with floral design on the cover? And who is targeted by a camo Bible carrier with the words "Armor of God" on it? One could cite similar examples ad nauseam. Again, go to your local bookstore. While you may be more likely to find a Bible section in the South or Midwest, I'd wager you could locate one in almost any part of the country. You'll see what I'm talking about.
Some of these phenomena are not limited to Protestant Bibles, though Catholic Bible companies clearly lack the inventiveness and marketing ingenuity displayed by purveyors of Protestant Bibles. They are guilty of another sin. Mostly, Catholic Bibles just look bad. Many of them are just dumpy paperback bricks that no one wants to read, let alone have around the house. When your Bible fails even on a coffee table, you know you're doing something wrong.
These trappings are all deeply insidious for several reasons.
First, they enlist the Word of God in the maintenance of fallible worldly systems such as the nation, the state, the military-industrial complex, and various forms of social authority, thus stripping the Word of its critical power.
Second, they subtly encourage an unhealthy personalization of spiritual life. We are not Christians alone with God, but part of one Body of Christ. Ultimately, we can't really own the Bible – not by ourselves. It can never be a private document, subsisting in a personalized meaning.
Third, in a perverse inversion of the last point, these trappings turn the Bible into a physical totem of a human subculture with its own recognized social-symbolic markers and status symbols. The Bible does not belong to the world of conspicuous consumption.
Fourth, the gendering of the Bible is a uniquely vicious practice, probably intended for what are innocently if cynically capitalist reasons. These Bibles sell, no doubt. But they also reinforce problematically rigid gender norms which speak to a wider cultural bifurcation of the Word of God into a Gospel for men and a Gospel for women. I have seen this phenomenon with my own eyes in both Evangelical and Catholic contexts. I have known people who have suffered because of it, some even falling away from the Faith entirely. Have we so easily forgotten the words of St. Paul that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus?" (Gal 3:28 KJV).
Fifth, these trappings commodify and trivialize the Word of God. The Bible is something to be sold. It becomes one item in the marketplace among many others. If you don't like it in black, you can have it in any color under the sun. You can get a version that says things the way you like. The capitalist system affords the Bible no special treatment as a text; it is a book to be sold like any other book. And how it sells!
The Decay of the Scriptural Aura
There are those who will here object that I am taking too material a view of the Bible. After all, they will say, isn't it better that the message of the Bible is dispersed far and wide, even if some of the editions are trivial or problematic? Why should it matter if some editions have silly themes or appear as commodities among other commodities? Isn't it worth it?
I take exception with this attitude for a few reasons. My first is purely sectarian, in that, as a Catholic, I object to the unaided reading of scripture and the erection of private judgment as any kind of rule in its interpretation. The Church is the preeminent exegete, and without her, we are liable to fall prey to our own sinful reasonings. Some Protestants will find this objection unconvincing; Catholics, at least, should find it uncontroversial.
But the issue cuts deeper than that. We should treat the Bible as a sacramental. It is not just any book. The visible scriptures convey grace by summoning the heart to an awareness of what is invisible. And this precisely because we, as human beings, are sacramental. We are body and soul, matter and spirit. Our religious lives are healthier when both are brought together under a common obedience to Christ in a biune ministration of grace. The sacraments are fitted to our nature. So are sacramentals; so are the scriptures. Turning the Bible into a personalized commodity cheapens its quality as one of the paradigmatic sacramentals.
We ought not lose sight of the fact that this deadening process of commodification, however far-rooted it may be in history, has taken off with alarming speed in our own time precisely because of the cultural features of postmodernity. We live in a sign-saturated age. Both words and images fill our view at almost every waking moment, whether they be painted, printed, written, or digital. And signs, like coins, lose their value with over-production. Is it any surprise then that narrativity has become strained as well? Can we be shocked that those explanatory schemes which once held together our culture and our own personal sense of meaning have long since melted into air? Nothing has survived the thoroughly American logic of consumerist capitalism; can anything withstand the acid-bath of "innovation?" These questions have been with us since the 1970's, when philosophers first began to take note of, as Lyotard called it, "the postmodern condition." They have yet to be fully resolved.
One other feature of postmodernity with direct bearing on our subject was first examined by Walter Benjamin in his 1936 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Benjamin notes that, in premodern conditions, art objects were imbued with an "aura," a sense of absolute singularity and unique presence that belonged to the artifact under the eye of the viewing subject. It was this quality that bound art to its original context in ritual. Indeed, some of you may notice that this idea is latent in Aquinas's idea of claritas, without which nothing can be beautiful. But in an age where art can be reproduced again and again, an image can proliferate, as can the experience of seeing the image, without any of the unique presence that comes from contact with the original. We have witnessed the "decay of the aura." And since, in Benjamin's words, "The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being embedded in the fabric of tradition," then the "tremendous shattering of tradition" in postmodernity has thoroughly dispensed with the aura.
Bibles used to have an aura. Before the advent of the printing press, Bibles were expensive, rare, hand-crafted codices, often illuminated with historiated capitals and copious illustrations that drew upon pigments as rare as lapis lazuli and gold itself. So were other prayer-books – and the Bible was indeed meant for prayer. For the monks who labored over their manuscripts in their scriptoria, the Bible was not just a status symbol for the noble or prelate who had ordered it. The Bible was a liturgical book; the monk knew the scriptures precisely because of his immersion in the liturgy of the Church, which at Mass and the eight offices of the Opus Dei presented the Bible to him as the very marrow of prayer. The Bible belongs to the liturgy, for both reveal Christ.
The Bible historiale, Clairefontaine and Paris, 1411. Now in the British Museum. (Source)
The Psalter, which is prayed in full by Benedictine monks each week, was yet another stand-alone portion of the scriptures that was often luxuriously illuminated as sacred art. The Books of Hours were also richly illuminated. These declensions of the Divine Office especially intended for laymen are yet another example of a scriptural prayer-book that was routinely infused with an "aura." Those of us who have been lucky enough to see illuminated manuscripts of any sort in person can attest that they've still got it.
The letter B from the Breslau Psalter, Psalm 1. (Source)
At a certain level, the question of the "aura" is a purely natural one. But the "aura" points to a supernatural reality, the underlying sacramental possibility of all creaturely matter. Because the Word has taken flesh in Christ, matter can take on divinity – it can become theophoric, bearing God, and theophanic, manifesting Him.
The aura inspires reverence. And it is meet and right that the very book where we find unfolded before us the Face and Name of God, the Bible, should make us turn towards heavenly things. The Jewish mystical tradition provides insights into the profound holiness of the Bible. We read, "We have learned that the Holy One, blessed be He, is called Torah…And there is no Torah but the Holy One," ("Zohar" 2:60a, Beshalach). Likewise, St. Augustine would find much to agree with in the words of the Jewish mystic who writes,
It is also true that the upper root of the holy Torah is in the highest level of the worlds that are called the worlds of the Infinite Godhead [Ein Sof]…That is why the Sages say that the Torah preceded the world, that is it preceded all worlds. For they even say that it preceded the Throne of Glory. ("Nefesh Hachaim" 4:10).
The truth at the heart of this mystery is that of the Logos, the Word who is God, manifesting himself in creation, in natural law, in revelation, and then definitively in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, the holiness of the Bible partakes of Christ's own divine holiness. Our starting point for any discussion of the scriptures as physical texts must be the sentiment that Louis Bouyer describes,
"No man can see God and live": this means that the vision of God would bring death to a human being. The idea contained in this saying is a basic idea of the whole of Jewish revelation which we have lost all too completely, for with it we have lost the sense of the sacred, that is, ultimately, the sense of God. If anyone has not understood…that not only for men, but for all other creatures too, God is the Sovereign, the Utterly Other, the Pure, the Inaccessible, then he does not know what God really is. (The Meaning of the Monastic Life 41).
Once the aura has decayed, what are we left with? We are like those benighted souls described by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch who "carved out of the ponderous old rock-hewn Tablets of the Law ornamental figures so tiny that people gladly found room for them on smart dressing tables, in drawing-rooms and ballrooms." Was there ever a more apt description of what we have done to the Word of God, materially and spiritually? For when we commodify the Bible, we commodify its message. When we objectify the Bible, we objectify its message. When we trivialize the Bible, we trivialize its message. Is there anything more dangerous in a world grown cold to the Gospel? The same can be said of the liturgy. Banality in the ars celebrandi vitiates the aura embedded in the ritual. We have a responsibility to maintain higher standards.
A Return to the Family Bible
Let me be very clear. My objection here is to both the mass proliferation and the sheer diversity of Bibles on the market. These two phenomena, even more than the underlying condition of their quality as printed material, have destroyed the aura of the Word of God. But I should note in all fairness that many Christians, at least in the English-speaking countries, used to maintain a strong sense of the Bible's auratic sacramentality. That time-honored institution of the Family Bible, often an enormous and ornamental tome passed down from generation to generation as an heirloom and a testament of enduring faith, once preserved a kind of aura. What undermined this institution and the kind of home liturgies that once sustained it? Was it the Gideons? Was it the travelling Bible salesmen satirized so acerbically by Flannery O'Connor in Good Country People? Or was it the broader cultural force of capitalist individualism exacerbating the collapse of narrativity and traditional community, rendering the search for salvation even more personal – and thus lonelier and more consumerist – then ever before?
A typical "Family Bible" of the nineteenth century. (Source)
I recognize that I am complicit in this problem. I own several Bibles, not all of which were gifts, and not all of which are very good. But I believe that most of us Christians are bound up with the cultural conditions which have produced so many and such shoddy copies of the scriptures. We can't start to imagine a better way until we re-assess our relationship with the sacred. While it's impossible to go back to the scriptoria of Cluny or Clairvaux, we can begin to appropriate their view of the Bible as a liturgically-grounded manifestation of the Divine Word. Perhaps we can start to produce more beautiful Bibles – even auratic ones. More depends on it than we might think. After all, the illumination of the page was always an anticipation of and metaphor for the illumination of the soul.
Elsewhere: The Prior of Silverstream on Secular Aesthetics
April 23, 2018 April 23, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ 1 Comment
"Balfron Tower, London," Erno Goldfinger, 1967. Sometimes, Brutalism has something of the quality of a stage set. It can work then. But most of the time, it is extremely depressing, and one rather wishes that most Brutalist structures were torn down. Imagine what a housing flat like the one picture here says about human life. What an insufferable, dehumanizing worldview is enshrined there! No wonder that our greatest dystopias are all cast in concrete. (Source)
One of the things I like about Vultus Christi is that it's very un-polemical. So much of the Tradisphere gets bogged down in kvetching about the Pope, or internecine carping, or weird and generally unhelpful screeds about the modern world. One does get rather exhausted of reading that, and most of the time, VC avoids it. But when Dom Mark does raise his voice, his criticism is always tempered with a profound wisdom and grace. Such is the case with yesterday's sermon at Silverstream, "Make His Praise Glorious."
The sermon is clearly addressed to the abortion referendum looming in Ireland's imminent future. But Dom Mark sees the bigger picture of what a "Yes" victory will mean for Irish culture. His argument is not a concatenation of the ordinary pro-life slogans about "a culture of life." Instead, he makes a broader and, paradoxically, a more incisive point. What is at stake is the place of God in society. The referendum is not ultimately about human life, but human salvation.
There is much to like in the sermon. Of course, I'm very glad to see Dom Mark quoting from Fr. Dalgairns of the London Oratory, one of Newman and Fr. Faber's early companions. Dalgairns is not much read today, though he was well respected in his own life for his spiritual writings and for his prolific pastoral work.
I was very taken with the aesthetic rhetoric Dom Mark employs. He illustrates the divergence between secular and sacred societies with an appeal to their built environment. Early on in the sermon, he explains the moral meaning of architecture.
New cities are always being constructed on the ruins of the old: these are skillfully planned in view of providing their citizens with every facility and technological advancement: schools, green spaces, clinics, libraries, museums, shopping districts, sports fields, industrial parks, and fitness centres. If, however, in these cities, there is no temple raised to the glory of God, no sanctuary, no altar, no tabernacle containing the irradiating Body of Christ, not only are such places not fit for man, created in the image and likeness of God, such places are dehumanising. In every place where the praise of God is silenced, where churches are closed, where the worship of God is forsaken, man becomes less than human.
It is anthropologically uncontroversial that the spaces we create have an effect on us. Our constructed surroundings in turn construct our souls. And when our ideas about the soul and its final end change, so will our buildings. If you seek an artistic exploration of this notion, I would recommend the two stunning documentary films Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and Baraka (1992). Or have a look at Pugin's Contrasts (1836).
Dom Mark writes of the Christian world:
The builders of cathedrals, churches, and monasteries in former ages of faith had in view only this: to make glorious the praise of God. They understood that by raising edifices for nought but divine worship, and by keeping Sundays and festivals holy unto God, they were, in effect, providing their children, and their children's children with space to be truly human.
The Christian community makes space (and, indeed, time) for the praise of God. By contrast, the post-Christian culture not only thinks differently, but looks and feels differently as well.
The secular nation descends inexorably into a harsh and dismal unloveliness. Beauty withers in every society that marginalises God and the things of God. Look at the cities constructed by the Godless totalitarian regimes of the last century: monuments of oppression haunted by hopelessness.
The difference between the two can be summed up in that one word: unloveliness. It is a quality that inheres in society as a network of relations between the self and others, between the self and the built environment, and between the whole sum of the people and their built environment. The word succinctly describes an entire process:
1. Spiritual malaise leads to doubt whether the created world can bear eternal meaning.
2. This doubt, often expressed positively as utilitarianism, leads to an unloving and even anti-aesthetic attitude towards the built environment.
3. Subsequently, aesthetic defect characterizes the built environment.
4. The original malaise is aggravated or ossifies.
5. The cycle repeats ad nauseam.
The processional nature of "unloveliness" derives from the threefold connotation of the word it negates, "loveliness." When we speak of something as "lovely," we are usually speaking of a moral, spiritual, or aesthetic quality. It is an assessment that lies somewhere between the Good and the Beautiful. The Unlovely is that which expresses, inspires, or provokes something somewhere between the Evil and the Ugly.
As Dom Mark makes clear, we have the duty to choose the Lovely and reject the Unlovely. "The choice of the secular city and its values will lead to barrenness, unloveliness, and emptiness. The choice of the second will lead to the sound of jubilation in the city." If, as Goethe famously said, architecture is "frozen music," then we should aim to build towering hymns that lift the soul to God. But the construction of that physical space depends upon the cultural space we make for the sacred—including human life as such.
"Le Corbusier's 1925 'Plan Voisin' planned to raze parts of central Paris and replace them with high-rise towers and highways." Looks like posterity dodged a bullet there. (Source)
A Ghastly Hymn for Good Shepherd Sunday
April 21, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ Leave a comment
A cope depicting the Good Shepherd. (Source)
I realize that technically last week was Good Shepherd Sunday in the traditional calendar, but as most of the Catholic world (alas) celebrates it tomorrow, I thought I'd offer up this truly dismal hymn from Fr. Faber. I have never yet heard it set to music, so if any of my readers happen to know of a recording, I would appreciate them kindly sharing it. Fr. Faber is one of my favorite spiritual writers and hymnodists…even when he's outlandishly bad.
The True Shepherd
Fr. Frederick William Faber
I was wandering and weary
When my Saviour came unto me;
For the ways of sin grew dreary
And the world had ceased to woo me:
And I thought I heard Him say,
As He came along His way,
O silly souls! come near Me;
My sheep should never fear Me;
I am the Shepherd true.
At first I would not hearken,
And put off till the morrow;
But life began to darken,
And I was sick with sorrow;
At last I stopped to listen,
His voice could not deceive me;
I saw His kind eyes glisten,
So anxious to relieve me:
He took me on His shoulder,
And tenderly He kissed me;
He bade my love be bolder,
And said how He had missed me;
And I'm sure I heard Him say,
As He went along His way,
Strange gladness seemed to move Him,
Whenever I did better;
And he coaxed me so to love Him,
As if He was my debtor;
And I always heard Him say,
I thought His love would weaken,
As more and more He knew me;
But it burneth like a beacon;
And its light and heat go through me;
And I ever hear Him say,
As He goes along His way,
Let us do then, dearest brothers!
What will best and longest please us,
Follow not the ways of others,
But trust ourselves to Jesus;
We shall ever hear Him say,
Five Years a Catholic
March 30, 2018 March 26, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ Leave a comment
May the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary pray for us. (Source)
"To begin and end well, devotion to our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God, is nothing less than indispensable." – St. Philip Neri, Maxims.
Five years ago, I was received into the Roman Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. The journey since then has been an adventure, to say the least. Not all of it has been good. I've continued to make lots of mistakes, often failing in faith, hope, charity, and all the other virtues. Individual Catholics have often disappointed me. There were moments of doubt along the way, and, like the infamous Pillar of Salt, I am no stranger to the occasional backwards glance.
But in reflecting on those five years, the overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude. The many wonderful people I have met – and, more importantly, the graces I have received – have confirmed for me the essential soundness of my choice. I have no regrets. I only wish more people could know the abiding peace that comes with conversion to the Church that Christ established on St. Peter. And having consecrated myself to Mary, I feel as if I have had a new strength in the spiritual life since last Summer.
Thus far, I have dedicated each year to some mystery of the Faith. It is in that same spirit that I consecrate this sixth year of my Catholic life to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. I pray that by her triumphant heart, she will continue to guide me to a more perfect knowledge of Her Father, Son, and Spouse. As St. Philip says, "Our Blessed Lady ought to be our love and consolation." I hope that she ever will be mine.
And thus on this Good Friday, I beg your prayers and those of the saints, that I might persevere in the faith and grow in the love of God.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.
Our Lady Immaculate, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. Philip Neri, pray for us.
The Queen of Heaven. (Source)
Elsewhere: A Lackluster Profile of St. Philip
March 27, 2018 March 30, 2018 / Rick Yoder	/ 1 Comment
I'm always pleased to find articles about St. Philip Neri in the Catholic press. Unfortunately, some are less helpful than others. I was disappointed with Shaun McAfee's recent article in the National Catholic Register, "St. Philip Neri Was a Humorist, But Not a Comedian." The style is tortured and riddled with typos, and the content leaves much to be desired. Key episodes from the life of St. Philip are either misunderstood or handled clumsily.
Case in point—when the young Pippo Buono infamously pushed his sister, he was not plotting a premeditated revenge against some grievance. He was reacting somewhat thoughtlessly to her childish interruption of the prayers he and his other sister were saying. Mr. McAfee casts the episode in a much darker light than any of St. Philip's biographers.
More egregiously, Mr. McAfee throws together all kinds of unrelated phenomena as evidence of St. Philip's penchant for holy humour. Here he is:
Yes, Neri was known to show up to important events with half his beard shaved, give incorrect walking directions to his disciples, read a book of jokes, or pause for more than 10 minutes in the middle of the consecration at Mass. When he did each of these things he caused a mix of emotions in others, but it always ended up producing the same end state: increased humility, and increased patience.
Two problems present themselves. First, we can see Mr. McAfee's unusual, jarring use of "Neri" to refer to St. Philip. This shorthand is unheard of in the literature on St. Philip, and its impersonal, journalistic tone sits uneasily with a saint of such singular personality. Secondly, not all of these actions were done for the same reason. Nor were they all jokes! St. Philip didn't pause at the consecration to elicit edified chuckles. He did so because he was rapt in an ecstasy and couldn't help himself plummeting into deepest adoration before the Eucharistic God. And it wasn't just ten minutes—it was usually over an hour, sometimes up to two. Even Mr. McAfee's details are wrong.
Still, I suppose I ought not complain too much. Mr. McAfee does draw mostly the right lessons from St. Philip's humour. One wishes, however, that he done so with greater artfulness and more care for the nuances of his subject.
A Catholic Jew Pontificates
A Conservative Blog for Peace
A Mule in the Chapter House
A Son of Saint Philip
Abbot Tryphon's Morning Offering
Absolute Primacy of Christ
Ad Montem Myrrhae
Ad Te Beate Ioseph
All the Saints You Should Know
All Things Made New
Angelico Press
Angelology of Pico della Mirandola
Anglicanorum Coetibus Society
Anglo-Catholic Links
Annales Ecclesiae Ucrainae
Apostolate of St. Joseph
Art Odyssey
Ascending Mt. Carmel
Ascendonica
Bacon's Bridge
Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal
Big Pulpit
Bishop Ken's Christian Year
Bizarre Records
Blog of the Courtier
Books from the HMML Basement
Boxfacts
Brian Ken Miller
Canticum Salomonis
Catholic Fire
Catholicism and the Arts York
Central PA Byzantine Catholics
Centre County Latin Mass
Chad Wellmon
Christian Democracy Blog
City a Desert
Communio
Complete Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke
Confucian and Chinese Classics
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum
Cosmos The In Lost
CVille Images
Daniel Bearman – Acts of Idiot Praise
Daughters of St. Philip Neri
Death to the World
Dom Hugh OSB
Ecclesia Semper Reformanda
Ephemeris Carmeli
Exarandorum – Ecclesiastical Heraldry
Fr. Jerabek's Blog
Fr. Lawrence O.P.
Fr. Ray Blake's Blog
Friends of Arthur Machen
Gabriel Sanchez
Gavin Ashenden
Gods and Foolish Grandeur
Hanc Aquam (Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP)
Icons and Their Interpretation
Idiot Joy Showland
Inclina Aurem Cordis Tui
Inflammate Omnia
Island Life – In a Monastery
Jacobite Heritage
Jappers and Janglers
John Gillen
Joseph Shaw
Keanu Heydari
Lancelot Andrewes Press
Libretti d'Opera
Littlest Souls
Mary's Dowry
Mediatrix Press
Merrily on High
Mistholme – Heraldry
Modern Medievalism
Monks and Mermaids
Mother of All Peoples
Mudblood Catholic
Musings of an Old Curmudgeon
Mystics of the Church
New Goliards – Sarum Use
Newman Reader
nontrivial problems
Norbertines UK
Novus Motus Oxoniensis
Once I Was a Clever Boy
Opus Publicum
Oratorian Writings
Orthodox in the District
Oxford C.S. Lewis Society
Oxford Ordinariate Mission
Oxford Students for Life
Papist Press
PassioXP
Peinture Française du 19ème Siècle
Peregrine Magazine
Philokalia – Fr. David Abernethy CO
Philorthodox
Ponticianus
Psallam Domino
Random Catholic Convert
Reditus – Arturo Vasquez
Religion in American History
Reporting the English Civil War
Rodama
Sancrucensis
Schola Christi (Oratorian)
Scotist Sources
Second Spring
Semiotic Thomist
Simeon Song
Solidarity Hall
Southern High-Churchman
Spoils of Egypt
St. Stephen's House, Oxford
Standing on My Head
Strange Flowers
Tartarus Press
Tatiana Lozano
The Burckhardt Review
The Burkean Conservative
The Charles de Koninck Project
The City and the World
The Eyes of Light
The Glory of Russian Painting
The Heavy Anglo-Orthodox
The Hedgehog Review
The Imaginative Conservative
The Inklings
The Jeffersoniad
The Light Invisible
The Liturgical Queer
The Mitrailleuse
The Nashdom Chronicles
The Ochlophobist
The Oddest Inkling
The Opalescent Parrot
The Paraphasic
The Prosblogian
The Roman Anglican
The Saint Bede Studio Blog
The Sarabite – Arturo Vasquez
The Society of King Charles the Martyr
The Stigmatics Project
The Suburban Hermit
The Thinker's Garden
The Toast
The Way of Beauty
Theoi Classical Texts Library
To Know We Are Not Alone
Tradinista!
Unpleasant Accents
Victorian British Painting
WDTPRS – Fr. Z's Blog
Wiseblood Books
World of Dante
Wouter Hanegraaf
Zoroastrianism in English
The Good The True and The Beautiful
Anima Lusitana
Mystique et figures mystiques
JONAH magazine
Bill Ectric's Place
Norbertine Vocations
Remembering Fr Willie Doyle SJ
untitled!
Francis Young
thomaesplendor
silverapplequeen
An Armchair Theologian
Daniel's Blog
Our lady of the rock
Hidden History of South Carolina
John A. Monaco
O Crux Ave
On Art and Aesthetics
The Blue Flower
The Abbey-Principality of San Luigi
Bolton Morris Church Artist
Catholic Today
The Anglo-Catholic Mormon
Apologia Bro Vita Sua
Justice and Jacobins
Age of Revolutions
18th Century Aesthetics Anglicanism Anglo-Catholic Art Art History Baroque Beauty Benedictine Blogging Books Catholicism Christianity Church History Decadent Decadent Catholicism Devotional Early Modern Eastern Orthodoxy Ecumenism Elsewhere England English English Christianity Esotericism Ethics Eucharist Film & Television Fr. Faber France Gratitude History Horror Housekeeping Humor Iconography Icons Ireland Italy Lent Literature Liturgy London Oratory Marian Mariology Mary Medieval Monastic Monasticism Music Mysticism Newman Oratorian Original Our Lady Oxford Personal Photography Poem Poetry Politics Prayer Recommendations Religion Roman Catholicism Saints Scripture Silverstream Sophianicity Sophiology Spirituality St. Philip Neri T.S. Eliot Theology University
A blog dedicated to particularities of the Catholic liturgy in Portugal
séminaire de recherche de l'IRSE et du CERPHI
writing from the soul and the mind
a virtual establishment
St. Philip's Priory, Chelmsford, England
Politics & Culture from a Catholic perspective
"...like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching."
herstory. poetry. recipes. rants.
A layman's take on Catholic Theology
A Benedictine Monastery
by William Newton
A site dedicated to exploring ruins of years gone by in South Carolina.
Graduate student in theology, seeking the true, good, and beautiful.
Exploring creativity and beauty across different media. Passionately global.
The Desire for the Transcendent
and the San Luigi Orders
An Homage to Bolton Morris Church Artist 1920-2004
Everything Catholic Today
Dixitque Deus, "Fiat lux", et facta est lux
Helping young Catholic men seek Heaven.
An exploration of the works of poet Charles Williams (1886-1945)
Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture by Amy Milka