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Archives for April 2015
Win This Race!
The Race gives us a glimpse into the endless round of self-neglectful business that is robbing a woman of the peace of resting in her Lord. She wakes, with the jolt and intensity of a runner at the starting block, having anticipated and rehearsed the day’s demands to the point of near-sleeplessness. We feel sorry for her, hurting herself as she is by the hyperactivity that clearly is leading her to physical breakdown and, possibly, to the point of madness. But, we see in her mania an element of free choice that prevents our interpreting her predicament as inevitable, or unavoidable.
The poem is full of choice words with several layers of meaning that combine to place the characteristics of such driven-ness into relief against a background of love – of self, and of God. Here are just a few examples:
Writhe: twist in pain, twist into coils
Compress: press hard, condense, contract
Mania: ungovernable frenzy, excitement manifested by hyperactivity and elevation of mood
Design: mental scheme in which means to an end are laid down
Restive: stubbornly resisting control, uneasy
Heady: willful, rash, head-first, intoxicating
Coil: tumult, trouble
These images all fight – as the woman fights – against relaxation, and true rest. This woman’s coping, or self-defense mechanisms have gone horribly awry and are now destroying her. She is doing violence to herself, to the day, and to those around her, whose needs and humanity she speeds past.
The Race speaks of the subtle seductive power of ideas. Unless they are translated into reality – dull and tedious as that process may be – they may lure us into a world of imagined virtue, imagined freedom of movement, imagined rest that undermines the very things ‘vain imaginings’ represent. We may lose our footing in the imagined future if we dissipate our energies by grappling with virtual problems. Grace does not, cannot flow into virtual life. That territory – for all our work to know and control it – is an unmapped waste: “ungraceful and uncharted time”.
As one whose own life is the stuff this poem was made of, I can speak firsthand about the antidote for this woman’s – for my – impotent, cramped, pragmatic, heedless life. The cure is, pure and simple, real rest. The Source and Summit of this elixir? The Eucharist. Christ, fully present, waits for the soul to turn, simply, to Him for refreshment, for new life.
The poem echoes Christ’s words (in a vision) to Bl. Angela of Foligno: “Make yourself a capacity, and I will make myself a torrent,” and alludes to the last line of John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14 (“Nor ever chaste except you ravish me.”) I include a discussion of The Race in my talk, A Prayer, A Poem, A Person, a Place, to illustrate both poetry and the poetic person – one whose very being is, like a poem, a place of encounter with Reality.
It is my prayer that, by winning people over to the practice of true Sabbath-keeping – Eucharistic Sabbath – I can help restore the calm, surrendered, interior spaciousness that will invite Christ’s torrential grace, more and more, into the world. “Slowed to a singleness of soul,” the double-minded man can become whole, and participate in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Note: Since the poem is a bit longer than usual, I’ve got a pdf of it for you, here.
God’s Plan for Your Life
Ephesians Chapter One, Part Three
Remember the scene in The Hobbit in which we see the vast pile of treasure guarded by Smaug, the dragon? That’s me in St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – I’ve barreled in and now am wading knee-deep and slowly through a blow-your-mind pile of treasure! (Links to previous posts in this series:
Part One: Ephesians Blessed, Blessing, Blessings!
Part Two: Ways and Means, Means, Means)
So far, blessings galore, and Liturgy as sort of an Iron Man suit, making me supernaturally able to do wonders. To wit: keep standing in the very Presence of God, transmit His glory without exploding, touch the Ark of His Person without dying on the spot. Try it without suit – no superpowers!
So here we are, Jesus and me, having this love fest – blessing flowing to me, praise flowing to Him, me growing holier, me forgiven constantly, me rolling in the riches of His grace, me living the abundant life. But there’s more. God’s got a plan, and He has made it known to the Church, presumably because He intends for it to be accomplished through us.
For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:9-14)
I count fifteen references to this section of Ephesians in the Catechism (CCC), so we’ll be taking it slow-and-serious-like.
Whenever I hear “God’s got a plan for your life,” I remember how glibly we evangelicals told people that, and how much I struggled to figure out how to put that plan into practice. “I’ll do anything, Lord. Just tell me The Plan.” He never quite did.
What we meant was to reassure non-Christians that God valued their lives, could help them accomplish worthwhile things, cared about them in a way they might not have cared about themselves. All good. But, in practice, I wanted marching orders, a plan of campaign, a job description, even a Mission Impossible. What is the actual plan by which I am to take my next step?!?!?! It’s one thing to know there’s a plan, but it can be a nightmare trying to figure out what it is. If generals did battle this way, the soldiers would pack up and go home in frustration.
Let’s see what answers the Church could have given that struggling new Christian to shore up her understanding. I’ll take the references in order, and see what we come up with.
The Plan is that I receive His life, and become like His Son. (257) Creation and human history are to be fulfilled through Christ…in me…in the Church. (668) The Holy Spirit has something to do with it, (693, 698) holding ‘our inheritance’ for us until we possess it [Christ-likeness] (706) The Plan is “to unite all things in Christ” through the Church (772) and that (the renewal and transformation of humanity and the world) will be fully realized at the end of time as the new heavens and new earth. (1043) God wants this Plan accomplished “for the salvation of the world and for the glory of His name” (1066) “The Holy Spirit’s transforming power in the liturgy hastens the coming of the kingdom,” giving us life, hope, and the guarantee of ‘our inheritance’. (1107, 1274)
This guarantee, or seal, of the Spirit – His presence in our hearts – assures us we belong to Christ. (1296) Christ sets the example for us of adhering “in His human heart to the mystery of the will [The Plan] of the Father.” (2603) “Uniting all things in Christ” is the same thing as “recapitulating all things in Christ” (and we’d want to study Christ’s priestly prayer in John 17 for more on this) – the reconciliation, or re-uniting of “God and the world; the Word and the flesh; eternal life and time; the love that hands itself over and the sin that betrays it; the disciples present and those who will believe in Him by their word; humiliation and glory.” (2748) (In Christ, The Plan is completely fulfilled (CCC 2749), in us it is being fulfilled, and in the Church’s perfect union with Christ as His Bride, it will one day be utterly fulfilled.)
When we pray, “hallowed be Thy name,” we are drawn “into his plan” and “immersed in the innermost mystery of his Godhead and the drama of the salvation of our humanity.” (2807) His work “is realized for us and in us only if his name is hallowed by us and in us.” (2808) His desire? His will? His Plan? “To gather up all things” in Christ. When we pray “Thy will be done,” we are asking “for this loving plan to be fully realized on earth as it is already in heaven.” (2823)
Whew! It was hard not to get sidetracked as each one of those references led to so much more (much of it connects with Ephesians chapters to come!), but I wanted to power through all of them to get a clear description of The Plan. What stands out for me is the gathering in, the re-collecting of all being – sort of a scavenger hunt, where we go out collecting bits and pieces, bring them to Christ, and He puts them all back together in some way that makes sense of it all, and pleases God.
Well, if He can collect all the broken pieces of me, and put me back together, whole and beautiful, I’m betting on Him to accomplish The Plan whether or not I fully grasp the mystery! Oh, and it’s Christ who does the accomplishing. If I’ll just live for the praise of His glory, He’s got the whole Plan in His hands.
This description of The Plan makes it sound less like a fill-in-the-blank test (God wants me to ____) and more like a huge adventure (Here, grab my hand and jump on the moving train!!). I’m excited about going on to re-read all of my favorite book of the Bible through Catholic eyes.
Next: End of Ephesians Chapter One – Christ to the Third Power
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