Thursday 16 August 2012

Dormition of Theotokos / Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

August 15th, 2012

From: Emmaus Evangelical Lutheran Church, South Bend, Indiana

The Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

Today the Church remembers with thanksgiving the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Historically, this day was understood to mark her dormition, or "falling asleep," which was most anciently regarded as her natural death and burial. From early on, however, the Church considered that she who conceived and gave birth to the very God of very God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, was also resurrected and ascended into heaven, in both body and soul, soon after her death. There is no word of Holy Scripture to teach these traditions as doctrine, but we should not be too quick to dismiss them as merely pious devotion. Such piety, at its heart, is a confession of that which is the Church's faith in Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary's Son, our Savior and our God.

St. Mary is uniquely honored among all the saints of God in Christ, not only by the Church, but first of all by the Lord God Himself. He has had mercy upon her, blessed her with His grace and favor, and chosen her above all other women to bear the almighty and eternal Son of God. She is rightly called, and truly is, the Mother of God; for her own dear Son, the Fruit of her womb, is indeed the one true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity. It is from her flesh and blood that the Lord has taken for Himself a true and natural body, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, so that henceforth He is true Man, the perfect second Adam, our elder Brother, our kinsman Redeemer, the promised Seed of the Woman, by whom we are reconciled to God. As the ancient fathers of the Church confessed, God thus became like us, in order that we become like Him, by grace. It is that great salvation that we celebrate in commemorating any of the saints, and in particular the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, St. Mary.

She is an icon of the Church, a living Sacrament of Christ, and a beautiful example of faith, of all the true children of father Abraham. Her body was comprehended by the Word and Spirit of God to become the tangible means by which the Son of God became flesh and was given to us, and not only for us, but for the life of the world. It is His body, conceived and born of St. Mary, that our sins and sorrows did carry. It is a human body, like our own in every way, save without sin, because He was born of this woman (born under the Law to redeem us). Thus do we recognize in her an archetype of the Blessed Sacrament of our Lord's body and blood.

What is more, in conceiving and giving birth to the Son of God, she is a type of the Church, the holy mother who surely gives birth to the sons of God in Christ. We too have been conceived and given new birth by the same Word and Spirit of the same Holy Triune God that overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary and knit within her womb the incarnation of the only-begotten Son. Thus are we, like Him, "born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (St. John 1:13).

Along with her vocation as the woman by whom the Son of God was given to and for the world, St. Mary also stands with us as a living member of the Church, the Body of Christ. When the Word of the Gospel was announced to her, she received that Word in faith, obtained in her by the mercies of God, and meekly bowed her head in humble trust: "Let it be to me according to Thy Word." Blessed is she who has heard the Word of God and kept it, who treasured it in her heart, who believed that there would surely be a fulfillment of all that God had spoken to her. In all of this, St. Mary is one of us, a faithful disciple of her own dear Son, and among that great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded, of that blest communion, fellowship divine.

When the Church in pious tradition has considered St. Mary to be resurrected and ascended to heaven, already in both body and soul, it is a confession of faith in that which Christ Jesus our Lord has accomplished for us and for all by His victorious Cross, Resurrection and Ascension. We may indeed contemplate that she by whom the Lord became like us, should exemplify the way in which we all become like Him, recreated in the glorious Image of the Man from heaven. Of course, we do not rest faith upon the tradition of St. Mary's dormition and assumption into heaven; faith clings to Jesus Christ alone and finds true peace and Sabbath rest forever in Him. But what we envision concering St. Mary, we understand to be the Church's hope precisely in Christ our Lord, our Savior and our God. For we know that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and that she who believes in Him will live even if she dies; yes, and everyone who lives and believes in Him will never die.

We believe, teach and confess with the absolute certainty of faith that St. Mary is the Mother of God; that the almighty and eternal Son of the living God was born of this woman, born under the Law, to redeem us who were under the Law. In celebrating that marvelous incarnation of God the Son, in which He died and rose again for us men and our salvation, we may also celebrate proleptically the resurrection of the body that all His saints share with Him by grace through faith in the Gospel. And in that glorious light, we sing: "O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises: 'Alleluia!' Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious magnify the Lord: 'Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!" (LSB 670)









Blog Post:

The New Testament provides no information on the circumstances of Mary’s death

Did Mary die ?

Blessed Pope John Paul II thought that she did. Some theologians thought that she did not and was immediately assumed into heaven

In a General Audience on 25th June 1997, Blessed Pope John Paul II discussed the question at length:

"1. Concerning the end of Mary’s earthly life, the Council uses the terms of the Bull defining the dogma of the Assumption and states: “The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over” (Lumen gentium, n. 59).

With this formula, the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, following my Venerable Predecessor Pius XII, made no pronouncement on the question of Mary’s death. Nevertheless, Pius XII did not intend to deny the fact of her death, but merely did not judge it opportune to affirm solemnly the death of the Mother of God as a truth to be accepted by all believers.

Some theologians have in fact maintained that the Blessed Virgin did not die and and was immediately raised from earthly life to heavenly glory. However, this opinion was unknown until the 17th century, whereas a common tradition actually exists which sees Mary's death as her entry into heavenly glory.

2. Could Mary of Nazareth have experienced the drama of death in her own flesh?

Reflecting on Mary’s destiny and her relationship with her divine Son, it seems legitimate to answer in the affirmative: since Christ died, it would be difficult to maintain the contrary for his Mother.

The Fathers of the Church, who had no doubts in this regard, reasoned along these lines. One need only quote St Jacob of Sarug (†521), who wrote that when the time came for Mary “to walk on the way of all generations”, the way, that is, of death, “the group of the Twelve Apostles” gathered to bury “the virginal body of the Blessed One” (Discourse on the burial of the Holy Mother of God, 87-99 in C. Vona, Lateranum 19 [1953], 188).

St Modestus of Jerusalem (†634), after a lengthy discussion of “the most blessed dormition of the most glorious Mother of God”, ends his eulogy by exalting the miraculous intervention of Christ who “raised her from the tomb”, to take her up with him in glory (Enc. in dormitionem Deiparae semperque Virginis Mariae, nn. 7 and 14: PG 86 bis, 3293; 3311).

St John Damascene (†704) for his part asks: “Why is it that she who in giving birth surpassed all the limits of nature should now bend to its laws, and her immaculate body be subjected to death?”.

And he answers: “To be clothed in immortality, it is of course necessary that the mortal part be shed, since even the master of nature did not refuse the experience of death. Indeed, he died according to the flesh and by dying destroyed death; on corruption he bestowed incorruption and made death the source of resurrection” (Panegyric on the Dormition of the Mother of God, n. 10: SC 80, 107).

3. It is true that in Revelation death is presented as a punishment for sin. However, the fact that the Church proclaims Mary free from original sin by a unique divine privilege does not lead to the conclusion that she also received physical immortality. The Mother is not superior to the Son who underwent death, giving it a new meaning and changing it into a means of salvation.

Involved in Christ’s redemptive work and associated in his saving sacrifice, Mary was able to share in his suffering and death for the sake of humanity’s Redemption. What Severus of Antioch says about Christ also applies to her: “Without a preliminary death, how could the Resurrection have taken place?” (Antijulianistica, Beirut 1931, 194f.). To share in Christ’s Resurrection, Mary had first to share in his death.

4. The New Testament provides no information on the circumstances of Mary’s death. This silence leads one to suppose that it happened naturally, with no detail particularly worthy of mention. If this were not the case, how could the information about it have remained hidden from her contemporaries and not have been passed down to us in some way?

As to the cause of Mary’s death, the opinions that wish to exclude her from death by natural causes seem groundless. It is more important to look for the Blessed Virgin’s spiritual attitude at the moment of her departure from this world. In this regard, St Francis de Sales maintains that Mary’s death was due to a transport of love. He speaks of a dying “in love, from love and through love”, going so far as to say that the Mother of God died of love for her Son Jesus (Treatise on the Love of God, bk. 7, ch. XIII-XIV).

Whatever from the physical point of view was the organic, biological cause of the end of her bodily life, it can be said that for Mary the passage from this life to the next was the full development of grace in glory, so that no death can ever be so fittingly described as a “dormition” as hers.

5. In some of the writings of the Church Fathers we find Jesus himself described as coming to take his Mother at the time of her death to bring her into heavenly glory. In this way they present the death of Mary as an event of love which conducted her to her divine Son to share his immortal life. At the end of her earthly life, she must have experienced, like Paul and more strongly, the desire to be freed from her body in order to be with Christ for ever (cf. Phil 1:23).

The experience of death personally enriched the Blessed Virgin: by undergoing mankind’s common destiny, she can more effectively exercise her spiritual motherhood towards those approaching the last moment of their life. "

By:




A Reflection on the Feast of the Assumption©

By: Virginia Kimball

The following contribution to The Mary Page on the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a contemplation on a fifteenth-century Greek Orthodox icon painted by iconographer Andreas Ritzos and now located in the Galleria Sabaudo of Turin. The icon originated in Heraklion, Crete.

(To see this page, click on the link below.)
 









YouTube Video: Dormition of the Theotokos


Topic - Blessed Virgin Mary Sermon 12. The Reverence Due to the Virgin Mary
"From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Luke i. 43.
{127} [Note 1] TODAY we celebrate the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary; when the Angel Gabriel was sent to tell her that she was to be the Mother of our Lord, and when the Holy Ghost came upon her, and overshadowed her with the power of the Highest. In that great event was fulfilled her anticipation as expressed in the text. All generations have called her blessed [Note 2]. The Angel began the salutation; he said, "Hail, thou that art highly favoured; the Lord is with thee; blessed [Note 3] art thou among women." Again he said, "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God; and, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest." Her cousin Elizabeth was the next to greet her with her appropriate title. Though she was filled with the Holy Ghost at the time {128} she spake, yet, far from thinking herself by such a gift equalled to Mary, she was thereby moved to use the lowlier and more reverent language. "She spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" ... Then she repeated, "Blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." Then it was that Mary gave utterance to her feelings in the Hymn which we read in the Evening Service. How many and complicated must they have been! In her was now to be fulfilled that promise which the world had been looking out for during thousands of years. The Seed of the woman, announced to guilty Eve, after long delay, was at length appearing upon earth, and was to be born of her. In her the destinies of the world were to be reversed, and the serpent's head bruised. On her was bestowed the greatest honour ever put upon any individual of our fallen race. God was taking upon Him her flesh, and humbling Himself to be called her offspring;—such is the deep mystery! She of course would feel her own inexpressible unworthiness; and again, her humble lot, her ignorance, her weakness in the eyes of the world. And she had moreover, we may well suppose, that purity and innocence of heart, that bright vision of faith, that confiding trust in her God, which raised all these feelings to an intensity which we, ordinary mortals, cannot understand. We cannot understand them; we repeat her hymn day after day,—yet consider for an instant in how different a mode we say it {129} from that in which she at first uttered it. We even hurry it over, and do not think of the meaning of those words which came from the most highly favoured, awfully gifted of the children of men. "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the low estate of His hand-maiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation."
Now let us consider in what respects the Virgin Mary is Blessed; a title first given her by the Angel, and next by the Church in all ages since to this day.

1. I observe, that in her the curse pronounced on Eve was changed to a blessing. Eve was doomed to bear children in sorrow; but now this very dispensation, in which the token of Divine anger was conveyed, was made the means by which salvation came into the world. Christ might have descended from heaven, as He went back, and as He will come again. He might have taken on Himself a body from the ground, as Adam was given; or been formed, like Eve, in some other divinely-devised way. But, far from this, God sent forth His Son (as St. Paul says), "made of a woman." For it has been His gracious purpose to turn all that is ours from evil to good. Had He so pleased, He might have found, when we sinned, other beings to do Him service, casting us into hell; but He purposed to save and to change us. And in like manner all that belongs to us, our reason, our affections, our pursuits, our relations in life, He {130} needs nothing put aside in His disciples, but all sanctified. Therefore, instead of sending His Son from heaven, He sent Him forth as the Son of Mary, to show that all our sorrow and all our corruption can be blessed and changed by Him. The very punishment of the fall, the very taint of birth-sin, admits of a cure by the coming of Christ.

2. But there is another portion of the original punishment of woman, which may be considered as repealed when Christ came. It was said to the woman, "Thy husband shall rule over thee;" a sentence which has been strikingly fulfilled. Man has strength to conquer the thorns and thistles which the earth is cursed with, but the same strength has ever proved the fulfilment of the punishment awarded to the woman. Look abroad through the Heathen world, and see how the weaker half of mankind has everywhere been tyrannized over and debased by the strong arm of force. Consider all those Eastern nations, which have never at any time reverenced it, but have heartlessly made it the slave of every bad and cruel purpose. Thus the serpent has triumphed,—making the man still degrade himself by her who originally tempted him, and her, who then tempted, now suffer from him who was seduced. Nay, even under the light of revelation, the punishment on the woman was not removed at once. Still (in the words of the curse), her husband ruled over her. The very practice of polygamy and divorce, which was suffered under the patriarchal and Jewish dispensation proves it.

But when Christ came as the seed of the woman, He {131} vindicated the rights and honour of His mother. Not that the distinction of ranks is destroyed under the Gospel; the woman is still made inferior to man, as he to Christ; but the slavery is done away with. St. Peter bids the husband "give honour unto the wife, because the weaker, in that both are heirs of the grace of life." [1 Pet. iii. 7.] And St. Paul, while enjoining subjection upon her, speaks of the especial blessedness vouchsafed her in being the appointed entrance of the Saviour into the world. "Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." But "notwithstanding, she shall be saved through the Child-bearing;" [1 Tim. ii. 15.] that is, through the birth of Christ from Mary, which was a blessing, as upon all mankind, so peculiarly upon the woman. Accordingly, from that time, Marriage has not only been restored to its original dignity, but even gifted with a spiritual privilege, as the outward symbol of the heavenly union subsisting betwixt Christ and His Church.

Thus has the Blessed Virgin, in bearing our Lord, taken off or lightened the peculiar disgrace which the woman inherited for seducing Adam, sanctifying the one part of it, repealing the other.

3. But further, she is doubtless to be accounted blessed and favoured in herself, as well as in the benefits she has done us. Who can estimate the holiness and perfection of her, who was chosen to be the Mother of Christ? If to him that hath, more is given, and holiness and Divine favour go together (and this we are {132} expressly told), what must have been the transcendent purity of her, whom the Creator Spirit condescended to overshadow with His miraculous presence? What must have been her gifts, who was chosen to be the only near earthly relative of the Son of God, the only one whom He was bound by nature to revere and look up to; the one appointed to train and educate Him, to instruct Him day by day, as He grew in wisdom and in stature? This contemplation runs to a higher subject, did we dare follow it; for what, think you, was the sanctified state of that human nature, of which God formed His sinless Son; knowing as we do, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," and that "none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" [1 John iii. 6. Job xiv. 4.]

Now, after dwelling on thoughts such as these, when we turn back again to the Gospels, I think every one must feel some surprise, that we are not told more about the Blessed Virgin than we find there. After the circumstances of Christ's birth and infancy, we hear little of her. Little is said in praise of her. She is mentioned as attending Christ to the cross, and there committed by Him to St. John's keeping; and she is mentioned as continuing with the Apostles in prayer after His ascension; and then we hear no more of her. But here again in this silence we find instruction, as much as in the mention of her.

1. It suggests to us that Scripture was written, not to exalt this or that particular Saint, but to give glory to Almighty God. There have been thousands of holy souls in the times of which the Bible history treats, {133} whom we know nothing of, because their lives did not fall upon the line of God's public dealings with man. In Scripture we read not of all the good men who ever were, only of a few, viz. those in whom God's name was especially honoured. Doubtless there have been many widows in Israel, serving God in fastings and prayers, like Anna; but she only is mentioned in Scripture, as being in a situation to glorify the Lord Jesus. She spoke of the Infant Saviour "to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Nay, for what we know, faith like Abraham's, and zeal like David's, have burned in the breasts of thousands whose names have no memorial; because, I say, Scripture is written to show us the course of God's great and marvellous providence, and we hear of those Saints only who were the instruments of His purposes, as either introducing or preaching His Son. Christ's favoured Apostle was St. John, His personal friend; yet how little do we know of St. John compared with St. Paul;—and why? because St. Paul was the more illustrious propagator and dispenser of His Truth. As St. Paul himself said, that he "knew no man after the flesh," [2 Cor. v. 16.] so His Saviour, with somewhat a similar meaning, has hid from us the knowledge of His more sacred and familiar feelings, His feelings towards His Mother and His friend. These were not to be exposed, as unfit for the world to know,—as dangerous, because not admitting of being known, without a risk lest the honour which those Saints received through grace should eclipse in our minds the honour of Him who honoured them. Had {134} the blessed Mary been more fully disclosed to us in the heavenly beauty and sweetness of the spirit within her, true, she would have been honoured, her gifts would have been clearly seen; but, at the same time, the Giver would have been somewhat less contemplated, because no design or work of His would have been disclosed in her history. She would have seemingly been introduced for her sake, not for His sake. When a Saint is seen working towards an end appointed by God, we see him to be a mere instrument, a servant though a favoured one; and though we admire him, yet, after all, we glorify God in him. We pass on from him to the work to which he ministers. But, when any one is introduced, full of gifts, yet without visible and immediate subserviency to God's designs, such a one seems revealed for his own sake. We should rest, perchance, in the thought of him, and think of the creature more than the Creator. Thus it is a dangerous thing, it is too high a privilege, for sinners like ourselves, to know the best and innermost thoughts of God's servants. We cannot bear to see such men in their own place, in the retirement of private life, and the calmness of hope and joy. The higher their gifts, the less fitted they are for being seen. Even St. John the Apostle was twice tempted to fall down in worship before an Angel who showed him the things to come. And, if he who had seen the Son of God was thus overcome by the creature, how is it possible we could bear to gaze upon the creature's holiness in its fulness, especially as we should be more able to enter into it, and estimate it, than to comprehend the infinite perfections of the Eternal {135} Godhead? Therefore, many truths are, like the "things which the seven thunders uttered," [Rev. x. 4.] "sealed up" from us. In particular, it is in mercy to us that so little is revealed about the Blessed Virgin, in mercy to our weakness, though of her there are "many things to say," yet they are "hard to be uttered, seeing we are dull of hearing." [Heb. v. 11.]

2. But, further, the more we consider who St. Mary was, the more dangerous will such knowledge of her appear to be. Other saints are but influenced or inspired by Christ, and made partakers of Him mystically. But, as to St. Mary, Christ derived His manhood from her, and so had an especial unity of nature with her; and this wondrous relationship between God and man it is perhaps impossible for us to dwell much upon without some perversion of feeling. For, truly, she is raised above the condition of sinful beings, though by nature a sinner; she is brought near to God, yet is but a creature, and seems to lack her fitting place in our limited understandings, neither too high nor too low. We cannot combine, in our thought of her, all we should ascribe with all we should withhold. Hence, following the example of Scripture, we had better only think of her with and for her Son, never separating her from Him, but using her name as a memorial of His great condescension in stooping from heaven, and not "abhorring the Virgin's womb." And this is the rule of our own Church, which has set apart only such Festivals in honour of the Blessed Mary, as may also be Festivals in honour of our Lord; the Purification commemorating His presentation in the {136} Temple, and the Annunciation commemorating His Incarnation. And, with this caution, the thought of her may be made most profitable to our faith; for nothing is so calculated to impress on our minds that Christ is really partaker of our nature, and in all respects man, save sin only, as to associate Him with the thought of her, by whose ministration He became our brother.

To conclude. Observe the lesson which we gain for ourselves from the history of the Blessed Virgin; that the highest graces of the soul may be matured in private, and without those fierce trials to which the many are exposed in order to their sanctification. So hard are our hearts, that affliction, pain, and anxiety are sent to humble us, and dispose us towards a true faith in the heavenly word, when preached to us. Yet it is only our extreme obstinacy of unbelief which renders this chastisement necessary. The aids which God gives under the Gospel Covenant, have power to renew and purify our hearts, without uncommon providences to discipline us into receiving them. God gives His Holy Spirit to us silently; and the silent duties of every day (it may be humbly hoped) are blest to the sufficient sanctification of thousands, whom the world knows not of. The Blessed Virgin is a memorial of this; and it is consoling as well as instructive to know it. When we quench the grace of Baptism, then it is that we need severe trials to restore us. This is the case of the multitude, whose best estate is that of chastisement, repentance, supplication, and absolution, again and again. But there are those who go on in a calm and unswerving course, learning day by day to love Him who has redeemed {137} them, and overcoming the sin of their nature by His heavenly grace, as the various temptations to evil successively present themselves. And, of these undefiled followers of the Lamb, the Blessed Mary is the chief. Strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, she "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief;" she believed when Zacharias doubted,—with a faith like Abraham's she believed and was blessed for her belief, and had the performance of those things which were told her by the Lord. And when sorrow came upon her afterwards, it was but the blessed participation of her Son's sacred sorrows, not the sorrow of those who suffer for their sins.

If we, through God's unspeakable gift, have in any measure followed Mary's innocence in our youth, so far let us bless Him who enabled us. But so far as we are conscious of having departed from Him, let us bewail our miserable guilt. Let us acknowledge from the heart that no punishment is too severe for us, no chastisement should be unwelcome (though it is a sore thing to learn to welcome pain), if it tend to burn away the corruption which has propagated itself within us. Let us count all things as gain, which God sends to cleanse away the marks of sin and shame which are upon our foreheads. The day will come at length, when our Lord and Saviour will unveil that Sacred Countenance to the whole world, which no sinner ever yet could see and live. Then will the world be forced to look upon Him, whom they pierced with their unrepented wickednesses; "all faces will gather blackness." [Joel ii. 6.] Then they will discern, what they {138} do not now believe, the utter deformity of sin; while the Saints of the Lord, who seemed on earth to bear but the countenance of common men, will wake up one by one after His likeness, and be fearful to look upon. And then will be fulfilled the promise pledged to the Church on the Mount of Transfiguration. It will be "good" to be with those whose tabernacles might have been a snare to us on earth, had we been allowed to build them. We shall see our Lord, and His Blessed Mother, the Apostles and Prophets, and all those righteous men whom we now read of in history, and long to know. Then we shall be taught in those Mysteries which are now above us. In the words of the Apostle, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is: and every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure." [1 John iii. 2, 3.] [Note 4]


Notes
1. The Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
2. [makariousi].
3. [eulogemene].
4. On the subject of this Sermon, vide Bishop Bull's Sermon on Luke i. 48, 49.



Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
Copyright © 2007 by The National Institute for Newman Studies. All rights reserved.





 

Wednesday 15 August 2012

The Value of Literature. The Hound of Heaven.

My father was an Anglican priest. He attended private boarding school in Jamaica. He told me several times that he learned more theology studying Literature in school than he ever did in Theological Seminary. This could be taken and understood in more than one way. First, one might take it to mean that the Theological Seminary which he attended was of an inferior quality, or that it lacked something as a place of preparing canidates for ordination. Second, one might conclude from the statement that the education received at boarding school in Jamaica was one which highlighted, explained and presented the world of Literature at its very best. At the heart of most major literary classics is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This, I believe, is what he meant.

He gave me a copy of the following poem put out in booklet form. It was an extroadinary poem, one which I greatly admire, but one that takes some effort to understand in its entirety.








THE HOUND OF HEAVEN
Francis Thompson


I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
   I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
   Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
             Up vistaed hopes I sped;
             And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
   From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
             But with unhurrying chase,
             And unperturbèd pace,
     Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
             They beat—and a Voice beat
             More instant than the Feet—
     'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.             
              I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
   Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followed,
             Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
But, if one little casement parted wide,
   The gust of His approach would clash it to:
   Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
   And troubled the gold gateway of the stars,
   Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
             Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;
   With thy young skiey blossom heap me over
             From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
   I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
   Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
   Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
          But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
     The long savannahs of the blue;
            Or, whether, Thunder-driven,
          They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:—
   Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
             Still with unhurrying chase,
             And unperturbed pace,
      Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
             Came on the following Feet,
             And a Voice above their beat—
'Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.'
I sought no more after that which I strayed
          In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children's eyes
          Seems something, something that replies,
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
         With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
Come then, ye other children, Nature's—share
With me’ (said I) 'your delicate fellowship;
          Let me greet you lip to lip,
          Let me twine with you caresses,
              Wantoning
          With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,
             Banqueting
          With her in her wind-walled palace,
          Underneath her azured dais,
          Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
             From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’
             So it was done:
I in their delicate fellowship was one—
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
          I knew all the swift importings
          On the wilful face of skies;
           I knew how the clouds arise
          Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;
             All that's born or dies
          Rose and drooped with; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful divine;
          With them joyed and was bereaven.
          I was heavy with the even,
          When she lit her glimmering tapers
          Round the day's dead sanctities.
          I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
          Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine:
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
          I laid my own to beat,
          And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah! we know not what each other says,
          These things and I; in sound I speak—
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
          Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
          The breasts o’ her tenderness:
Never did any milk of hers once bless
             My thirsting mouth.
             Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
             With unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
             And past those noisèd Feet
             A voice comes yet more fleet
         
'Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me.'
Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,
             And smitten me to my knee;
          I am defenceless utterly.
          I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
          I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
          Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
          Ah! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amarinthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
          Ah! must
         
Designer infinite!
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
          From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
          Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
          But not ere him who summoneth
          I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
          Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
          Be dunged with rotten death?
             Now of that long pursuit
             Comes on at hand the bruit;
          That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
          'And is thy earth so marred,
          Shattered in shard on shard?
          Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

          'Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said),
'And human love needs human meriting:
          How hast thou merited
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
          Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
          Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
          Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
          All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
          Rise, clasp My hand, and come!'
   Halts by me that footfall:
   Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
   'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
   I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.'
 

Site Link: http://www.ewtn.com/library/HUMANITY/HNDHVN.HTM





Hounded by Amazing Grace

July-August 2000By Ruth Clements

Ruth Clements is Lecturer of Advanced Writing in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California.

The Hound of Heaven at My Heels: The Lost Diary of Francis Thompson.  By Robert Waldron. Ignatius. 93 pages. $8.95.



I fled Him, down the nights
and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches
of the years;
I fled Him, down the
labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind….


Thus begins “The Hound of Heaven,” Francis Thompson’s autobiographical poem. Like St. Augustine’s Confessions, it is also a spiritual testament, a creative reconstruction of his journey to faith and grace — how a loving God saved a wretch like him.

The figure of a Hound as a metaphor for God likely struck initial readers as strange — too daring and bizarre. But when the Catholic poet Thompson (1859-1907) read Shelley’s “Heaven’s Winged Hound” and juxtaposed that startling image with Confessions (a work he had all but memorized; it had haunted him, hounded him, for years), he knew that he had struck spiritual gold: “Thank you, Jesus, for sending me the insight that does not blind but illuminates.” In writing this hymn of God’s love for His children, Thompson would find his soul’s treasure, his true vocation: He was to illuminate, through his poetry, the darkened souls of those who were still trying — vainly, furiously — to escape God, the Hound of Heaven. “Although I might flee from God, God would seek me to the ends of the earth.”

In Thompson we hear the echo of St. Augustine in his tortured youth: “For to me then you were not what you are, but an empty phantom, and my error was my god…. For where could my heart fly to, away from my heart? Where could I fly to, apart from my own self? Where would I not pursue myself?”

And we hear Milton’s Satan: “Me miserable! which way shall I fly/ Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?/ Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.”

In “The Hound of Heaven,” Thompson describes his hell: “I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years —/ My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap./ My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,/ Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.” But, like St. Augustine, he surrenders himself at last — as a child, tolle lege, tolle lege — into God’s embrace.

Robert Waldron’s The Hound of Heaven at My Heels is a novel, a creative reconstruction of Thompson’s lost diary. It interweaves fact and fiction to breathe new life into a man Waldron considers “one of England’s great poets.” Waldron gets inside Thompson, assuming the poet’s voice and using his verse, to allow us penetrating glimpses — in the form of brief diary entries — into Thompson’s soul.

The poet’s spiritual journey is thus captured in snapshots; a pilgrim’s progress that leaves the biographical-narrative norm behind in favor of something that feels more immediate and intimate. This literary technique is a gamble that rarely pays off. But, on the whole, Waldron wins. Not every hand, mind you. Some of the diary entries are embarrassing: “My Anne who said, ‘The first time I saw you I knew you were a genius.’ ‘How?’ I asked, amused. ‘Your fine brow and eyes proclaim it,’ she said.” But this is a rare clunker — Victorian Romantic Goo. The following entries are more typical:

“Why is it so difficult to admit wrongdoing? Pride, first my opinion that I was above other mortals and then my opinion that I was below them. At long last I can see the truth about us all: ordinary until touched by God’s grace.”

“I have vowed to Jesus to follow exactly the Liturgy of the Hours. Time sanctified is time transcended, and only in such time shall I vanquish my life’s enslavement.”

And this entry (which gets to the heart of Thompson’s self-imposed hell): “My first ingestion of opium was an act of full consent of the will. I was cognizant of the dangers of lifetime enslavement, but I hoped the visionary splendor would nourish my poetic power, and this was of great importance to me. Thereafter my opium drinking was no longer a complete act of the will, for my body developed its own will counter to that of my mind and soul. Oh, how I understand Saint Paul’s lamentation, ‘for the good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not I do.’ Saint Francis named his body Brother Ass. My own body has been more like a faithful canine, faithful to one master: opium. I am plagued by the axiom that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks….”

Wallowing in the mire and scratching lust’s itchy sore is a hoary theme; and the soulful saga of Lost & Found is trite. But to dismiss this diary as a series of clichés would be injudicious. Perhaps it is more on point to reflect on the nature of the central cliché — the stubbornness of human nature — that St. Paul summed up so powerfully in his lament. How tyrannical is the perversity of our wills! Why do we have to be dragged — kicking and screaming like raging adolescents — to God? Waldron/Thompson writes, “There is no escape from God. But then I bewitched myself to believe in escape and nearly destroyed myself by self-delusion.”

It behooves us as Catholic readers, as all-too-human beings, to not be shy about the shadows of Thompson’s life. Who would throw the first stone? If not opium, then what particular evil bedevils each of us? (I am writing this with nicotine ricocheting through my veins. Yea, though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death last year, and swore off this destructive escape, still I do the very thing I hate.) Self-delusion is powerful in its subtlety — a sneaky snake sidewinding its way inside the soul. But at least addiction is a devil one can wrestle down. As C.S. Lewis displayed so splendidly in The Screwtape Letters, spiritual pride is the sliest sidewinder of them all.

Thompson was too honest for spiritual pride — he knew and named his demons: opium, an imagination run amok, self-will run riot. During his year-long retreat at a monastery, Thompson began writing “The Hound of Heaven” while struggling mightily against the chaos that haunted his life: “I sat the night staring through my casement at the insane eye of the moon. The opium in my drawer repeatedly whispered to me. My hand reached out to the drawer’s handle. After beseeching Mary Immaculate for a half hour, I was able to resist one more time.”

Whether or not one buys into Waldron’s opinion that Thompson is one of the great English poets, this fictional diary nevertheless succeeds in its purpose of putting the reader into the poet’s teeming mind so as to witness both the turbulence of his soul and the yearned-for spiritual pax he found at the monastery.

The Hound of Heaven chases us. Inside us two wills duel. We want to be caught and, perversely, we want to escape. But to flee is to die. “For without you,” wrote St. Augustine, “what am I to myself but the leader of my own destruction?” In The Hound of Heaven at My Heels, Robert Waldron is telling us to pay attention, to stay alert, to be mindful that Francis Thompson’s struggles are our own. It is the story of the soul’s brutal and exhausting civil war — upon which hangs the nature of our eternity.

Site Link: http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=0700-clements



Personal Comment:


From the outset, the poem makes reference to the fact that Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Creator of all that is, seeks after us, pursues us, even when we flee Him. He reaches out to us, tries to bring us back to Him. He sent His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to redeem us through His sacrifice of death on the Cross, and His Resurrection.

What was the cause of this 'flight' from God? "For, though I knew His love...Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside". This is the crux of the problem, not that God is unknown, nor that what God asks for from us is too much, but that in accepting Christ into our lives, we must enter whole-hog into a living, personal relationship with God, and put aside earthly concerns and desires, and instead place full confidence in God to succour and comfort us. It is this all-or-nothing attitude that so many of us hesitate against. We want to have that assurance of eternal life, but we want it to begin at the moment of our death here on Earth. In other words, we don't want any conditions or limitations placed on us as we pass theough this Earthly life. We want the best of both worlds, but we are too stubborn or too short-sighted to understand that through acceptance of Jesus Christ and committment to living the Christian life here on Earth, we get the very best of everything, now and forever. That does not mean that the road will be easy. Jesus called His disciples to 'take up their cross daily and follow Him'. If we can do this, surely we are partakers in Christ's "one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world". (BCP Prayer of Consecration)

Our flight is in vain. Thompson's words ring loudly in the conscience of our soul: "Naught shelters thee, who will not shelter Me." And again, "Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."  And yet again, " Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!" It is not until we realize "how little worthy of any love" we are that we begin to make progress toward accepting the saving Grace offered to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Even at this point of greatest despair, God is there. He reaches out His hand for us to take. "Rise, clasp My hand, and come." It is then, and only then, that we come to the final realization that our fight and flight has been all in vain. What we sought has really been the face of God, who throughout the many years of our life, has pursued us, reaching out His hand so many times in offering to us, His forgiveness, love, salvation and eternal bliss.



Friday 27 July 2012

T. S. Eliot on 'The Idea of a Christian Society.'

Thomas Stearns Eliot begins his essay by stating his belief that the "attitudes and beliefs of Liberalism are destined to disappear".  He bases this belief on his own analysis and observations of society. In fact, he says, they are "already disappearing". While I am not as optimistic as Eliot over the imminent demise of 'Liberalism' within Western society, I do share his belief in its ultimate end. Eliot points out that "out of Liberalism itself come philosophies which deny it." He sees a primary danger within the acceptance and promulgation of 'Liberalism' as a paramount philosophy for a society. He warns that ultimately it is a belief whereby "We are in danger of finding ourselves with nothing to stand for except a dislike of everything..." He analyses the dangers facing any society and concludes, "The more highly industrialized the country, the more easily a materialistic philosophy will flourish in it...the tendency of unlimited industrialism is to create bodies of men and women...detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion..." As Liberalism takes hold of society more and more strongly, Eliot suggests the problem grows more rampant because of the liberal notion that religion is "a matter of private belief and of conduct in private life". This separation of religion and public life (rule of society), culminates in "the growth of an un-Christian society about us, its more obvious intrusion upon our lives, has been breaking down the comfortable distinction between public and private morality. The problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us, and it is a very different problem from that of the accommodation between an Established Church and dissenters...It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves: institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian. And as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma - and he is in the majority - he is becoming more and more de-Christianized by all sorts of unconscious pressure".

What is it that Eliot fears most? Most obvious is that he fears intolerance toward Christianity and a Christian minority. He can easily forsee persecution of this minority taking any of a number of forms. Interestingly enough, what he fears most is "it may turn out that the most intolerable thing for Christians is to be tolerated." What he means by this statement, I believe, is that a Christian minority, left without outright persecution, is left to cope on its own with the insideous pressures and persecutions that engender loss of faith among followers who are not steadfast in their faith and vigilant in their practice. He postulates, "We might, of course, merely sink into an apathetic decline: without faith, and therefore without faith in ourselves; without a philosophy of life, either Christian or pagan; and without art...a state of affairs in which we shall have regimentation and conformity, without respect for the needs of the individual soul; the puritanism of a hyhienic morality in the interest of efficiency; uniformity of opinion through propaganda, and art only encouraged when it flatters the official doctrines of the time." The only true recourse is that of the true Christian society. He projects, "That prospect involves, at least, discipline, inconvenience and discomfort".

Eliot suggests that one of the great faults of a society based solely on liberal principles is that of a lack of continuity and coherence in societal culture. Without such, there is little to differentiate between the educated and uneducated. he states, "In a negative liberal society you have no agreement as to there being any body of knowledge which any educated persons should have acquired at any particular time...A nation's system of education is much more important than its system of government". Education simply becomes, before long, synonymous with instruction. "The next step to be taken by the clericalism of secularism, is the inculcation of the political principles approved by the party in power". This is an attack on the individual and on individula freedoms. What are some of the signs? He points out, "people who consider it 'unnatural' and therefore repugnant, that a person of either sex should elect a life of celibacy, consider it perfectly 'natural' that families should be limited to one or two children. It would perhaps be more natural, as well as in better conformity with the Will of God, if there were more celibates and if those who were married had larger families." What lies at the heart of these discrepancies? He prognosticates, "a wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God, and that the consequence is an inevitable doom". What is the only recourse, and way forward? "We need to know how to see the world as the Christian Fathers saw it; and the purpose of reascending to origins is that we should be able to return, with greater spiritual knowledge, to our own situation. We need to recover the sense of religious fear, so that it may be overcome by religious hope."

Wednesday 18 July 2012

T. S. Eliot on Religion and Literature.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1888. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 to attend Merton College, Oxford and became a British subject in 1927. In June, 1927 he converted to Anglicanism. He died in 1965 in London and was commemorated by the setting of a large stone on the floor in 'Poet's Corner' in Westminster Abbey in 1967. In 1965 his ashes were taken and placed in St. Michael's Church in East Coker, "the village from which his ancestors had emigrated to America. A wall plaque commemorates him with a quotation from his poem "East Coker, 'In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning.'"

He is well known as a writer in a number of areas: poetry, prose and drama. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

Quote Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot




Religion and Literature

In 1935 Eliot wrote a remarkable essay titled 'Religion and Literature'. Reading it today, the essay is a fresh, vibrant and illuminating as it must have been some seventy-seven years ago. There is a two-fold purpose in this piece, to expound on the state of religion as he found it in his day, and to parlay his thoughts on this topic into a practical anaylsis of necessities facing mankind in exposing themselves to worldly pressures exerted insiduously through choices made in the field of literature.


Blog Essay on T.S. Eliot

 
"The essay ‘Religion and Literature’ written by T.S. Eliot can be viewed as a reaction against the tradition of viewing a literary work from purely aesthetic point of view. Many critics, especially the New Critics, believed that literature is not to be valued for its ethical and theological significance. But T.S. Eliot held the opinion that only literary criticism was not sufficient. After a literary work has been viewed as a work of imagination, it should also be considered from ethical and theological point of view. It is all the more important in our age when there is no agreement on ethical and theological values. For ascertaining the greatness of a literary work, that work of imagination should be appreciated from ethical and theological angles.

Although literature has been judged from moral standards, yet it has been believed for a long time that there is no relationship between religion and literature. T.S. Eliot believes that there is and should be a relationship between the two. In his essay ‘Religion and Literature’ he has discussed the application of religion to literary criticism. According to Eliot the essay is not about religious literature, but he as a degression, mentions three types of religious literature. First, is the religious literature, which has literary qualities in it. For instance, the authorized version of the Bible or the works of Jeremy Taylor. Those persons, who describe Bible only as a literary work and talk of its influence on English literature, have been referred to as ‘parasites’. According to Eliot, Bible is to be considered as ‘word of God’. Secondly, he mentions devotional poetry. A devotional poet he says is not the one who treats the subject matter in the religious spirit, but the one who treats a part of the subject matter. Eliot considers poets like Spencer, Hopkins, Vaughan and Southwell as minor poets while Dante, Corneille and Racine as major poets. Thirdly, he states, are the works of authors who want to forward the cause of religion. These types of works come under propaganda, for instance, Chesterton’s ‘Man who was Thursday’ and ‘Father Brown’.

Eliot laments over the irrationality behind the separation of our literary and religious judgment. Exemplifying literature by the way of novel (as it has the effect upon the greatest numbers), he says this secularization has been a gradual process for the last three hundred years. Since Defoe the process has been continuous. The process can be divided into three phases. In the first phase fall the novels in which Faith is taken for granted and omitted from its picture of life. The author belonging to this phase are: Fielding and Thackeray. In the second phase novels, Faith is doubted, worried about and contested. It includes authors like George Eliot, George Meredith and Thomas Hardy. The third phase is the age in which we are living and authors included are all contemporary novelists except James Joyce.

This secularization is evident in the way a reader reads a novel – without caring for the effect it has upon one’s behavior. The common factor between religion and literature is behavior. Our religion imposes upon us ethics, judgment and criticism of ourselves, and our behavior with our fellow men. Literature too has an effect on our behavior. Whatever the intentions of the author, his works affect us wholly as human beings. Even if we read a literary work purely for aesthetic purposes (keeping our ethics and morality in a separate compartment), it affects us as human beings, whether we intend it or not.

Modern readers have lost their religious values. They don’t have the wisdom to be able to obtain knowledge of life, comparing one view against the other. Moreover, the knowledge of life that we obtain from fiction is not of life itself but is knowledge of other people’s knowledge of life. What adds to the problem is that there are too many books and the reader is confused. Only modern writers of eminence have an improving effect, otherwise the contemporary writers have an effect that is degrading. The reader must keep in mind two things – ‘what we like’, that is, what we really feel; and ‘what we ought to like’, that is, understanding our shortcomings. As honest men we must not assume that what we like is what we ought to like; and as honest Christians we should assume that we do like what we ought to like.

Eliot is mainly concerned with secularization of literature. It does not concern itself with things of spirit. It is simply oblivious or ignorant of the primacy of the supernatural over the natural world. Most of the books are written by people who have no real belief in supernatural order. Moreover, they are ignorant of the fact that the world has still many believers. It is the duty of the Christians to use certain standards in addition to those used by the rest of the world. If a Christian is conscious of the gulf between him and contemporary literature, he won’t be harmed by it.

Majority of the people consider economic ills as cause of all the problems and call for drastic economic changes, while others want more or less drastic social changes. Both types of changes are opposed to each other but a common point is that they hold the assumption of secularization. Some want the individual to subordinate his interests to those of the state. But Eliot does not agree with these people. Eliot does not complain about modern literature because it is immoral or even amoral but because it instigates people to try out every kind of experience and not to stay back or miss any. A Christian reader should add to the literary criticism followed by the rest of the world. He should, in addition, apply ethical and theological standards to it."

By: Amritbir Kaur




Personal Comment:

In the first paragraph of his essay, Eliot makes the point "it is more necessary for Christian readers to scrutinize their reading, especially of works of imagination, with explicit ethical and theological standards." His point here is that literary works cannot be left on their own terms to be judged solely by the moral standards of the day. He argued, "moral judgments of literary works are made only according to the moral code accepted by each generation...when the common code is detached from its theological background...it is exposed both to prejudice and to change." In other words, moral codes change from generation to generation. He goes on to elaborate that "I am concerned with what should be the relation between Religion and all Literature...What I want is a literature which should be unconsciously, rather than deliberately and defiantly, Christian". Anything less than this, Eliot asserts, leaves people with a false sense of security. The point is, "The author of a work of imagination is trying to affect us wholly, as human beings, whether he knows it or not; and we affected by it, as human beings".

Eliot argues that "Contemporary literature as a whole tends to be degrading". He feels that one guard against the dangers of much of the contemporary literature at our disposal is through an approach of wide-reading. "It is valuable because in the process of being affected by one powerful personality after another, we cease to be dominated by any one, or by a small number." Delving into the problem with contemporary literature more deeply, he surmises that "the liberal-minded...are convinced that if everybody says what he thinks, and does what he likes, things will somehow, by some automatic compensation and adjustment, come out right in the end...These liberals are convinced that only by what is called unrestrained individualism will truth ever emerge...Anyone who dissents from this view must be either a mediaevalist. wishful only to set back the clock, or else a fascist, and probably both."

Eliot believes that what sets modern day society apart from what has transpired in the past is that "There never was a time, I believe, when those who read at all, read so many more books by living authors than books by dead authors; there never was a time so completely parochial, so shut off from the past...it is more difficult today to be an individual than it ever was before." He sees a great vice prevalent in contemporary literature and society. He says, "the whole of modern literature is corrupted by what I call Secularism, that it is simply unaware of, simply cannot understand the meaning of, the primacy of the supernatural over natural life". 

Eliot says that readers today, particularly Christians, need to be acutely aware of two things - what they like, and what they 'ought' to like. "The two forms of self-consciousness, knowing what we are and what we ought to be, must go together..What I believe to incumbent upon all Christians is the duty of maintaining consciously certain standards and criteria of criticism over and above those applied by the rest of the world; and that by these criteria and standards everything that we read must be tested...the greater part of our current reading matter is written for us by people who have no real belief in a supernatural order...And a greater part of our reading matter is coming to be written by people who not only have no such belief, but are even ignorant of the fact that there are still people in the world so 'backward' or so 'eccentric' as to continue to believe." He feels that by applying Christian principles and standards to our literary choices (and I add in here musical, theatrical, tv and movies), we are in the advantageous position of being able to extract from it all what good it has to offer us. A great problem that a Christian should have with those who promote Secularism is, "they concern themselves only with changes of a temporal, material, and external nature; they concern themselves with morals only of a collective nature...but I think that we should all repudiate a morality which has no higher ideal to set before us than that." Secularism is a gospel of this world and of this world alone...It is simply that it repudiates, or is wholly ignoarant of, our most fundamental and important beliefs."

EssayLink:

Wednesday 4 July 2012

St. Peter and St. Paul,

Two great Apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, are commemorated together on June 29th. One, a simple fisherman, who became the rock on which Christ built His church. The other, educated, dedicated, and claimed personally by Jesus as an apostle. Two contrasts in style. At times, a clash in personalities and direction. Peter, who anchored the church through its early years. Paul, who stretched the limits of understanding to include his mission to the gentiles. Two men, whose lives were not always saintly, become saints of God through their unalterable faith, their determination to do God's will, and their willingness to sacrifice all in obedience to God the Father.


O Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle Saint Peter many excellent gifts, and commandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock; Make, we beseech thee, all Bishops and Pastors diligently to preach thy Holy Wors, and the people obediently to follow the same, that they may receive the crown of everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

O God, who through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world; Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his manifold labours in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.


ALL SAINTS

O God, we give Thee most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all Thy saints, who have been the choice vessels of Thy grace, and lights of the world in their several generations; most humbly beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow the example of their steadfastness,
that we, with all those who are of the mystical body of Thy Son, may be set on His right hand, Who reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Amen.






About the Icon
Saint Peter, on the left, is portrayed as an elderly man with white hair and beard, his inner garment is traditionally green and his outer garment is yellow or gold. Saint Paul, on the right; is portrayed with brown hair and beard; his inner garment is blue and his outer garment is purple. The saints embrace each other to denote their concord of love and faith in Jesus Christ.



Epistle: 2 Corinthians 11:21-12:9
Gospel: Matthew 10:13-19
 
"St. Peter traditionally is regarded as the leader of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus. He was intimately connected with the earthly life and ministry of our Lord, and after His death tried to preserve the spiritual legacy left by Jesus to him followers. In the course of his missionary journeys, Peter founded the Church in Antioch, where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. St. Peter is regarded by the Church as the first Bishop of Antioch, and the present-day Patriarch of Antioch is his successor in that Apostolic See.
St. Paul is the greatest of missionaries. The marvelous story of conversion on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:1-12) is hardly more striking than the rest of his life, one of the greatest adventure stories of history.
The account of Paul's missionary journeys and the letters he wrote to the Churches he founded form an important part of the New Testament. He traveled over vast areas of the Roman world, preaching Christ, and fashioning the Christians Faith for all time. He called himself an Apostle, and he was the greatest of them, even though he was not of the Twelve Disciples. St. Paul was martyred in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Nero, about 87 A.D."
 
Taken from The Icon Book by Boojamra, Essey, McLuckie, and Matusiak.
 
"Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome under Emperor Nero in the year 87. Peter was crucified, head down at his own request [so that he would not die in the same way as Christ], and because Paul was a Roman Citizen, he was beheaded. The Church unites them in a common celebration and gives them identical honor.
 
Peter, a brother of Andrew the First-Called, was from Bethsaida. They were the sons of Jonas, of the tribe of Simeon. They lived by the work of their hands. At the time when John the Baptist was in prison, Jesus came to the Lake of Genesarett, and finding Peter and Andrew mending their nets, He called them and they followed Him without hesitation. Peter preached the Gospel in Judea, founded the Church of Antioch and finally came to Rome.
 
Paul, a Pharisee, belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. He was born in Tarsus of Asia Minor. At first, he persecuted the Church with great zeal and violence, imprisoning and killing Christians. But Christ appeared to him on the way to Damascus and changed his heart. He was baptized in Damascus by Ananias. He was to become one of the greatest exponents of Christ's teachings, which he explained in letters or epistles."
 
Taken from Byzantine Daily Worship.

Information Link: http://www.theologic.com/oflweb/feasts/06-29.htm



THE MANY JOURNEYS OF ST. PAUL-APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES


ST. PAUL'S CALL TO CONVERSION and NEW LIFE AS A CHRISTIAN
Witnessed St. Stephen's martyrdomActs 8:1
Mission to arrest Christians ;for the SanhedrinActs 8:3
Conversion experience on the Road to DamascusActs 9:1-19
Paul preaches in DamascusActs 9:20-25
Spends 3 years in ArabiaGalatians 1:17-18
Returns to Damascus Galatians 1:17
Meets with the Apostles Peter, James (Bishop of Jerusalem) , and John in JerusalemActs 9:26-30; Galatians 1:17-19
Goes to Caesarea and from there home to TarsusActs 9:30; Galatians 1:21
Called by Barnabas to join him in Antioch, SyriaActs 11:26
Takes a famine relief contribution to JerusalemActs 11:30
Returns to Antioch, SyriaActs 12:25


ST. PAUL'S FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY:
Approximate dates: AD 45 - 49
Companions: Barnabas, John, Mark
Mission field: Cyprus and Asia Minor (Turkey)
Approximate miles traveled: 1,400 miles
Sent by church of Antioch, Syria
Mission to Cyprus by way of SeleuciaActs 13:4-12
Antioch in PisidiaActs 13:13-51
Iconium Acts 14:1-5
Lystra in LycaoniaActs 14:6-19
DerbeActs 14:20
Back through Lystra, Iconium and Antioch PisidiaActs 14:21-26
Return to home church at Antioch, Syria Acts 14:27-28
Council of JerusalemActs 15


ST. PAUL'S SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY:
Approximate dates: AD 50 - 52
Companions: Silas, Timothy, Priscilla and Aquila, Luke
Mission field: Syria, Turkey, Greece
Approximate miles traveled: 2,800 miles
Sent by church of Antioch, Syria
Syria and Cilicia (Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia was Paul's hometown)Acts 15:23
Derbe and Lystra in Lycaonia (Timothy's home)Acts 16:1-5
Phrygia and GalatiaActs 16:6
Mysia to TroasActs 16:10
Samothracis and NeapolisActs 16:1
Philippi in MacedoniaActs 16:12-40
Amphipolis and ApolloniaActs 17:1
ThessalonicaActs 17:1-9
Beroea (Berea)Acts 17:10-15
AthensActs 17:16-34
CorinthActs 18:1-18
Cenchrea (Cenchreae)Acts 18:18
EphesusActs 18:19-21
CaesareaActs 18:22
Antioch, SyriaActs 18:23
JerusalemActs 18:23


ST. PAUL'S THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY
Approximate dates: AD 53 - 58
Companions: Timothy, Luke, and other disciples
Mission field: Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Judea-Samaria-Galilee
Approximate miles traveled 2,700 miles
Sent by church of Antioch, Syria
Galatia and PhrygiaActs 18:23
EphesusActs 19:1-20; 23-40
MacedoniaActs 19:21; 20:1
Greece (Achaia)20:2-3
Macedonia, Philippi, and TroasActs 20:3-12
Assos, Mitylene; near Chios, Samos, Trogyllium, MiletusActs 20:13-38
Cos, Rhodes, PataraActs 21:1-2
Tyre and PtolemaisActs 21:3-7
CaesareaActs 21:8-16
JerusalemActs 21:17-23:22
Caesarea (imprisoned 2 years)Acts 23:23-26:32


ST. PAUL'S FOURTH JOURNEY TO ROME
Approximate date: AD 60/61
Companions: Luke, Roman guards, others
By way of Lebanon, Turkey, Crete, Malta, Sicily, Rome
Approximate miles traveled: 2,250 miles
Sent by Roman Governor Festus
CaesareaActs 27:1-3
Sidon, Myra, CnidusActs 27:4-7
Fair Havens (Crete)Acts 27:8
Clauda (Cauda)Acts 27:16
Malta (Melita)Acts 28:1-10
Syracuse, Rhegium, PuteoliActs 28:11-13
Forum of Appius and Three TavernsActs 28:15
RomeActs 28:16



Site Link: http://www.agapebiblestudy.com/charts/St.%20Paul's%20Missionary%20Journeys.htm



Map Link: Google Images


'Oldest' image of St Paul discovered

Archaeologists have uncovered a 1,600 year old image of St Paul, the oldest one known of, in a Roman catacomb.



Image Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/5675461/Oldest-image-of-St-Paul-discovered.html




The Basilica of Saint Peter in Chains, Rome.



Site Link: http://www.piercedhearts.org/treasures/holy_sites/st_peter_in_chains.htm


"This Basilica is one of the “tituli,” one of a set number of Early Christian churches built round the edges of the city of Rome. It is known as the Titulus Eudoxiae o la Eudoxiana. It was constructed over the ruins of the imperial villa in the year 442 AD in order to serve as a home for the chains that bound St. Peter in the Jerusalem prison (Acts of Apostles, chapter 5 and 12). The priest Philip constructed the Church with the help of Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Valentinian III."






History

"The basilica was first built in the middle of the 5th century to house the relic of the chains that bound Saint Peter while imprisoned in  Jerusalem, given to Pope Leo I by Empress Eudoxia (wife of Emperor Valentinian III).

According to legend, when the pope held them next to the chains from of Peter's first imprisonment in the Mamertine Prison in Rome, the two chains miraculously fused together."