Simple Catholicism
C.S. Lewis
To Know the Lord
In recent Sundays we have heard about the covenant: How God – by his initiative – establishes a relationship with human beings. We learned about the covenant with Noah after the great flood – when God made a new beginning. Jewish scholars call this the “Noahide Covenant.” It has certain norms that apply to all human beings: setting up law courts, repect for marriage and human life – and the prohibition of idolatry.
After many generations God made a specific covenant with Abraham – who is the father of the Jewish people. That covenant has laws which God spelled out in detail through Moses. Those laws guided the Jews in their relation to God and to others.
Today, in our first reading, we hear about a further covenant – a “new covenant.” The prophet Jeremiah says God will place his law within us. The new covenant is not a new law. Rather, God by his Spirit helps us interiorize his ancient eternal law. He will write that law upon our hearts. Then, He says, “All shall know me.”
All shall know me. How does that happen? How do we know the Lord? Not only know about him, but actually know him?
We have a cue in this Sunday’s Gospel. It begins with some Greeks who approach the Apostle Philip with this request, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” To see Jesus, that is the key to knowing God. To see Jesus is to enter the “new covenant.”
Before talking about what it means to see Jesus, I would like to say something about these “Greeks” who wanted to see Him. They had “come to Jerusalem to worship at Passover time.” They were not necessarily people from what we today call the country of Greece. In Jesus time, “Greek” applied to the people who spoke that language – and Greek had become the common language of the Roman Empire and beyond. Some of those “Greeks” had adopted partial or full Judaism. And many first century Jews lived outside of Palestine and had immersed themselves in Hellenistic culture to the point that their first (or only) language was Greek. The Jews of Palestine refered to them as “Hellenists” or simply “Greeks.” These two groups (Greek converts to Judaism and Hellenized Jews) were large.
So, the “Greeks” were a broad group. A few from this vast number wanted to see Jesus, to know him. How would they do it? We see the steps in today’s readings.
First, of course, someone has to introduce them to Jesus – in this case the Apostle Philip, together with Andrew. It is not an accident that they both have Greek names. (Philip means “friend of horses” and Andrew simply means “man.) The important thing about them, however, is not their names, but that they are Apostles. They represent the Church. We need to be introduced to Jesus – and that happens through the Church, particularly by the sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.
Along with that initiation (or introduction) comes repentance. Jesus says the grain has to fall to the ground and die in order to produce any fruit. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “love, as mortals understand the word, isn’t enough. Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.”1
We must repent – die to sin – if we are to know the Lord. Jeremiah tells us that we will know the Lord because he will forgive our evildoing and remember our sins no more. When we see the Lord – and not our own reflection in a mirror – we become aware of our sins. And we open ourselves to his mercy. As we say in the Psalm, “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.”
So, repentance and initiation. Then we begin the exhilarating work of daily prayer: conversation with God. Prayer, of course, does not happen by our own power. God has to lift our minds and hearts to him. Prayer is God’s work in us. There are, however, certain things that facilitate prayer.
Regarding prayer, I recently read an interview2 with Fr. Liam Cary – the new bishop of Eastern Oregon. Bishop Cary emphasized having a place for prayer. He admitted that sometimes people grab a cup of coffee and sit on the porch in an easy chair. “You can do it,” Bishop Cary said, but he added, “one should be more careful and attentive to the details of prayer.” He told how a sacred image can help: “when you have holy images,” he said, “you have someone looking back at you, as it were, you’re conscious of being seen.” Bishop Cary encouraged people to use the Book of Psalms, maybe reading three psalms in the course of a day. Finally, he underlined the importance posture: moments when a person sits, stands or kneels. I quote:
“Then, for example take the prayer of the monks or the sisters, you begin standing up and then you kneel, and then sit down for awhile. You kneel while you pray the psalms, sit down when you read a little bit of scripture, stand up for certain parts of the office. Bow down, bow your head like the Muslims; I think the first thing they do in the morning is to bow their head to the ground as a sign of worship.”
From what Bishop Cary says about prayer, we take home three things. They begin with the letter “P”: place, a space that has some sacred image, psalms that provide inspired models for prayer and finally posture: kneel, stand, sit and bow. Place, psalms and posture can help us know the Lord.
To sum up: To know the Lord – to experience his new convenant – requires introduction, initiation, repentence and prayer. A sacred place, the psalms and the use of posture can help us pray – to see Jesus, to know the Lord. Amen.
1 – From The Great Divorce. The dialogue between Lewis and McDonald continues:
“Ah, but it’s cruel not to say it. They that know have grown afraid to speak. That is why sorrows that used to purify now only fester.”
“Keats was wrong, then, when he said he was certain of the holiness of the heart’s affections.”
“I doubt if he knew clearly what he meant. But you and I must be clear. There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It’s not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels. The false religion of lust is baser than the false religion of mother-love or patriotism or art: but lust is less likely to be made into a religion.”
2 – Here is an extended quote from the interview:
The first thing is to give time to prayer, regular time. Not necessarily hours and hours but regular time; morning, evening, especially in the middle of the day, the time has to be there everyday.
Then, as I said centering on the Eucharist. If possible go to Mass everyday, if not than try to go to Eucharistic adoration.
As for the form of prayer, I would recommend to people to get used to the Psalms. Because that is the prayer of the Church. Of course if you become a religious or a priest then that is the prayer that you will pray.
I found for myself, when I was thinking about being a priest, a way that I just stumbled upon, of praying the psalms; I would say three in the morning the next three in the evening and three more the next morning and three that evening again. This way I said three Psalms each day.
That was very, very helpful for a number of reasons. It quickly became very easy to do, and I liked it. I liked that form; it had a beginning, middle, and an end, so I knew when I had completed my prayer. I had a sense of completion and that’s important. Prayer shouldn’t just be this open-ended thing where I’ve got to go on for however long. It’s similar to the Mass; it has a beginning, middle and an end.
The thing about the psalms is that you get to learn about the scriptures. You’ll find that in some of them you don’t understand what’s being said, but that’s alright. You just learn it, incorporate it, and gradually you get to know about things.
You notice that various things turn over and over in the psalms and it can widen out your spirit, because maybe you’re not accustomed, for example, to prayers of praise. Maybe all you’ve ever done is ask for things, which is alright, but you learn there is more to praying than that, simply by going through the psalms. You can go through the whole book of psalms and then go back through them again.
You’ll begin to at home with the scriptures; these prayers are at the heart of the Church. You can be sure that this is good material for prayer, where as there is other material for prayer that could be questionable. However this is unquestionable solid ground for prayer.
Then, I think, the form of the body of prayer is important. You can take the church building as a model of how to pray, there are images, it has center. The space is focused on what is most important, the altar and the Tabernacle. You have the crucifix, the holy images of Mary and the Saints. So should our place, our house, of prayer be. The task is to build a house of prayer.
You should take care to arrange that space, so that when you come into it, it doesn’t take you long to enter into prayer. Because that space is where you pray. The other thing is that when you have holy images you have someone looking back at you, as it were, you’re conscious of being seen. That’s very important because we are seen.
Some people talk about praying as getting up in the morning and taking a cup of coffee and sitting in the easy chair on the porch. You can do it, however I think one should be more careful and attentive to the details of prayer.
Then, for example take the prayer of the monks or the sisters, you begin standing up and then you kneel, and then sit down for awhile. You kneel while you pray the psalms, sit down when you read a little bit of scripture, stand up for certain parts of the office. Bow down, bow your head like the Muslims; I think the first thing they do in the morning is to bow their head to the ground as a sign of worship.”
Two Steps to Glory
In today’s Gospel we hear about the Transfiguration – that moment when Peter, James and John glimpsed Jesus’ glory. Something similar applies to us. We have within ourselves a certain glory – not absolute, of course, but potential. C.S. Lewis expresses it this way:
“It is a serious thing,” says Lewis, “to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.”
The question is: How do we avoid becoming an everlasting horror? How do we become an everlasting splendor? How do we realize our true potential – the glory that is within each of us?1
There are two steps. The first is by following the covenant. Last Sunday we heard about the covenant with Noah (and this Sunday we hear about the even deeper one with Abraham). In the covenant with Noah, God made a new beginning for the human race. That covenant has certain commandments – certain ways of behaving that enable a person to realize his potential: respect human life, respect the good of others, respect marriage, give first place to God. These represent basic precepts of the covenant. The prophet Micah summed up the covenant with these words: “He (God) has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8)
Justice, kindness, humility – those basic virtue enable us to realize our potential.
That is the first step, but there is something else, a second step – something we have to face about ourselves: No matter how hard we try, we fall short. We might be basically truthful, but we sometimes fudge, we equivocate, we cover up. We all – I hope – reverence marriage, but who has not committed what Jesus calls “adultery in the heart”? I could multiply examples, but you know what I mean. We each have a potential for truth, goodness, beauty and justice, but we fall short. We need outside help.
Let me make a comparison to illustrate the second step: Once a man bought a new suit of clothes. With his tie and white shirt, he looked great. In fact, he noticed how he shone in relation to others. He held his head so high that he didn’t see an edge in the pavement. He fell – straight into a puddle. Fearing that people would laugh at him, he did not want to get up. But instead of laughter, there came a hand. The man felt reluctant to extend his own muddy, bleeding hand, but he did. As that strong hand lifted him up, he felt a gratitude, a peace, a joy he had never experienced before.
So it is with us. We must do everything we can to realize our potential, whom God made us to be. But sooner or later – for some us much sooner than later – we come to a point where we cannot do it ourselves. That’s why, after his Transfiguration, Jesus immediately speaks of his humiliation – his suffering and death at the hands of cruel men. You see, we realize our true glory only by joining ourselves with Jesus’ humility. In the end there is no other path to the resurrection.
To sum up: Each of us has within a glory, not an absolute glory, but the potential for glory.2 We realize that potential by taking two steps – first, following the commandments and second, facing that we need outside help. That only through the passion of Jesus can we realize our glorious potential – the resurrection. Amen.
1- Regarding human potential, in his Ten Universal Principals Fr. Robert Spitzer has a thought provoking appendix titled “Evidence of the Transmateriality of Human Beings.” Here is his opening statement: “Human beings have an awareness of and desire for five Transcendentals: perfect and unconditional Truth, Love, Goodness (Justice), Beauty and Being (Home). The following is a brief explication of this assertion, which explains why human consciousness is distinct from animal consciousness, why humans have creative capacity beyond present rules, algorithms and program (Godel’s proof) and why human beings have a natural propensity toward the spiritual and transcendental.”
I highly recommend not only the appendix, but the entire book. Fr. Spitzer writes very lucidly and this book will richly repay a careful reading.
2- Sometimes people shy from talk about human potential because it seems like a put-down of animals. It is not. I love my dog for his innocence, his exuberance, his sincerity and his amazing acceptance of me and other very flawed creatures. But I can only go so far with him. Once I showed Samwise a picture of him as a puppy hoping to reminisce about those days. The results were disappointing. He barely glanced at the picture, but instead began sniffing it. As much as I love Sam, I have to recognize that between him and me there exists what Chesterton calls a “division and disproportion.” Continue reading
The Rapture
When the trumpet sounds, those “left behind,” that is, those still alive will have no advantage over those who have died. We will be raptured: taken up and transformed. At that moment, what matters is that the Lord’s fire burns within us. By prayer and Holy Communion we have our lamps filled and burning when the Lord returns.
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“God is Love”
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“Old Celibates have nothing (worthwhile) to say about sex.”
Misleading Slogan #6 “Old Celibates have nothing (worthwhile) to say about sex.” Part of the pleasure of doing something “shocking” is imagining the reaction of your maiden aunt if she new about it. “Think about what old aunt Sarah would say if she walked into the room right now.” Folks like to picture us old … Continue reading
Father Bloom
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