Enlarge My Heart! Psalm 119:32

“I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart” [Psalm 119:32 ESV]! St. Teresa of Avila quotes this psalm in Latin, noting the need for our hearts to be enlarged, [viam mandatorum tuorum cucurri cum dilatasti cor meum” [Psalm 118:32 VUL].

In his Prologue to the Rule St. Benedict says, “As we advance in the religious life and faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love.”

It is love that expands the heart, love in all its fullness.  Not sweet sentimentality, but love that expresses itself, to use an old out of fashion word, as charity, or caritas.  That love is an active, rather than a sentimental love reaching out to others with the compassion and truth of Jesus Christ who is incarnate in our hearts.  One of the marks of that love is commitment, a commitment to action, not passivity.

Parents, at least good parents, experience the expansion of the heart in their commitment and care for their children.  That love often bears with it a stretching that comes from the demands of a little child for comfort and care at times that are not always convenient.  Love takes you out of yourself. Sometimes, like Mary our adopted Mother, love pierces our hearts in painful ways.

The love that expands the hearts bears with it a certain holy detachment; one cannot love effectively if one is in turmoil over attempts to control the object of one’s love.  Love does not seek control.  When control comes in the door, love goes out the window.

The four loves, affection [love’s basic building block], brotherly love [and friendship], eros [as a desire for intimacy] and agapé [the flame of charity] are only manifest within us as Christ Himself is incarnate in our human hearts.  That is to say, He is the Source of the love within us, and not we ourselves.

One implication of the incarnation of love within us is that our human hearts are manifestly imperfect, and as a result all of our loving, a holy as the source is, is nonetheless imperfect.  It cannot be otherwise.  That is why all lovers should be very humble, knowing that even the love that expands our hearts is coloured by the shadows of our human reality.  Just because we love, doesn’t mean that we are always right, or timely, in our loving; or that our love is in any way invincible. 

That is why, in speaking of the enlargement of the heart, the Psalmist confesses that he does not yet run the way of God’s commandments.  He says, “I will run the way of your commandments, when you enlarge my heart.”  The running in the way of His commandments is yet in the future.

Living in the Habitation of Dragons

There are several verses in Scripture regarding dragons that create a problem for translators. The Hebrew word for dragon is “tan-neen.” The problem is that translators are too enlightened to believe in dragons so they have to find more acceptable ways of translating the Hebrew word “tan-neen.” One of these verses is in Psalm 44:19. The Book of Common Prayer translation paraphrases the text as “Though you thrust us down into a place of misery, and covered us over with deep darkness.” Here “tan-neen” is paraphrased as “misery.” In a similar text in Isaiah 34:13 the New Revised Standard Version others translate the word as “jackals.”

The King James Version translates the word “tan-neen” as follows: “And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.”  The message of the various Old Testament texts is that the world we live in is a “habitation of tan-neen”, or to put it quite simply, a habitation of dragons. But what does that mean?

The translators have a harder time re-interpreting the New Testament Greek word, “drakon” as anything other than “dragon.” One primary text where the word “dragon” occurs is in Revelation 12:1-12 where the devil is depicted as a fiery red dragon who is cast down from heaven to earth by Michael and his angels. The Book of Revelation goes on to add, “woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

That is indeed the problem! Humankind tends to operate on the assumption that we live out our lives in a neutral zone where most of our spiritual struggles are with ourselves or with other people.

In reality the place where we live is a habitation of dragons, and in specific, one most unhappy dragon, the devil. This particular dragon has discovered to his chagrin that he is not as lofty, as beautiful, or as powerful as God. Not only that, but he has discovered, to his great wrath, that his time is short. In his wrath the dragon has resolved to rob everybody of the life, joy and vitality that he has lost himself when he was cast from heaven by Michael and the angels of God.

What does this mean in practice to the average Christian? Some limitations of the dragon's ability need to be acknowledged; Unlike God, he is not Omniscient, Omnipotent, or Omnipresent. In plain language, he is a created being; he doesn't know everything, he isn't all-powerful, nor is he present everywhere.

Unfortunately for us the passage in Revelation tells us that when he was cast to earth in great wrath he took his “angels” with him. The New Testament refers to these entities as “devils,” “demons,” or as “unclean spirits.” What it means is that we play out our moral and spiritual struggles on an uneven playing field where unseen malicious enemies are doing their very best to make us as unhappy as they are. The old saying, “misery loves company” is remarkably true in this regard.

That doesn't mean that we can say, “the devil made me do it.” It is not as simple as that. While it is clear that the Tempter successfully tempted Eve, and unsuccessfully tempted Jesus, James 1:14 testifies that “each person is lured and enticed by his own desire.” The devil and his companions don't bother wasting time tempting us where we have no vulnerability. St. Anthony, one of the founders of desert monasticism, pointed out that wherever we have a weakness, “there the devils love to leap.” Obviously that means that we need to pay attention to those weaknesses that leave an open door for temptation.

The result is that we do not have the luxury of operating without regard to the unnatural hazards of the spiritual terrain in which we live our lives. Neither, we, nor our children live in neutral world.  We actually live in the habitation of dragons. 

St. Paul says, “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” On the other hand, living in paranoia and fear only serves the dragon and his fallen angels. James 4:7b also says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” John the Apostle adds, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4). 

Another way of putting it is in the modern proverb, “To be forewarned is to be fore-armed.” In Texas terms, if you are walking through a field with vipers in it, wear a good pair of cowboy boots. Watch where you are walking and keep your guard up

Be Radiant! An Exercise in Lectio Divina

“Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed.” (Psalm 34:5 RSV)

Lectio Divina is Latin for Divine Reading.  Lectio Divina enters us into dialogue with the Author of the Word. The four steps of Lectio Divina; Read, Reflect, Respond and Rest, bring us into the Presence of the God who loves us.  Read the text over meditatively several times.  Reflect on the meaning of the text.  Respond in prayer on the basis of the text.  Rest in the Presence of God.

           

One of the fruits of Lectio Divina is deification.  To Western ears that sounds misleading. In the Western Church we would use the word sanctification. St. Peter says, “Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become  participants of the divine nature” [2 Peter 1:4 NRS].

 Paul speaks of the same thing when he says, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV). 

The words “are being transformed” translate the Greek word for metamorphosis.  The transformation is in process now as we behold the glory of the Lord in Lectio Divina.  As we gaze upon the Lord in his self-revelation in Holy Scripture we receive into ourselves His likeness. 

Like Moses on Mount Sinai we look to Him and become radiant (Exodus 34:29-35).

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

St. Gregory Palamas would remind us that in beholding, not the essence of God, but the radiance of God, we ourselves enter into deification and take on that same radiance. 

It is the radiance of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.  “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (Matthew 17:1, 2).  In Lectio we kneel at the feet of the radiant Christ whom we adore.  

St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “We receive into ourselves the likeness of whatever we look upon.”  This is true both of evil and good.  In the present context, as we gaze in Lectio at the radiance of Christ, we receive that radiance into ourselves and are transformed.  “Look to him and be radiant.  So your faces shall never be ashamed.”

In all of this one thing must be carefully identified.  Do not seek the radiance for the sake of being radiant.  Seek rather that radiance in order to be like Him who loves us; He who is the express image, the outraying, the effulgence of the Father’s glory.  He alone is to be worshipped and adored, for own His sake, and for no other reason.  “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36 ESV).                           

Read      Reflect      Respond     Rest

 ~ Dom Anselm +

St. John of the Cross: Songs of the Soul in Rapture

St. John of the Cross[i] lived in the latter half of the 16th century. As a friend and confessor of St. Teresa of Avila he was arrested and imprisoned in the Carmelite Friary in Toledo where he was treated with incredible cruelty.  In his imprisonment he composed a number of poems which have become classics in contemplative theology. His poetry shows the influence both of secular love poetry and the Song of Songs.  “A nun asked him whether God ‘gave him these words which were so comprehensive and so lovely.’ John replied: ‘Sometimes God gave them and at other times I sought them.’”[ii] 

He speaks of the dark night of the soul and his search for God:

Et una noche oscura,                                      

Con ansias en amores inflamada,                   

ļOh dichosa ventura!                                      

Salí sin sera notada,                                       

Estando ya mi casa sosegada.                                    

Upon a gloomy night

With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,

(O venture of delight!)

With nobody in sight

I went abroad when all my house was hushed.

            The dark night is not gloomy in the normal sense.  The dark night is not a place of depression or accidie.[iii]  This darkness is expressed in Psalm 88 where the psalmist confesses that he is a man who has no strength; that he is shut in so that he cannot escape, and the precious knowledge that he is actually helpless.[iv] 

            It is precious knowledge because the discovery of the reality of the dark night of the soul is the discovery that we are helpless and that we can do nothing without grace.  That is only terrifying to the soul before the acceptance of helplessness.  After that surrender there is only relief, the relief that is in itself a birth of joy.  It is only there that we find all our yearnings inflamed to loving ardour;   that is indeed an adventure of delight.   

            It is important to note that there is nobody else in sight.  The time and occasion provided by solitude is the necessary bedrock for divine intimacy; but just because solitude can be a doorway into the presence of God doesn’t mean that intimacy with God is automatic.  Many people live in soul destroying isolation from others and they are alone and lonely.  Padre Fray Juan goes forth to seek the One Who loves Him in the silence of his house; that is to say that he has quieted himself like a weaned child quieted on his mother’s lap;[v] “Hush, my soul, be quiet.  Put your trust in the God of love.”

O oscuras, y sergura,                                      

Por las secreta escala disfrazada,                   

ļOh dichosa ventura!                                      

A oscuras, y en celada,                                  

Estando ya mi casa sosegada.                        

In safety, in disguise,

In darkness up the secret stair I crept,

(O happy enterprise)

Concealed from other eyes

When all my house at length in silence slept.

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[i] St John of the Cross: The Poems, Translated from the Spanish by Roy Campbell, Introduction by P. J. Kavanagh, (London: The Harvill Press, 2000), p. 25-27.

[ii] Ibid. p. 13

[iii] To us today accidie appears as depression and its resulting sluggishness. 

[iv] Psalm 88:4, 8, 15 (ESV)

[v] Psalm 131

UNDER THE LILY PAD

We have a unique perspective on life.  We are like the little green frog who views things from under the lily pad.  He sees a shadow pass overhead but doesn’t understand what it is.  If he were to climb up on the lily pad he might see that the shadow was actually a lark flying overhead.  His world is in fact a small pond lying cupped in a meadow and no matter how hard he tries he will never see over the surrounding hills.  Our God’s perspective is entirely different.  From far above the old eternal hills He sees the universe, the world, the meadow, the pond and the little frog under the lily pad.

From the perspective of eternity the tapestry of our lives shimmers with a glory and beauty known now only to God, but eventually also to us when we see Him face to face.  The Psalmist gives voice to our confusion and the cries of our heart when he sings:

“Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.”[i]

From our perspective, life gets very complicated!  Often the feeling is that one trouble calls another on.  We even say that disasters come in threes.  There is no biblical justification for this glum assessment, just the fears of our anxious hearts and an arbitrary linking of events together in ways that seem to justify the saying.  Reality is both harder and easier.  From one perspective, life is a series of crises with resting places in between.

The Psalmist doesn’t leave it there, but goes on to say:

“By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”[ii]

It is in the presence of the Lord of Life that we will find the storms of life dispelled.  The steadfast love of the Lord presses upon us bidding us to open our hearts and receive His comfort.  He is our Rock, our Fortress, our Hiding Place, our Shelter in the midst of the storm.  But He is more than that.  He is the God who stands ready to redeem the effects of the storm.  He says, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.”[iii] He is the Redeemer!

Again He says” “I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”[iv] When it feels like the breakers and waves of life’s storm are crashing over you, put your trust in the Lord whose perspective is eternal, who redeems not only the past, but the present and the future as well, whose plans for us are plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give us a future and a hope.

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[i] Psalm 42:7

[ii] Psalm 42:8

[iii] Joel 2:25

[iv] Jeremiah 29:11  

The Hunter and the Farmer at Prayer

My mind is like a skipping stone

Skimming across the surface of a pond.

Deliver me from the deep waters, O Lord.

      Not everybody has that experience at Prayer. I am a Hunter, that is my orientation. Farmers have another problem; for them slow and steady wins the race. They see the end of the furrow and enjoy the prospect of dinner, but can miss the rabbit that runs by, and have trouble seeing the lofty mountains beyond.

      Some studies on people with a so-called Attention Deficit Disorder are pointing away from a negative diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder to a deeper underlying reality.  I object to the ADD diagnosis and suspect that is must be a Farmer’s way of understanding Hunters. Farmers are prone to Vision Deficit Fixation, VDF.

      Put the Farmer and the Hunter plowing in the field, or at Prayer, and you have two different styles and results.  The Farmer ploughs a straight furrow with his eye on the goal. His course is steadfast as he plods along. The Hunter ploughs a crooked furrow because he is highly distractable, but he also capable of great concentration when the hunt is on.

      At the simplest level the Hunter constantly monitors the environment and is ever ready for a new chase to begin. When the rabbit crosses his trail he drops the plow, chases the rabbit, catches it, kills it, skins is, cooks it, eats it, and sits under a tree with his new rabbit skin mocassins and has a nap. The Farmer is not easily distracted from the immediate task at hand. He doesn’t see the rabbit and sits barefoot having vegetables for dinner; that is, unless the Hunter brings him some rabbit stew and a new pair of rabbit fur slippers.

      That brings us to the very first pair of brothers in the Scripture.  Cain is a Farmer, slow and steady wins the race.  Abel is a Nomad/ Shepherd, a Hunter who follows the flocks and constantly monitors the environment for dangers.  The danger that he fails to recognize is the jealousy and resentment of his brother, Cain.  These dynamics occur many times in Scripture and come to light in the followers of Jesus. 

      Mary and Martha are a clear example.  Martha has her mind fixed on the mundane task at hand and plods through her preparation as a hostess, while her Hunter-type sister has dropped the dishes and is mesmerized by Jesus and his teaching in much the same fashion as the Hunter would drop the plow and go and chase a rabbit.  Both the Cain and Abel story, and the Mary and Martha story are written with an appreciation of the Hunter type and a caution given to the Farmer type.  On the other hand we need to recognize that when the crisis of death of Lazarus hits the family of Mary and Martha, it is Martha who rushes to meet Jesus on the road with a clear statement of her faith.  Mary is so overwhelmed by her grief that she remains in the house waiting for the call from Jesus. 

      A simple overview of the Apostolic band uncovers obvious Hunters like Peter, and Farmers like his brother Andrew who is marked by a quieter and steadier approach to life.  What binds them all together is the person of Jesus.  He is the only thing that some of them have in common. 

      Jesus himself is an interesting study.  For the first thirty years of his life he lives as a farmer type methodically following the family business of carpentry.  It takes much more patience to finish a piece of carpentry than most Hunters possess. On the other hand, at the age of thirty, like a true Hunter he drops everything and becomes an itinerant preacher wandering from village to village preaching the good news of the Kingdom and healing the sick. 

      Jesus combines in himself the perfect balance of Hunter and Farmer.  He is the complete man who attracts them both drawing the impetuous Hunter Peter into a deeper steadiness in following him, and challenging the less adventuresome Andrew to go out and preach and perform miracles.  For the love of Jesus they both rise to the challenge.  For the love of Jesus those who are Hunters within the Church and those who are Farmers are called to honor and respect each other, to complement each other, and to grow in grace in his image.

      No one is 100% Hunter or 100% Farmer, but all of us are bent one way or the other. God made Hunters and Farmers for mutual support; that way the Hunter gets to have a balanced meal and sleep in the farm house that the Farmer built. The challenge for both the Hunter and the Farmer at Prayer is for each to learn from the other.

      I suspect that  St. Diadochus of Photiki is addressing the Hunter when he says,

If we fervently desire holiness, the Holy Spirit at the outset gives the soul a full conscious taste of God’s sweetness, so that the intellect will know exactly of what the final reward of spiritual life consists.  But later he often conceals this precious and life-creating gift. 

He does this so that, even if we acquire other virtues, we should still regard ourselves as nothing because we have not acquired divine love in a lasting form . . .

It is therefore necessary to work upon the soul forcefully for a while, so that we may come to taste divine love fully and consciously . . .

Those who have advanced to perfection are able to taste this love continually, but no one can experience it completely until ‘what is mortal in us is swallowed up by life.” (2 Cor. 2:4) [i]

      The strength of the Hunter is that he is easily brought into the hunt for the Presence of God, but in order to turn the chase into an abiding experience he must learn the attributes of the Farmer and “work upon the soul forcefully for a while,” instead of falling asleep under the tree. The challenge for the Farmer is that he must stretch beyond the methods which dominate his approach and raise his eyes to the distant mountains. Very often it is the Hunter who shares the vision that enflames the heart of the Farmer, and it is the Farmer who shows the way of making that vision an abiding experience. Both sides are needed.

            That is why St. Benedict gives the following instruction for the Farmer and the Hunter alike, “We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that "the eyes of the Lord are looking on the good and the evil in every place" (Prov. 15:3).[ii] The Divine Presence is everywhere, in the fields and in the mountains beyond. The Presence of God is with the Farmer ploughing in the field and with the Hunter in the chase.

We have to remember Whom we seek. “When we wish to suggest our wants to persons of high station, we do not presume to do so except with humility and reverence. How much the more, then, are complete humility and pure devotion necessary in supplication of the Lord who is God of the universe!”[iii]  However remember that the chief end of Prayer is not the Prayers, nor the Intercessions, nor the Liturgies, but God Himself. St. Benedict goes on to say, “Let us therefore consider how we ought to conduct ourselves in sight of the Godhead and of His Angels, and let us take part in the psalmody in such a way that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.[iv] “Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed.”[v]

To both Hunter and Farmer he says, “Our prayer, therefore, ought to be short and pure, unless it happens to be prolonged by an inspiration of divine grace. In community, however, let prayer be very short, and when the Superior gives the signal let all rise together.”[vi] In this there is an affirmation of the chase that is so dear to the heart of the Hunter, but there is also a caution not to extend that chase artificially. There is also an affirmation of the methodical nature of the Farmer, but the Farmer must bear in mind that the Vision of God is the goal. We are nevertheless to pray in community, in concert with one another, and to do so in a disciplined way. The end goal for both the Farmer and the Hunter is that they learn from each other and grow towards a place of balance in their experience of Prayer.

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[i] Philokalia, Vol. 1, pg. 289

[ii] The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 19  ‘On the Manner of Saying the Divine Office’

[iii] The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 20  On Reverence in Prayer

[iv] RB, Ch. 19

[v] Psalm 34:5

[vi] RB, Ch. 20

The Order of the Co-Inherence

Charles Williams, from The Descent of the Dove:

"At the beginning of life in the natural order is an act of substitution and co-inherence.  A man can have no child unless his seed is received and carried by a woman; a woman can have no child unless she receive and carries the seed of a man – literally bearing the burden.  It is not only a mutual act; it is a mutual act of substitution.  The child itself for nine months co-inheres in its mother; there is no human creature that has not sprung from such a period of an interior growth."[1]

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,  and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."  And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"  And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy- the Son of God.  And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God."  And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. [2]

Had he willed, he could presumably have raised for his Incarnation a body in some other way than he chose.  But he preferred to shape himself within the womb, to become hereditary, to own to humanity the flesh that he divinitized by the same principle – “not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God.”  By an act of substitution he reconciled the natural world of the kingdom of heaven, sensuality with substance.  He restored substitution and co-inherence everywhere; up and down the ladder of that great substitution all our lesser substitutions run; within that sublime do-inherence all our lesser co-inherences inhere.[3]

It is the manner of childbirth.  It is the image everywhere of supernatural charity.”  It is also the bedrock of intercessory prayer when in a very real way, like Moses of old, we stand in the breach for others, “Therefore he said he would destroy them- had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them”[4]  thus fulfilling the divine command, “Bear one another’s burdens.”[5]

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[1] Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove, (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1939), p. 234

[2] Luke 1:31-39

[3] Williams, p. 235

[4] Ps. 106:23

[5] Galatians 6:2