BATTLE

One of my favorite scenes in the film Michael is when John Travolta, playing the quirky but lovable archangel Michael, goes literally head to head with a bull. "Battle" he cries out as he confronts his foe much to the horror of those accompanying him. He of course ignores their warnings and runs into the bull and defeating him. 

Today is the Feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael,  the three Archangels whose names come to us through the scriptures.  Michael is probably the most well known, probably because he does battle for the Lord, the most famous being the battle with Satan that we heard in today's reading from the book of Revelation.  He is the patron saint of police officers, soldiers and basically anyone who is called upon to protect humanity.  He is also the patron saint of bakers which stumps me but perhaps someone out there knows the reason why.

People have always been fascinated with angels, those heavenly creatures created by God to serve Him and to serve humanity. I learned in elementary school there are nine choirs of angels listed from the lowest to the highest.: Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim. Some of the angels are sent to earth to keep to guard us, to protect us, and to serve as God's messengers.  The higher choirs serve God alone. But angels have also been "transformed" in recent years into kinds of "new age" energy forces that often keep God out of the picture. We have to be reminded that angels have no power on their own aside from what has been allowed by God. And, like all power, it can be used for evil as well as for good. Remember Satan and his minions were once heavenly angels who rejected God and work constantly to turn humanity against Him.  But we must also remember that we have the protection of St. Michael and the other angels.  We should call upon them every day to be with us in our battle against the forces of evil.

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

The Assumption

window at St. Mary's, Manhasset

I have always found the Solemnity of the Assumption to be a great feast, but it seems that, at least over the past few decades, it has sort of faded into the woodwork,  along with many other great feasts and devotions.  Here in the states, because it falls on a Monday, the obligation to attend Mass is abrogated.  That means that most people won't go to Mass to honor Our Lady and celebrate this unique and beautiful feast, and that is a shame.  While I do have a bit of difficulty in my personal relationship with Our Lady, I do know that she cares very much for me even though I don't give her the attention that I should, but I am working on it.  Even so, when I pray the Rosary (which I do every day) and celebrate feasts like this one, I am reminded that we are called to imitate her in her fiat and in her obedience to the Father.

The readings for today's liturgy are wonderful.  I especially like Luke's Gospel of the Visitation. I used this Gospel in a talk I gave about our Blessed Mother twenty years ago. In it I echoed Elizabeth's question, "How does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" Yes, she does come to me, and to each and every one of her children who ask for her protection and her intercession.  Today this Gospel reminded me of that,

I thought for today's feast, I would share John Michael Talbot's version of Mary's Magnificat. It is a beautiful rendition and one that I love to sing and to meditate upon.  

Feasts, Feathers, and Tom

Today is the memorial of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.  Kateri was a Mohawk Indian born near Auriesville, NY in 1656.  She became a Catholic at the age of 20, relocated to Canada, and devoted herself to prayer and the Eucharist. She died at the age of 24 in 1680.  She was the first Native American to be declared Blessed and has been called "the Lily of the Mohawks."

History has painted a pretty awful picture of Native Americans. While I do not deny that there was much violence against European settlers, and especially against priests and religious, it is also true that these were a very spiritual people who had a deep respect for creation and their traditions. When I was doing graduate work in education, I took a history methods course and the prof was very much into Native American history, especially their spirituality. While we as Catholics tend to dismiss Native spirituality as pantheism, there is something we can learn from it...respect for God's creation, adherence to tradition, and the importance of ritual celebration.

Speaking of ritual, the memorial of Blessed Kateri brings back memories of my summers at Notre Dame and one of my classmates named Tom. Tom is the kind of person who makes being Catholic fun!  Some of the things Tom did or said might have bordered on the irreverent, but if you know Tom, you know his love for Christ and for the Church.  What does Tom have to do with Kateri, or ritual?  Well, when we were at Notre Dame, Morning Prayer was celebrated for the students every weekday before class in Our Lady's Chapel. It was an intimate setting where usually just a handful of liturgy students and profs would antiphonally chant or sing Morning Praise. Kateri's feast day seemed to be one of Tom's favorites, or was it just that the hymn they would always choose to sing that morning seemed to have an Indian tom tom (no pun intended) beat.  Tom is good at making up alternate lyrics for hymns, and as I recall he came up with some good ones for Kateri (always presented to us after prayer as we walked to class).  Tom knew the power of humor, and never a day went by when Tom would have us in stitches as we sat around the table in the South Dining Hall (which is reminiscent of Hogwarts main hall, complete with a portrait of Dumbledore at one end - actually it was Fr. Sorin but the beard made the likeness unmistakable).  Study evenings in the dorm were often filled with laughter and silliness at break time.  Working on a class project with him for Ritual Studies didn't seem like work at all (we explored "strange new worlds"and decided that birds must live in the basilica). Tom showed us how not to get anxious over our studies, helped us to relax, and not take ourselves too seriously.

One year, on the feast of Kateri, I took a morning walk by St. Mary's Lake before prayer, something I never did since it was hard enough to get up early to even make it to prayer.  As I was walking I found a feather. Finding a feather is no big deal considering the duck, swan and goose population around the lakes, but it made me think of Kateri, and of Tom.  I brought the feather to the basilica and presented it to Tom before prayer as a gift in honor of Kateri.  Tom put it in his hair and wore it.  He wasn't trying to be funny, at least it didn't seem like it.  He was truly grateful for this simple gift. I hope he realizes what a gift he was to us during those summers. 

Humor is a great gift from God.  It helps to lighten our load, brighten our day, and see things from a different perspective when it is done to build up and not break down.  So often today humor is used as a way to make fun of people, to put them down, to criticize, and to tear apart. The Church often bears the brunt of jokes and degrading humor. I will always be grateful for Tom's contribution of good humor during my time of study, as I have so many stories of how Tom lightened my load and those of my classmates.  

So lighten up! As we celebrate Kateri's feast day, spend some time outside honoring God's creation (she is one of the patrons of the environment).  If you happen to come across a feather, well maybe Kateri is smiling on you.  And Tom, if you still have that feather I gave you, take it out and know that I am thinking of you, blessing you for your humor, and hearing the sound of tom toms.

A Blessed Feast Day

Today is the feast of St. Benedict, the 6th century monk who wrote a simple Rule for beginners in the spiritual life that has become the foundation of a rule of life for for religious and lay men and women for over fourteen centuries.  As a Benedictine Oblate I follow the Rule as best I can in everyday life.  The great thing about the Rule is that it really is very simple. It is the way we should be living our lives as Christians and indeed as the human persons God created us to be.

The Holy Rule begins with the word "Listen."  Benedict teaches us to listen to the voice of the Lord in humble obedience. To obey is to hear, to listen, and to act upon what we have heard.  Obedience for Benedict is about Love, that is our loving response to our Loving God.  Obedience is a word that we don't like to hear these days, but the obedience to the Word of God leads to genuine freedom and true happiness.

Benedict also asks us to practice humility and he lists twelve steps to achieve humility. Again this may be a word that many don't like to hear, especially in this day of rampant individualism and the push to get ahead and to achieve the most we can out of life. For some, these twelve steps may seem too hard or too degrading.  But as we read in Scripture "whoever humble themselves shall be exalted" (Lk 14:11).  Practicing the steps of humility leads to recognizing our right relationship with God and with all God's creation.  

One thing that attracted me to the Rule and the Benedictine way of life is that it is very practical, and I am a very practical person.  But it is also very spiritual. Benedictine spirituality focuses on two things "ora et labora;" prayer and work.  Benedictines find God not only in their prayer but in their everyday work, always aware that they are in the presence of the Almighty. Prayer for Benedictines is the Liturgy of the Hours, what we call "Opus Dei," the Work of God, and "Lectio Divina" or Holy Reading.  Along with the celebration of the Eucharist this makes up the prayer life of Benedictines. But work is also a prayer when we dedicate our work to the glory of God. 

Most of all, Benedict calls us "to prefer nothing to the Love of Christ." I have this quote posted on my computer screen at work so that I am reminded everyday to practice the rules of a simple 6th century monk so that I can "set out for the loftier summits...and under God's protection (I) will reach them.

PAX

Trinity Sunday

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. It is one of those feasts that celebrates one of the central dogmas of our faith, that is that God is a Trinity of three Persons who exist as one God.  This is a mystery that is almost impossible to explain and even harder to understand.  Thoughout the centuries, theologians have tried to explain it using symbols.  St. Patrick is noted for using the shamrock or three leaf clover to explain the Trinity. The three sections of leaves on the plant are each distinct but together they make up one leaf. 

 

The ancient Book of Kells from the early 9th Century illustrates the Trinity in what is popularly called the Celtic Knot. It is interesting that this has become popular with young people for whom this has become an often requested tatoo image.  I often wonder if the significance of the image is known or if it is just chosen to express their Irish heritage.

My favorite depiction of the Trinity is Rublev's 15th Century icon of the Trinity. It written as a depiction of the angels visit to Abraham from the Book of Genesis, but it is full of  Trinitarian symbolism. If you click the link you will be able to navigate around the images of the icon to learn their meaning.  This is why I love icons, they are so rich in symbolic meaning.

So what does the Trinity mean to me? My favorite way to enter into the mystery of the Trinity is with the word "perichoresis."  It is a Greek word that literally means "to dance around;" peri meaning "to circle" and choresis meaning "dance" (the root of the word choreography).  It is a word that was first used by the early Church Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssea, Gregory of Nazianizus and John of Damascus to describe the relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit. St. John wrote, “The subsistences [i.e., the three Persons] dwell and are established firmly in one another. For they are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their separate courses within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the Spirit in the Father and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no coalescence or commingling or confusion. And there is one and the same motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature” (The Orthodox Faith, 1.14).

I do like  the image of a dance.  If you look at dancers, and I am not talking about what you see on "So You Think You Can Dance," or "Dancing with the Stars" or other such TV shows, but real ballroom dancing, the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sort of dancing. The dancers are individual persons, each having their own distinct movements and costumes, but together they create something beautiful and cohesive.  You cannot have someone ballroom dance alone.  It just cannot be done. So too with the Trinity.  The Trinity is a Communio Personarum, a community of Persons who move and flow and draw life from one another in a "Great Dance" of Love. 

The Celtic Knot seems to illustrate this concept, but in a static sense. However, the Love of the Trinity is always moving, like the dance. The best part of this Dance is that God is always drawing us into it. God wants us to be part of Him.  We make the choice to "sit it out" or to accept the invitation to join in the Dance, to be gathered into the very Life of the Trinity for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

The Visitation

Today is the Feast of the Visitation. I love this painting by Carl Block, an artist I am not familiar with.  I love this painting because of the excitement that is shown in Elizabeth welcoming Mary and her unborn Son.  Her arms are open wide and it seems as if any moment she will run down the stairs to embrace her cousin and welcome Mary into her home.

This feast, I believe, celebrate hospitality.  As an Benedictine Oblate, hospitality is something that we are called to practice.  St. Benedict teaches to welcome all as if welcoming Christ.  But that is not always easy and as an introvert, it is not always easy for me.  I am being challenged to come out of my own insecurities and to show more hospitality toward others.

I also believe that this is a feast that celebrates women.  There is a special bond between women that I don't think can exist between men.  Social mores allow a certain amount of intimacy and physicality between women that is not usually accepted between men.  Women tend to be more open with other women and more accepting, despite what the TV reality shows would like us to believe.  

I also think that childbirth creates a unique bond.  The fact that women can bring forth life is something that brings all women together, even those who do not have children.  It is something innate, a sense of nurturing and nourishing that is part of our nature as women.  I found this painting online. I don't know the artist, but again it portrays the great joy Elizabeth expresses.  Luke writes on the lips of Elizabeth, "But who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" We too can ask that same question. Mary comes to us, as a mother, but also as a woman, who shares with us everything that womanhood entails.  Let us welcome her as we welcome her Son.