Toward Attention

Regarding Struggle

I desire to ascend the Mountain of God: I do not confuse it with Sinai or Zion or Horeb or Gerizim, knowing that "truth will rise up from the earth," and that I must worship "in Spirit and in truth."

St. Augustine writes much about the ascent to the heavenly City. By his prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, prevent me from slandering -- as I did yesterday -- such a pure thing as love, and to gladly ache with the effort of the ascent, not lingering away from the camp at the foot of the mountain where Your people wait, purified, while I demand that the meal you share with the Elders halfway up the ascent be brought to me in my mud-stained swine-den. If only a thread-thin ray of Your Glory atop the mountain would break upon me, it would turn to brittle clay the shackles of the mud I have buried myself in -- and not only me, but my love, my friends, my family, my...little coin talent. Lead me with these lights! I do not wish to be unfaithful to them, to You!

Teach me to gather up those whom I love (who I vandalized in my words yesterday), those who love me, and those whom I hate, and who hate me, and to ascend to where You descend, to the summit, where the bodiless powers trumpet Your royal otherworldly arrival with a blast that levels entire cities, and shakes loose the sin in my marrow with the terror of the prospect of Your Beauty, which awaits at the top, girded in the sheath of Your angelic retinue, where apostles, of old fell down as though dead at Your Radiance, which clothes the righteous, and where they summon me, now clothed with garments of light, chanting: "take, eat!" "O taste and see!" "behold, the Lamb is the Light of the City!"

I am crippled: grant me to run to You. I am naked: clothe me. I am famished: feed me. I am blind: grant me eyes, that I might see Your Glory amidst the thick darkness atop the Mount.

New/Old Perspectives

Great post on the newer wave of biblical studies here. Well said, John. The biblical text is not to be schucked in favor of either the history or ur-text that lies behind the canonical, final form of the text itself: the biblical text is not to be translated into something other than the story it presents to the reader.

Origen on Spiritual Adultery

This from Origen's Homilies on Leviticus, published by CUA Press:

"He will not take a harlot." [Lev 21:14] What soul is "a harlot"? That one which takes "lovers" to itself, about which the prophet says, "You were prostituted to your lovers." Who are these "lovers" that enter to the prostituted soul except the hostile powers and demons that are captivated by the desire of her beauty? For the soul was created by God beautiful and becoming enough. Hear how God Himself speaks: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." See how becoming, how beautiful the soul is. It has "the image and likeness of God." When the opposing powers, that is, "the devil and his angels," [Rev 12:9] behold this beauty, they covet its aspect; and because they cannot become his bride, they desire to be a prostitute with it. Therefore, O man, if you receive in the bed of your soul the adulterous devil, your soul has prostituted itself with the devil. If you receive "his angels," if you receive diverse spirits which persuade you to sin, your soul has prostituted itself with these. If a spirit of wrath or envy or pride or imurity should enter your soul and you receive it, if you should assent when it speaks in your heart, if you should take pleasure in these things which it suggests to you according to its mind, then you have prostituted yourself with it. Therefore, "the great priest will not take a harlot and will not contaminate his seed in his people." [Lev 21:14] What is that "seed" by which he does not want "to be contaminated"? It was written in the Gospels, "He who sows sows the word." [Mark 4:14] Therefore, he does not want the word of God "to be contaminated" by those "who sow." But who are they "who sow"? They are those who bring forth the word of God in the Church. Therefore, let teachers hear lest perhaps they trust the words of God to "a contaminated" soul, to "a harlot" soul, to an unfaithful soul, lest perhaps they cast "a holy thing to the dogs and pearls before swine"; [Matt 7:6] but let them choose clean souls, "virgins in the simplicity of faith which is in Christ"; let them commit to them secret mysteries; let them speak to them the word of God and the secrets of the faith that "Christ may be formed" in them through faith. Or, do you not know that from this seed of the word of God which is sown Christ is born in the heart of the hearers? For the Apostle also says this: "Until Christ be formed in us." [Gal 4:19] Therefore, the soul conceives from this seed of the word and the Word forms a fetus in it until it brings forth a spirit of the fear of God. For so the souls of the saints say through the prophet, "By your fear, Lord, we conceived in the womb and brought forth in labor and gave birth; we have made the spirit of your salvation upon the earth." [Isaiah 26:18] This is the birth of the holy souls, this is conception; these are holy unions which are convenient and apt for the great high priest, Christ Jesus our Lord, "to whom is glory and power forever and ever. Amen!" [1 Peter 4:11; Rev 1:6]]

I thought this was an interesting presentation of the motivation of demons. In the daily prayers I constantly hear about how the disordered passions prevent the birth of Christ in my soul.  

Tilling The Earth of the Heart, Part 2: The Vision of Glory

In writing before about "Tilling the Earth of the Heart," I had the inteded to address the Markan parable of the sower and the surrounding chapters -- how does one change the soil of one's heart?

"the measure you use will be the measure you get"

It seems that attentiveness yields rewards, as it responds to what is attractive, while ignoring the Son through sin and our own sinful disgust of His beauty divests us of what divine vestiges remain in our souls. Interpolating the words of the Master, we might say:

"he that has [ears to hear], more will be given to him; but he that has not [ears to hear, or has not given any heed to my Face and Voice], even what he has shall be taken away."

How do we till the earth of the heart? Pay attention. Pray constantly about our sins; listen to the words of Christ; search out his Face and Voice and attend to them, allowing them to leaven one's life, and struggling to obey them in little things.

But then again, Norman already said this in his comment. ;-)

I noted before that

it is hard for many to keep the commandments, because they have never really seen the Face of God in Jesus Christ, and so they are not attracted to the Glory of the Father as it is seen in Christ Jesus -- these do not know what they would be putting on by "putting on Christ."

Most Modern folk have lost the meaning of the word "Glory," even if they are not removed from the matrix of practices that make proper sense out of this word in all its scriptural resonances, and have a sound intimation of what that word points to. If we are attentive, it is because we have loved the concealed vestiges of God's Glory, and love them still.

I wrote about vision and belief recently. It must be asked: is our attentiveness always a response to theophany, to a vision of the Glory of God hidden in Christ, or at least to the recognition of someone else's vision?

I have always been puzzled by a passage in St. Mark where the Lord comes down the mountain where he is praying to help the disciples on the sea, seeing that they are having a difficult time in a storm. The translations I'd always read rendered the strange verse in question as "and he intended to pass by them." This always seemed off to me. It turns out, as Joel Marcus clearly lays out in the first of his two wonderful Anchor Bible volumes on Mark, that the Greek word "to pass by" is a technical term for a theophany. The origin is God's revelation of His Glory to Moses, where He makes His Glory "pass by" Moses. The verse might be better rendered (though not more literally rendered), "and He intended to show them His Glory," which He did.

It is only after beholding the Glory that Moses shines: it is only as he goes, time and time again, to gather fresh Glory, that Moses has any wisdom. It is only as he is attentive to God and cleaves to Him that Moses enjoys communion with Him.  

The Enthronement of the Lamb

As I read through the Gospel According to St. John, and at the same time re-edit this paper on the earliest form of the invocation of the saints, it occurs to me that the proper context for the material presented in that paper is the general meaning uniting the rites of the temple, and which is also seen in the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John in the enthronement of the victorious and broken Lamb to the same Throne as the Father.

It occurs to me that this is what is fundamentally happening in the passion stories -- the enthronement of the Son. That is why, in St. Mark, the Passover begins with the Davidic triumphal entry on the colt, and why in St. John, there is so much emphasis put on Pilate's recognition of Him as King of the Jews, and the sign placed upon the Cross, the Throne.

Liturgy is about enthronement. We should think of this when we see the Cross on the Holy Table, and when we receive the Body and Blood, and when we sing the Cherubic Hymn, and sing "that we may receive the King of all, who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts."

This is also what we are doing when we obey the commandments: enthroning God, responding to His enthronement. When we violate the commandments, we dethrone Him, we murder Him. "My people have rejected me as King over them."

Let Love and Fealty Prevail

After two days it was the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Him by trickery and put Him to death. But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar of the people.” 

And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head. But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, “Why was this fragrant oil wasted? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they criticized her sharply.  But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always. She has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.” (Mark 14:1-9, NKJV, italics in the original.)

The chief priests (i.e., the high priests) are not above deception for the consolidating of their power; they are not above doing this even on the feast of the poverty of their ancestors and the security they had within the providence and intention of the All-Creator. They would rather trust in their administrative prudence to secure the good things they seek -- which, securing it on their own, it can only be something less than what the Father would give to them, it can only be an idol.

But the high priests and the scribes "fear the crowd," which is why they do not set their hands upon Jesus by trickery. The wickedness of their behavior is not what stops them, but the consequences that would fall to them from "the people." These men would seek to control the people and the temple, but they are in fact controlled by their fears and the very "people" they seek to manipulate (by getting rid of Jesus). The "people" are not in communion with them, but are cattle to be herded, a population to be managed.

This is exactly the opposite of the relations between the High Priestly Jesus and those who would "serve" Him. The woman with the oil does so willingly. There is a wonderful charitable intention behind the disciples' words, their hope to sell the oil to give the money to the poor. The intention is good. However, it is inferior to what the woman does, because without love, there is no unity, no communion: without love, God does not bind together and unite the people of God according to His own Unity. It is not merely a love received (and thus given to the poor); it begins as a movement of love offered in faithfulness upon the recognition of the Lord's divinity. From there, charity to the poor begins. Without such a love, can one see the Lord's Face within the faces of the poor? Exitus et Reditus.  

The "people" may be managed by power tactics and manipulations and deceit by the scribes and the high priests, but the people who cleave to Christ are not meat-puppets upon whom tactics are deployed. They are people, and in love they voluntarily cleave to the Master and follow Him. They do not need to be manipulated, because they are not so greatly separated from the One Who governs them, as the "people" are greatly separated from the high priests and the scribes.

Without the love that the woman with the oil showed to the Lord, the seed of charity which the disciples expressed has within it another dualism, that of bestowers and bestowees, another elitism that smothers love. Let love and fealty prevail, for the Lord goes to the life-giving Cross for us, and is faithful to us in love.

Guarding the Heart

"If...the spirit that rules over the evil demons and passions rises up against you, do not desert your place (cf. Eccles. 10:4)  - that is to say, do not leave any part of your soul or body unwatched. In this way you will master the evil spirits that assail you and you will boldly present yourself to Him who examines hearts and minds (cf. Ps. 7:9); and He will not scrutinize you, for you will have already scrutinized yourself. As St. Paul says, 'If we judged ourselves we would not be judged' (I Cor. 11:31)."

St. Gregory Palamas.

I have been realizing lately how little I've been monitoring the "thoughts behind my thoughts," how little I've been weeding out evil impulses from flesh and spirit that promise little delights that together form the foundation of more serious sin and disable virtues from taking root in the soul. I suspect that, without realizing it, I thought that I could put up fences around my heart and leave it unattended, and that this would be sufficient. The problem is that this doesn't work. It is written that we must "guard our hearts," not "set up fences around our hearts." Guarding is an activity that requires constant attention, as any good goalie knows. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

The Lord makes it very clear, in the Gospel According to St. Mark, that uncleanness comes from our hearts. How then, can we not attend to our hearts without risking categorical uncleanness? Yet vigilance, though necessary, is not enough, of course -- "unless the Lord watches, the watchmen watch in vain." We must be vigilant, but we must keep watch before the Lord's Countenance. Only Light can drive out darkness.

Accusations, Cosmic Collapse, the Need for Chastity

If we do not accuse ourselves, but others, we become demonic. In the prayer of St. Ephraim which we say during Lent (and which those of us who are less spiritual than most say year round), we say quite simply:

"O Lord and Master of my life,

drive far away from me

the spirit of despondency,

negligence,

avarice,

and idle talk.

"But grant unto me, thy servant,

the spirit of chastity,

humility,

patience,

and love.

"Yea O Lord and King,

grant me to see mine own transgressions,

and not to judge my brother,

for blessed art thou unto ages of ages, amen."

This should be enough for us to see the unity of chastity and charity. If we do not chasten ourselves, we will devour our neighbor, even if we do it ever so innocently, and think of them as lower than ourselves, or needing guidance and instruction, or poor and lost, or somehow worse off than we are. "Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like other men..." -- the rude, the impious (or "unsaved"), the braggarts, the tardy, the intolerant, the lazy, the cruel, etc. Now, charity does not mean blindness, but "love covers a multitude of sins" -- covers them, does not make them invisible. Noah's nakedness is covered by the charity of his sons. 

He who washes his neighbor's garment with inspired words, or who sews it up by contributing to his needs, has the outward appearance of a servant, but is really a master. But when he acts in this way he must be careful to do so truly as a servant, lest by growing conceited he loses both his reward and his proper rank. 

St. Ilias the Presbyter, Gnomic Anthology 1.50.

This is, of course, nothing but a reiteration of what the Master teaches: "remove the plank from your own eye before you remove the splinter from your brother's eye," and "he who is first among you must be least of all and servant of all." And certainly, they must not be puffed up with the sense that they are, of course, servant of all. The dangers of the Enemy are everywhere. Without self-accusation and chastity, true and interior chastity that encompasses more than just the groin, the world collapses.

"All The Better to Eat You With, My Dear"

The first public-ministry appearance of Jesus in each of the four canonical Gospels indicates what that evangelist wished to highlight about the Person and work of the Master. In the Gospel According to St. Mark, this appearance is the exorcism of the man in the unclean spirit. 

Note that in the Greek, the man does not merely have an unclean spirit, he is not "the man with an unclean spirit" -- he is in an unclean spirit. The spirit has swallowed him. When he enters the Synagogue, the man cries out with the voice of the demon, "What have we to do with you," etc. Then Jesus addresses the unclean spirit, "Shut up! Come out of him!" -- He addresses the demon, not the man, and does not say "expel him," but "come out of him." That agent which encloses him in spiritual filth is also the man's interiority. The filth of the demon is inside and outside. The man is totally gobbled up, with no hope of escape.

(Of course, this points to the ultimate theme in Mark that sin, death and the devil have swallowed man, and so it is only through the victory on the cross, the resurrection from the dead and the distribution of the power of that resurrection by the Spirit that the power of sin is broken, the stomach of death is ruptured and the dominion of the satan is defeated. Thus, the Lord's rebuke  of the demon here in St. Mark and the Lord's rebuke of the serpentine chaos waters in Psalm 104:7 and in Job 26:10-12. In both the mythic Old Testament images and in the Gospel narrative, a world is established after this conquering of dark powers by the Lord.)

This should instantly call to mind the images in the Screwtape Letters, with demons eating other demons, and feasting on the souls of those they have consumed, in this life, through sin. Our sins literally eat us alive. How many souls do we know, who, in old age, have clearly become their sin? Usually it is not so obvious: people function well-enough in public.

Let us "cast off" every weight that binds us to sin, by taking up our cross! The cross is no instrument of death, though we sin-swallowed men will see the abolition of our sin as the abolition of our loves and even the extinction of our identity (the cross is "foolishness to the Greeks"), for sin has grown so many roots in our heart that we are nearly one with it . We must fight this, and receive the operation of the Spirit, and struggle, or else all is lost for us. God does not save us against our will, even though our will has no power to save itself.

We receive salvation by grace and as a divine gift of the Spirit. But to attain the full measure of virtue we need also to possess faith and love, and to struggle to exercise our free will with integrity. In this manner we inherit eternal life as a consequence of both grace and justice. We do not reach the final stage of spiritual maturity through divine power and grace alone, without ourselves making any effort; but neither on the other hand do we attain the final measure of freedom and purity as a result of our ow diligence and strength alone, apart from any divine assistance. If the Lord does not build the house, it is said, and protect the city, in vain does the watchman keep awake, and in vain do the labourer and the builder work (cf. Psalm 127:1-4).

St. Symeon Metaphrastis, Paraphrase of the Homilies of St. Macarius of Egypt I.1.

We must work with the Worker and watch with the Watcher. It is for this that we are freed from bondage to those things that consume us. If we are freed, and to the measure we are freed. "To him who has [ears to hear and so listens], more will be given, but to him who has not [ears to hear, and neglects to attend to the Mirror of the Son Who reveals the truth about ourselves and liberates us], even what he has will be taken away."

I am afraid, and will leave you while I seek the Hem of His Garment.

Tilling the Earth of the Heart, Part 1: The Face and Voice

I have often been suspicious of the English translation of the word "eu-angelos" as "Good News." Certainly it carries that meaning. But it seems often that there is an overtone of the word "Good Angel" to this phrase when it is spoken, or even that "Good Angel" seems sometimes to be the primary of the two meanings. The Angel of the Lord, that is Christ Jesus, becomes manifest and present by his Spirit in the apostolic teaching and preaching and service (liturgy). This seems scattered throughout Acts, certainly, and I doubt I'd have trouble finding it elsewhere in the Gospels, either. (The fact that the Anglo-Saxon's translated the word "eu-angelos" as "God's Spell" strongly suggests that the richness of meaning was still very much alive to the Catholic Christians who translated it for these Germanic tribes.)

In the apostolic preaching, the Power of God, Jesus Christ, is present by his Spirit. People are sorted. Those who are attracted to him cleave to him and are drawn to the message. Those who desire something else are forced to recognize what that something else is or to rail against the One who is incompatible with it, and they thus reject the One whose Name sets the bright earth within the void and moves the hearts of men towards the Good, that is, to God. This occurs in the apostolic preaching because it is an extension of the Person, work and word of the Word of the Father, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ sorts men according to their character. The truth about men is revealed in their response to him. Do they love righteousness or wickedness? It is not enough to observe external observances -- though these are good and right and when done with even a grain of purity in the heart, transformative. "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (St. John 3:19-21) This indwelling of the Word in the soul attracts those souls to the Word-made-flesh: "you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe." (John 5:38) The word of the scriptural text is impotent to instruct apart from this Word, who abides in the soul and draws a man yearningly to the Father. Thus the Lord says that "no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day." (St. John 6:44). Those in whom the Word (who is more than words) abides are drawn to the Word-made-flesh.

Thus in the Gospels, we see passages where the Lord and Son says such things as "all that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." (St. John 6:37) Those who are friends of the Father are gathered by the beauty and power of the Master, by his Face and Voice. The sheep know the Voice of the Shepherd. As we see in chapter 12 of the Gospel According to St. Mark the Lord comes to gather fruit from the vineyard he has planted -- to gather fruit that he has already provided the means of growing. The Son of the Vineyard Owner is not sent to the vineyard to start from scratch. The Word, the Son, is everywhere active, everywhere preparing men by the Spirit. Have we responded? "The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." (St. John 5:28-29) As with the dead at the Resurrection, so too here and now with those in the flesh around the One who is the Resurrection. Are we dead or alive? "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live." (St. John 5:25)

Those who are enemies of God, however, whether they consider themselves friends of the Law or not, are not simply stuck in that condition (I have written before of how the Jerusalem temple seems to have been made an idol, and the same might be said of the Law -- indeed, anything can become an idol when re-purposed by us for our uses and thus cut off from the light-bearing ends of God). Jesus exhorts believers who doubt that he is in the Father and the Father in him to nonetheless believe "because of the works" (John 14). There are similar exhortations to his opponents earlier in John, even if implicit in the rhetoric of his objections to their arguments or his declaration of their sin.

Looking at Acts, we see in 13:48 a verse that shows the same pattern,"as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." This is not about double predestination. This is about the making plain what is secret, about the judgments of God regarding a man's soul (which judgment reflects their condition) becoming explicit through their response to Christ in the apostles.

It is certainly the case that Pharaoh had a choice at first when Moses came to him as a god with the Lord's demands. Yet Pharaoh's heart froze in response to this demand -- in choosing against the Lord, his heart froze in such a state, it hardened at the demand of God just as clay hardens under the heat of the sun. Pharaoh should not have been clay, but wax. It is not as though he was autonomous before this moment, and lost his autonomy in his rebellion against the Father's Word. The Spirit everywhere prepares hearts just as the Lord prepared a special vineyard. His freedom, his autonomy, must have dwindled in so many ways over the years, so that the choice which froze his heart was merely the revelation of his deicide. We are not our own to define without limit or restraint. We should fear lest we too find ourselves frozen in opposition to the Lord's work about us and in our own hearts. 

Yet if the heart is, as the Lord's parables in the Gospel According to St. Mark figure it, either barren, poorly soiled or thorny ground, how does one better prepare the ground of the heart to receive the divine and life-giving words of Christ? How can one prepare one's ear, soul -- how can we till the earth of the heart?