Thirty years ago Tuesday I was ordained a priest, in the Chapel of Mount Calvary in Santa Barbara. I have been meditating on 30 years as a priest and what comes to me is a deep sense of gratitude for all who have been part of the ministry I was given then. A priest does eucharist. And since giving thanks is what eucharistia means, and one of the principal elements of giving thanks is anamnesis -- not forgetting -- I'm going to dedicate this entry to remembering people and places and institutions that have formed my ministry as a priest.
I was ordained by Wes Frensdorff, Bishop of Nevada. My father, Duncan McCoy, was one of my clerical presenters. They are gone now, as is Mount Calvary. I was endorsed for ordination by All Saints Episcopal Church, Las Vegas, which my father founded in 1960. Members of the parish made the journey to Santa Barbara to present me. Bill Clancey, who was my seminary (CDSP) field work supervisor at All Souls, Berkeley, preached. Bishop Dan Corrigan, a dear friend of the Mount Calvary community, was vested and seated next to Bishop Frensdorff. The master of ceremonies was Fr. Bob Worster, Rector of St. Mary's, Palms, in LA. The organist was Fred Hammond, then professor of music at UCLA. In attendance among the reverend clergy were Robert Hale, of the Camaldolese, and Basil Meeking, then Under-Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity in Rome, later Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand, and a dear friend of the Corrigans. And so many others. It was a wonderful day.
Such a cloud of witnesses. The bishops I have served in an official relationship as a priest are, in more or less chronological order: Wes Frensdorff of Nevada; Robert Rusack, and Oliver Garver of Los Angeles; William Swing of California; Fred Borsch, Chet Talton, Bob Anderson and Jon Bruno, of Los Angeles; Dick Grein, Mark Sisk, Catherine Roskam and Don Taylor, of New York.
My first years as a priest, of course, were spent serving the OHC communities at Santa Barbara and Berkeley, and then later (now) West Park. The eucharistic ministry is foremost in our communities, of course, but I discovered the ministry of hearing confessions, especially at Mount Calvary, where I must have heard hundreds over the years. Retreat leading and preaching and relationships that have grown out of those encounters loom large, and scores of churches I was graced to be invited into. Years spent helping Greg Richards when he was Rector of All Saints, Beverly Hills, and the group of faithful praying women who gathered around Alice Smith in the corner of their elegant parish hall, are vivid to me.
My first parochial pastoral charge was Holy Family, Half Moon Bay, CA, who taught me a great deal in a few short months in 1992. Then from 1992 to 2001, St. Michael's, Anaheim, and from 2001 to 2008, St. Edward the Martyr in East Harlem. So many people from those congregations rise up in my mind, too many to name lest I forget even more. So many wonderful Christians giving their talents in vestries and altar guilds and Sunday Schools and youth groups and music programs and ministries to the community. I especially want to lift up the Feed The Hungry program at St. Michael's, run by some great saints of the Church, among them Chuck Henderson and Bill Miller, who fed a hot meal on the church china to the homeless and unfortunate every Monday without fail for years and years. Much of what St. Michael's did in the way of outreach was funded by the profits from the St. Michael's Thrift Shop, and Alyce Compton deserves to be remembered for years of patient (and sometimes impatient) labor.
Baptisms in all three places, of course, but numerically the most at St. Michael's, especially among the Hispanic congregation. My last year I believe we recorded 152 baptisms, not all baptized by me, of course. Frs. Santos Flores and Juan Barragán labored mightily to bring that large congregation into being, and deserve an honored place here. But baptisms are just the tip of the iceberg! Presentations, first communions, confirmations and quinceañeras, by the dozens, even the hundreds. The Anglo congregation had its baptisms and confirmations and weddings as well, but also a lot of funerals, and I discovered what a great moment a funeral is for families. Hispanic ministry is largely about celebrating life events, especially those of children. When I left St. Michael's in 2001, there were well over 2,000 people on the membership lists. It was one of the great adventures of my life.
I would never have thought that I would have much to do with police, but for five years I was one of the chaplains to the Anaheim Police Department, and what a joy that was. Joy mingled with sorrow, because so much of the work was getting up in the middle of the night to be with and comfort people in the midst of trauma, disaster and death. Kneeling in the middle of a major street with Hispanic road repair workers at 2 in the morning to say the prayers for their dead comrade, killed by a hit and run, probably drunk, driver. Sitting with a mother whose son had just hung himself in the enclosed porch of their house. Helping to organize and lead the funeral for our Chief at the Crystal Cathedral with thousands in attendance. Listening to small, quiet moments of self reflection by police, who are not always the most inward-directed people.
Being Dean of north Orange County brought regular fellowship with the clergy of that region of the Diocese of Los Angeles. And monthly meetings of the clergy support group offered insight and solidarity.
Then coming to New York City and discovering ministry in another community, as St. Edward's is largely African-American. The faithful Christians there, who kept the Church alive for decades before I arrived -- beginning right after World War II, when almost all the white middle class people left that part of the City, with worsening conditions in East Harlem as the years marched on, crime, drugs, young people in trouble, despair on every corner. Small churches who continue alive in the midst of such conditions are in some ways greater cathedrals of the spirit than much larger, better endowed places with marvelous programs, because there is often little more than faith to feed the fire, and year in and year out their faith and hard work keep the flame burning.
One of the joys of my ministry has been mentoring people who have started on the path to ordination. In Anaheim, Ruth Tomlinson and John Kloman; and in East Harlem, Peter Irvine, Mary Ogus, Elise Johnstone, Willie Smith, Christopher Pyles, Susan Greenwood, Antonio Checo, Ajung Sojwal, Rob Picken, Filomena Servellon, Dustin Trowbridge. Another joy has been collaboration with the secretaries, sextons and musicians of the three congregations. And four years of teaching church history to the students of the Hispanic Programa as an adjunct faculty member of the General Seminary brought much joy.
A large part of the ministry of St. Edward's, and therefore of its Rector, is its work with community organizations: The Yorkville Common Pantry, with its directors Jeff Ambers and then Carolann Johns; Interfaith Neighbors (alas, no more) and its director Eileen Lyons; and The Amsterdam Boys' Choir and its director James Backmon; the Saul Alinsky-based Industrial Areas Foundation in its shape-shifting local incarnation usually known as Upper Manhattan Together. And I must not forget the two rewrites of the YCP lease which involved generous and tireless work by Gerry Ross, our volunteer attorney.
Then of course there was the seemingly endless building of the front door, with our architect Kevin Lichten and the Landmarks Conservancy, as well as the still-ongoing fire and safety project, both managed by a wonderful layman in the parish, Angus Oborn and our irreplaceable project manager, Dick Muffoletto. Without them very little would have been accomplished on the building front.
And finally, and still, the House of the Redeemer, which claims my time but also my heart.
So many wonderful people. I'll probably keep adding to this.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A Letter for Rowan Williams
Thanks to TitusOneNine, I just came across this wonderful Christmas letter from the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch to The Archbishop of Canterbury. It is full of joy, hope and good cheer and a particularly appropriate message for the ecclesial celebration of the powerless one we recognize as Son of God. One apt quote:
"Worldly power has gone out of the established church, and that is why so many of its adherents have fallen away. Thank goodness for that; churches never handle power well."
And in the wake of it, I want to thank Kendall Harmon for producing his marvelous blog!
"Worldly power has gone out of the established church, and that is why so many of its adherents have fallen away. Thank goodness for that; churches never handle power well."
And in the wake of it, I want to thank Kendall Harmon for producing his marvelous blog!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Advent Thoughts
The Monastery is emerging today from our quarterly retreat -- three days in silence. I love these retreats. Everything is quiet, no guests except a few pious souls who slip in for the Divine Office, work pushed back to the minimum necessary to keep the place running. I am in charge of ringing the bells this week, and I enjoyed getting to Chapel early.
A verse from the Old Testament reading at Matins struck me this morning, Zechariah 7:13: "Just as when I called, they would not hear, so when they called, I would not hear, says the LORD of hosts." This oracle of God to the prophet is about the restoration of justice, kindness and mercy among the people of Israel. It is a condemnation of Israel's past behavior, which led God to scatter them among the nations.
Quite a lot of the readings for Advent are about judgment. The whole ministry of John the Baptist warns people of the wrath to come, and is the centerpiece of the Advent proclamation. I used to think the whole judgment day business was a culturally conditioned first century Palestinian preoccupation, a little embarrassing in our more enlightened times. The fierce urgency of the prophets (who centered much of their work, one way or the other, around the destruction and restoration of Jerusalem) and of the Baptist, and of Jesus himself, caused one in preaching to struggle to relate to our own less dramatic times. The end-of-the-worlders were other people, strange Christians on the fringes, cartoon figures.
But no longer. If you're not an end-of-the-worlder now, your liberal friends think you callous, uninformed, deeply suspect of having gone over to the Other Side. Because, isn't it obvious? The world is going to hell in a handbasket. Or at least in an SUV. The financial system almost crashed. The health system is about to crash. Global warming is upon us. To name the three most prominent scenarios of the moment. In each case our current government finds salvation in vastly increasing its own power to run things and a concurrent increase in the amount of money it can spend to do so. But what if these crises are not amenable to well-wishing folk manipulating the levers of power?
Because you did not listen to me, I will not listen to you, says the Lord.
In Zechariah's prophecy there is a direct link between our past behavior and what is to come. The iniquitous behavior of God's people in the past will bring about God's deafness to our pleas in our time of need. His instructions to us show what has been lacking: "Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil against one another." That we have not listened and acted as God wishes has gotten us into trouble and will be the cause of more trouble yet to come. Worse is on the way.
Except... read on. The next oracle is a promise that God will come and live with his people in Jerusalem again: "I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem." God cannot help himself. He loves his people so much. Tough love. Watch out for that kind of love. It makes demands.
Leaving aside the exegetical question of who, exactly, is Jerusalem here (is it the actual Jerusalem? is it the literal people of Israel? is it all God's people, including us perhaps? is it the world God so loved?), the line of action is clear: God expects his people (however defined) to listen and obey, and if they don't, there will be the consequence of non-action on his part. But eventually he will act to restore them.
So the Advent question of the moment might be, Have we listened to God? Have we acted? It would seem that we have not. Wastefulness, injustice, lack of concern for each other, greed, have led us to the precipice of our current problems. Will we be able to address them ourselves, as the political elite of the moment would have us believe we can?
What God calls for through the prophets is for his people (= us, presumably) to change their (our) hearts. The prophetic analysis would seem to be that bad behavior comes from not listening to God, and that God will not listen to us when we are in our untrue, unkind, unmerciful state. So we had better get our inner dispositions together and act on them. In fact, the prophet doesn't seem to think that God's people have what it takes to make this change on their own. And so, God will come to live among his people: God with us. No wonder this is an Advent lesson. Zechariah is pointing the way to the Incarnation, or so we Christians would say.
We have been careless and so we are in trouble. Since we did not listen to God, God is not going to listen to us. Worse is on the way. But God will not leave us alone. Is our salvation in TARPs, in Copenhagen, in a 2074 page Senate bill morphing every minute and which Harry Reid won't let the public see, at least in today's headlines? Are these the societal equivalent of change of heart, or might we view them from another perspective? Have the dispositions in peoples' hearts that brought these problems about changed? If not, how effective can bureaucratic action be?
And anyway, can public action ever measure up? If ears do not listen and hearts are unchanged, what do such actions matter? Will they not themselves become occasions of more wastefulness, injustice, lack of concern for each other, greed? And with unchanged hearts, will we be ready for God to come and dwell among us? Will that not be judgment itself if we are not prepared?
God will not leave us alone. Advent comfort.
A verse from the Old Testament reading at Matins struck me this morning, Zechariah 7:13: "Just as when I called, they would not hear, so when they called, I would not hear, says the LORD of hosts." This oracle of God to the prophet is about the restoration of justice, kindness and mercy among the people of Israel. It is a condemnation of Israel's past behavior, which led God to scatter them among the nations.
Quite a lot of the readings for Advent are about judgment. The whole ministry of John the Baptist warns people of the wrath to come, and is the centerpiece of the Advent proclamation. I used to think the whole judgment day business was a culturally conditioned first century Palestinian preoccupation, a little embarrassing in our more enlightened times. The fierce urgency of the prophets (who centered much of their work, one way or the other, around the destruction and restoration of Jerusalem) and of the Baptist, and of Jesus himself, caused one in preaching to struggle to relate to our own less dramatic times. The end-of-the-worlders were other people, strange Christians on the fringes, cartoon figures.
But no longer. If you're not an end-of-the-worlder now, your liberal friends think you callous, uninformed, deeply suspect of having gone over to the Other Side. Because, isn't it obvious? The world is going to hell in a handbasket. Or at least in an SUV. The financial system almost crashed. The health system is about to crash. Global warming is upon us. To name the three most prominent scenarios of the moment. In each case our current government finds salvation in vastly increasing its own power to run things and a concurrent increase in the amount of money it can spend to do so. But what if these crises are not amenable to well-wishing folk manipulating the levers of power?
Because you did not listen to me, I will not listen to you, says the Lord.
In Zechariah's prophecy there is a direct link between our past behavior and what is to come. The iniquitous behavior of God's people in the past will bring about God's deafness to our pleas in our time of need. His instructions to us show what has been lacking: "Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil against one another." That we have not listened and acted as God wishes has gotten us into trouble and will be the cause of more trouble yet to come. Worse is on the way.
Except... read on. The next oracle is a promise that God will come and live with his people in Jerusalem again: "I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem." God cannot help himself. He loves his people so much. Tough love. Watch out for that kind of love. It makes demands.
Leaving aside the exegetical question of who, exactly, is Jerusalem here (is it the actual Jerusalem? is it the literal people of Israel? is it all God's people, including us perhaps? is it the world God so loved?), the line of action is clear: God expects his people (however defined) to listen and obey, and if they don't, there will be the consequence of non-action on his part. But eventually he will act to restore them.
So the Advent question of the moment might be, Have we listened to God? Have we acted? It would seem that we have not. Wastefulness, injustice, lack of concern for each other, greed, have led us to the precipice of our current problems. Will we be able to address them ourselves, as the political elite of the moment would have us believe we can?
What God calls for through the prophets is for his people (= us, presumably) to change their (our) hearts. The prophetic analysis would seem to be that bad behavior comes from not listening to God, and that God will not listen to us when we are in our untrue, unkind, unmerciful state. So we had better get our inner dispositions together and act on them. In fact, the prophet doesn't seem to think that God's people have what it takes to make this change on their own. And so, God will come to live among his people: God with us. No wonder this is an Advent lesson. Zechariah is pointing the way to the Incarnation, or so we Christians would say.
We have been careless and so we are in trouble. Since we did not listen to God, God is not going to listen to us. Worse is on the way. But God will not leave us alone. Is our salvation in TARPs, in Copenhagen, in a 2074 page Senate bill morphing every minute and which Harry Reid won't let the public see, at least in today's headlines? Are these the societal equivalent of change of heart, or might we view them from another perspective? Have the dispositions in peoples' hearts that brought these problems about changed? If not, how effective can bureaucratic action be?
And anyway, can public action ever measure up? If ears do not listen and hearts are unchanged, what do such actions matter? Will they not themselves become occasions of more wastefulness, injustice, lack of concern for each other, greed? And with unchanged hearts, will we be ready for God to come and dwell among us? Will that not be judgment itself if we are not prepared?
God will not leave us alone. Advent comfort.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Hither and Thither
November is a month of activity. It began with preaching All Saints Day at West Park, which was well received. Br. Bernard made his Life Profession in OHC on Nov. 4. I went into NYC on the 7th to preside and preach at St. Edward the Martyr, which was a joy. The evening before I had dinner with dear friends from the parish, Peter and Louise Crawford.
The afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 8, was the celebration of OHC's 125th Anniversary, at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields in NYC. They could not have been more gracious. Monday was the monthly clergy group luncheon and paper, whose topic was the 100th anniversary of the death of William Reed Huntington. Then Brother Charles and I spent the rest of the week at a conference on retreat giving at the Convent of the Community of St. John the Baptist in Mendham, NJ. It was sponsored by the Conference of Anglican Religious Communities in North America (CAROA) and led by Barbara Crafton. It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know other religious and share our experiences as well as learn more about retreat giving from an expert.
And now I am off for some vacation. My dear friend Tony Jewiss is turning 70 this month -- I told him it can't be, but he assures me it is. Tony lives in a section of southwestern France called the Aude. So tonight I am using the rest of my frequent flyer miles and will fly to Amsterdam and then to Toulouse where Tony will pick me up. We are spending the actual birthday in Venice, thanks to Ryanair, which charges almost nothing as long as you do not need anything more than a seat and a space for a VERY controlled single bag. They make their money, apparently, on deviations from the basic plan. There is a fee for everything else. Probably one for breathing too often. I'll be back at the Monastery on Dec. 1.
I am taking along 4 books: Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou:The Promised Land of Error, about the Cathars in the very area where Tony now lives; Anselm Dimier's Stones Laid Before the Lord: Architecture and Monastic Life, in case I have the opportunity to see some, which I hope I will; Jeremy Driscoll's Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius Ponticus, to keep the mind alive; and Hillary Mantel's new novel Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell. We'll see in 2 weeks if I have obeyed my superego, or if I have found murder mysteries and spent the time in the reading equivalent of the candy shop.
The afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 8, was the celebration of OHC's 125th Anniversary, at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields in NYC. They could not have been more gracious. Monday was the monthly clergy group luncheon and paper, whose topic was the 100th anniversary of the death of William Reed Huntington. Then Brother Charles and I spent the rest of the week at a conference on retreat giving at the Convent of the Community of St. John the Baptist in Mendham, NJ. It was sponsored by the Conference of Anglican Religious Communities in North America (CAROA) and led by Barbara Crafton. It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know other religious and share our experiences as well as learn more about retreat giving from an expert.
And now I am off for some vacation. My dear friend Tony Jewiss is turning 70 this month -- I told him it can't be, but he assures me it is. Tony lives in a section of southwestern France called the Aude. So tonight I am using the rest of my frequent flyer miles and will fly to Amsterdam and then to Toulouse where Tony will pick me up. We are spending the actual birthday in Venice, thanks to Ryanair, which charges almost nothing as long as you do not need anything more than a seat and a space for a VERY controlled single bag. They make their money, apparently, on deviations from the basic plan. There is a fee for everything else. Probably one for breathing too often. I'll be back at the Monastery on Dec. 1.
I am taking along 4 books: Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou:The Promised Land of Error, about the Cathars in the very area where Tony now lives; Anselm Dimier's Stones Laid Before the Lord: Architecture and Monastic Life, in case I have the opportunity to see some, which I hope I will; Jeremy Driscoll's Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius Ponticus, to keep the mind alive; and Hillary Mantel's new novel Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell. We'll see in 2 weeks if I have obeyed my superego, or if I have found murder mysteries and spent the time in the reading equivalent of the candy shop.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Taking the Tiber Ferry
To those who have been so kind as to ask, Yes, I did finish writing the article on OHC's history and sent it off. It will be published shortly in the autumn issue of the Order's little magazine, timed to coincide with our celebration of 125 years.
Our Celebration of 125 years will be at the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York City on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 4:00 pm. Solemn Vespers will be followed by a talk by the estimable Esther de Waal, and then munchies and holy schmoozing. Do plan to come.
The Pope's announcement of a personal ordinariate (I think that's the term) for Anglicans happened shortly after I finished a new book on one of the major groups of Anglo-Papalists, the monks of Elmore, formerly Nashdom, formerly Pershore. It is by Peta Dunstan, a Cambridge University scholar who has made the history of Anglican religious orders (more accurately, the religious orders of the Church of England) her specialty: The Labour of Obedience: The Benedictines of Pershore, Nashdom and Elmore, A History. It is a readable book, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I enjoyed even more a cordial e-mail exchange with her about an error. She's a class act.
The thread which holds her narrative together is those Benedictines' history of Anglo-Papalism in the Church of England, a subject recently treated in a wider context by Michael Yelton: Anglican Papalism, An Illustrated History, 1900-1960. This movement was much stronger in England than in the U.S., where it was/is practically nonexistent.
Briefly, your average Anglo-Papalist (if there was such a thing: so many were Characters) believed that the Visible Unity of the Church was the great desideratum; that unity could only be accomplished under the headship of the Bishop of Rome; and that God's great plan for the English church would be best fulfilled by conforming as closely as possible to Roman norms, liturgical and otherwise, and working and waiting for the great day when the Holy Spirit would reveal the validity of Anglican ordination to that eminent personage, and with a great shout, all would be forgiven, the ecclesial rifts would be healed, and England Returned to the Bosom.
Some of the steam went out of this position with Vatican II and the liturgical reforms. Tridentine baroque Catholic liturgy was so much more fun than Father Facing The People and the pedestrian liturgical texts given unto the faithful in the 60's. But the truly faithful soldiered on, counting among their number people of importance, including, apparently, Tony Blair.
I don't know quite what to make of the Pope's recent announcement yet. The devil is in the details, as they say in other contexts, and the details aren't out yet. Apparently there will be no married bishops, so I don't expect to see a rush to join by the over-bishoped ranks of dissident Anglican leaders, so many of them so recently mitered. My guess is that there won't be much movement at first. But the establishment of a functioning Anglican rite within the Roman fold could in the long run be very significant culturally, apart from the current and continuing fractious bickering on all sides.
And I am reminded by this event of how much I love the Roman Catholic Church. So many wonderful friends in Christ, some gone to glory, like Fr. Thomas Duscher OSB, of Valyermo and later Fr. Romuald of the Big Sur Camaldolese, for some years my spiritual director; some hearty and well, like Robert Hale, also of Big Sur; the Camaldolese in general, who may have saved my life at a time of crisis; Benedictines of many sorts and conditions; Sr. Mary Klock of the Mercies; sweet and wonderful Christians, too many to name, all of them saints or on the way.
I do think that Benedict XVI has made an end run around Rowan Williams. I thought Canterbury looked and sounded distressed in that joint news conference with the AB of Westminster. It might have been better if he hadn't attended it. I don't feel that he held up the side, as the Brits say in cricket (or is it rugby?). There was a whiff of the deer staring into the headlights.
Does this affect me personally? Not really. I have prayed for the visible unity of the Church all my adult life, but on terms which recognize the dignity and validity of the Reformation, of the Anglican Church's heroic and self-sacrificial encounters with the modern world and with forms of thought and culture previously uncontemplated, from the mid 1500's through the centuries, in each succeeding age and on into the future. I think that is part of our genius. It comes wrapped in Anglican chant and Percy Dearmer and coffee hours and sherry and vestries and too many bishops and Trollope and Barbara Pym and Auden and Perry and Vaughan Williams and prayer book wars and are-you-high-or-low-or-broad and a thousand other little cultural artifacts we know and love. But to bring the catholic faith face to face with today's real challenges is our genius, it is the Gift of the Spirit to us, and to betray it would be to betray what has given us life.
Our Celebration of 125 years will be at the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York City on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 4:00 pm. Solemn Vespers will be followed by a talk by the estimable Esther de Waal, and then munchies and holy schmoozing. Do plan to come.
The Pope's announcement of a personal ordinariate (I think that's the term) for Anglicans happened shortly after I finished a new book on one of the major groups of Anglo-Papalists, the monks of Elmore, formerly Nashdom, formerly Pershore. It is by Peta Dunstan, a Cambridge University scholar who has made the history of Anglican religious orders (more accurately, the religious orders of the Church of England) her specialty: The Labour of Obedience: The Benedictines of Pershore, Nashdom and Elmore, A History. It is a readable book, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. I enjoyed even more a cordial e-mail exchange with her about an error. She's a class act.
The thread which holds her narrative together is those Benedictines' history of Anglo-Papalism in the Church of England, a subject recently treated in a wider context by Michael Yelton: Anglican Papalism, An Illustrated History, 1900-1960. This movement was much stronger in England than in the U.S., where it was/is practically nonexistent.
Briefly, your average Anglo-Papalist (if there was such a thing: so many were Characters) believed that the Visible Unity of the Church was the great desideratum; that unity could only be accomplished under the headship of the Bishop of Rome; and that God's great plan for the English church would be best fulfilled by conforming as closely as possible to Roman norms, liturgical and otherwise, and working and waiting for the great day when the Holy Spirit would reveal the validity of Anglican ordination to that eminent personage, and with a great shout, all would be forgiven, the ecclesial rifts would be healed, and England Returned to the Bosom.
Some of the steam went out of this position with Vatican II and the liturgical reforms. Tridentine baroque Catholic liturgy was so much more fun than Father Facing The People and the pedestrian liturgical texts given unto the faithful in the 60's. But the truly faithful soldiered on, counting among their number people of importance, including, apparently, Tony Blair.
I don't know quite what to make of the Pope's recent announcement yet. The devil is in the details, as they say in other contexts, and the details aren't out yet. Apparently there will be no married bishops, so I don't expect to see a rush to join by the over-bishoped ranks of dissident Anglican leaders, so many of them so recently mitered. My guess is that there won't be much movement at first. But the establishment of a functioning Anglican rite within the Roman fold could in the long run be very significant culturally, apart from the current and continuing fractious bickering on all sides.
And I am reminded by this event of how much I love the Roman Catholic Church. So many wonderful friends in Christ, some gone to glory, like Fr. Thomas Duscher OSB, of Valyermo and later Fr. Romuald of the Big Sur Camaldolese, for some years my spiritual director; some hearty and well, like Robert Hale, also of Big Sur; the Camaldolese in general, who may have saved my life at a time of crisis; Benedictines of many sorts and conditions; Sr. Mary Klock of the Mercies; sweet and wonderful Christians, too many to name, all of them saints or on the way.
I do think that Benedict XVI has made an end run around Rowan Williams. I thought Canterbury looked and sounded distressed in that joint news conference with the AB of Westminster. It might have been better if he hadn't attended it. I don't feel that he held up the side, as the Brits say in cricket (or is it rugby?). There was a whiff of the deer staring into the headlights.
Does this affect me personally? Not really. I have prayed for the visible unity of the Church all my adult life, but on terms which recognize the dignity and validity of the Reformation, of the Anglican Church's heroic and self-sacrificial encounters with the modern world and with forms of thought and culture previously uncontemplated, from the mid 1500's through the centuries, in each succeeding age and on into the future. I think that is part of our genius. It comes wrapped in Anglican chant and Percy Dearmer and coffee hours and sherry and vestries and too many bishops and Trollope and Barbara Pym and Auden and Perry and Vaughan Williams and prayer book wars and are-you-high-or-low-or-broad and a thousand other little cultural artifacts we know and love. But to bring the catholic faith face to face with today's real challenges is our genius, it is the Gift of the Spirit to us, and to betray it would be to betray what has given us life.
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Death of Eurydice
The Superior asked me some time ago to write an article on the history of OHC over the last 25 years, a sort of brief update to the history of the Order I wrote in the 80's, to be published in the 125th Anniversary issue of the Order's little magazine this fall. So I went to work and started doing the chronicle of dates and names and events and so forth onto which to inscribe a more developed narrative. And I have kept at it and at it. And by doing so I have pushed off writing it.
In wondering why I didn't just dig in -- I had some clues of course -- I considered a lot of reasons, and they are all probably true at some level. But it wasn't until early this evening that they came together for me.
After supper I was having a quiet evening in my cell, reading an excellent article by Michael Casey in his The Undivided Heart called "Saint Benedict's Approach to Prayer", which is so wonderful I have been reading it half for knowledge and half as lectio for a few days, not wanting it to end.
I put on a cd of Haydn's L'anima del filosofo ossia Orfeo ed Euridice, the Hogwood version on L'Oiseau-Lyre, with the incomparable Cecilia Bartoli. It was the only opera he composed after leaving the employ of the Esterhazys, and was written for his first journey to London in 1791, though it was not produced there. It is contemporary with the last of Mozart's operas, but somehow it feels like it is from an earlier age. I was enjoying Haydn's brilliant but not always deeply moving music when, at the end of the second act, something I had completely forgotten: the death of Eurydice. The music dims in volume as Eurydice describes her emotion as the poison in her body takes effect:
Del mio core il voto estremo
dello sposo io vo' che sia.
Al mio ben l'anima mia
dono l'ultimo sospir.
Bartoli sings with such pathos that I was suddenly drawn into the music, into what was happening, in a way I have not been for a long time. As I listened to her, I could feel part of me dying with her.
Then it was time for Compline, and what would the first psalm be but 88:
my life is at the brink of the grave.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I have become like one who has no strength....
My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me,
and darkness is my only companion.
It would be an overstatement to say that I was undone. But tears came. I suddenly realized, sitting in the Chapel at West Park singing Compline this evening, what was keeping me from writing.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is certainly one of the most important myths in the history of Western art, and deservedly so. The (purportedly) first opera is an Orfeo by Monteverdi, and there are others as well. My favorite is by Gluck. Orfeo is a musician, and at the death of his beloved wife Eurydice, he plays so beautifully that the powers of the underworld are moved to allow him to descend there and be with her once again. But he cannot turn to see her.
There is a lot going on in this myth, as there is in every major myth. Its main attraction to art and music would seem to be the power of music to change what seems unchangeable, and much more, of course. Orfeo's art rearranges the past, if ever so briefly, and resurrects (here we're getting into Christian territory, but that's another set of thoughts) the one so deeply loved, only to be lost again. When they are reunited Orpheus is not to look at her or she will return definitively to the Underworld, lost to him in this life forever. And, of course, he turns and looks at her. Who would not?
I have been resisting writing the article, brief as it will be, because it brings me close to what is gone, to places and times and events now past, to those who are dead, and to people and places living but different than when I encountered them in the early enthusiasm of monastic youth. It brings me close to what might have been but wasn't, and to what is, but not as I had hoped or imagined. And, not to be too lugubrious, some things have turned out better!
For Orpheus the death of the object of his love brings forth the power of his art, and I suspect that this is one of the reasons this story has moved so many for so many centuries, and probably still does. (I would mention the film Black Orpheus as a contemporary witness to the story's power, but it would only date me!) Eurydice's loss opens the gates of creativity to Orpheus, but in this version he cannot continue, and takes poison to join his beloved. Haydn's Orfeo cannot face his loss and live.
How can we write about "the" past when it is our own past? -- because in writing this article I will be writing about myself as well as the community I have been part of, and not something that happened before me. How can we write about what is irretrievably lost except to memory, and in setting it down, in choosing this and not that to represent, how can we not betray that past, that love? How can one continue to live when one's love does not? How can any artist take what he has lost and give substance to what is inexpressible, make what is emotionally inchoate beautiful, externalize it and share it in some recognizable artistic form, and continue to live? Certainly he cannot do so unchanged.
To give substance to the memory of what has been lost to external reality is to change it from the pure but unexpressed memory to a shaped and produced and shared object. By that act the memory, the love, will now always be different. That is the nature of art. In sharing it, it is lost in its completeness, it dies a second death. And so, at a profound level, the artist who "makes music" of his loss is both acting to recapture it and acting to betray its completeness. The work of art is thus not only an act of betrayal (losing its completeness in concrete, shared expression). It is also a work of hope, because in making it, the artist is rejecting the option of joining what is now gone (except for memory) in its Eurydicean oblivion. The artist reshapes and gives to others as beauty what would have drawn him down with it into what is no more. He conquers the Orphic temptation to lose himself in his private, irrecoverable, sensate memory, which will be lost to the world if it is not shared, and ironically, lost to himself (as private, as complete) if he does share it.
The artist, or musician, or writer, or (in my case) historian, takes "the" past, recognizes it as his own past, and makes something new of it, something that will live for others, as well as refashioning it for himself. Neither he nor "the" -- his -- past is the same after it is done.
In wondering why I didn't just dig in -- I had some clues of course -- I considered a lot of reasons, and they are all probably true at some level. But it wasn't until early this evening that they came together for me.
After supper I was having a quiet evening in my cell, reading an excellent article by Michael Casey in his The Undivided Heart called "Saint Benedict's Approach to Prayer", which is so wonderful I have been reading it half for knowledge and half as lectio for a few days, not wanting it to end.
I put on a cd of Haydn's L'anima del filosofo ossia Orfeo ed Euridice, the Hogwood version on L'Oiseau-Lyre, with the incomparable Cecilia Bartoli. It was the only opera he composed after leaving the employ of the Esterhazys, and was written for his first journey to London in 1791, though it was not produced there. It is contemporary with the last of Mozart's operas, but somehow it feels like it is from an earlier age. I was enjoying Haydn's brilliant but not always deeply moving music when, at the end of the second act, something I had completely forgotten: the death of Eurydice. The music dims in volume as Eurydice describes her emotion as the poison in her body takes effect:
Del mio core il voto estremo
dello sposo io vo' che sia.
Al mio ben l'anima mia
dono l'ultimo sospir.
Bartoli sings with such pathos that I was suddenly drawn into the music, into what was happening, in a way I have not been for a long time. As I listened to her, I could feel part of me dying with her.
Then it was time for Compline, and what would the first psalm be but 88:
my life is at the brink of the grave.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I have become like one who has no strength....
My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me,
and darkness is my only companion.
It would be an overstatement to say that I was undone. But tears came. I suddenly realized, sitting in the Chapel at West Park singing Compline this evening, what was keeping me from writing.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is certainly one of the most important myths in the history of Western art, and deservedly so. The (purportedly) first opera is an Orfeo by Monteverdi, and there are others as well. My favorite is by Gluck. Orfeo is a musician, and at the death of his beloved wife Eurydice, he plays so beautifully that the powers of the underworld are moved to allow him to descend there and be with her once again. But he cannot turn to see her.
There is a lot going on in this myth, as there is in every major myth. Its main attraction to art and music would seem to be the power of music to change what seems unchangeable, and much more, of course. Orfeo's art rearranges the past, if ever so briefly, and resurrects (here we're getting into Christian territory, but that's another set of thoughts) the one so deeply loved, only to be lost again. When they are reunited Orpheus is not to look at her or she will return definitively to the Underworld, lost to him in this life forever. And, of course, he turns and looks at her. Who would not?
I have been resisting writing the article, brief as it will be, because it brings me close to what is gone, to places and times and events now past, to those who are dead, and to people and places living but different than when I encountered them in the early enthusiasm of monastic youth. It brings me close to what might have been but wasn't, and to what is, but not as I had hoped or imagined. And, not to be too lugubrious, some things have turned out better!
For Orpheus the death of the object of his love brings forth the power of his art, and I suspect that this is one of the reasons this story has moved so many for so many centuries, and probably still does. (I would mention the film Black Orpheus as a contemporary witness to the story's power, but it would only date me!) Eurydice's loss opens the gates of creativity to Orpheus, but in this version he cannot continue, and takes poison to join his beloved. Haydn's Orfeo cannot face his loss and live.
How can we write about "the" past when it is our own past? -- because in writing this article I will be writing about myself as well as the community I have been part of, and not something that happened before me. How can we write about what is irretrievably lost except to memory, and in setting it down, in choosing this and not that to represent, how can we not betray that past, that love? How can one continue to live when one's love does not? How can any artist take what he has lost and give substance to what is inexpressible, make what is emotionally inchoate beautiful, externalize it and share it in some recognizable artistic form, and continue to live? Certainly he cannot do so unchanged.
To give substance to the memory of what has been lost to external reality is to change it from the pure but unexpressed memory to a shaped and produced and shared object. By that act the memory, the love, will now always be different. That is the nature of art. In sharing it, it is lost in its completeness, it dies a second death. And so, at a profound level, the artist who "makes music" of his loss is both acting to recapture it and acting to betray its completeness. The work of art is thus not only an act of betrayal (losing its completeness in concrete, shared expression). It is also a work of hope, because in making it, the artist is rejecting the option of joining what is now gone (except for memory) in its Eurydicean oblivion. The artist reshapes and gives to others as beauty what would have drawn him down with it into what is no more. He conquers the Orphic temptation to lose himself in his private, irrecoverable, sensate memory, which will be lost to the world if it is not shared, and ironically, lost to himself (as private, as complete) if he does share it.
The artist, or musician, or writer, or (in my case) historian, takes "the" past, recognizes it as his own past, and makes something new of it, something that will live for others, as well as refashioning it for himself. Neither he nor "the" -- his -- past is the same after it is done.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Mystical Chapters
I finished a book last week.
Now ordinarily that's not such a headline statement. There are good reasons not to finish a book: it has become boring; it is badly written and I just can't bear it anymore; I have figured out the main point(s) and a swift glance through the remaining chapters convinces me that my time is better spent elsewhere. I have abandoned many books over the years for these and other reasons. But I finish more than I abandon. At least I think I do.
Last week I finished a book and I was sorry I had come to the end. It is The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives, translated and introduced by John Anthony McGuckin. It consists of three "centuries" of sayings arranged in the classic Evagrian way: Praktikos, Theoretikos and Gnostikos. The eastern Christian sages include Evagrios (using McGuckin's Greek-based spelling), of course, but also Maximos the Confessor, Theodoros the Ascetic, Thalassios the Libyan, Symeon the New Theologian, Niketas Stethatos, and many others.
When I got the book I was initially disappointed. Some of the pages aren't printed as clearly as they might be. And as I looked at the layout of the sayings, in loose short-line poetic format, I thought, Oh dear, another smallish essay strung out into book length. I did not lay it aside, but began to read it. And as I did I began to be drawn into the world of the sayings. I decided to make it the book I read a bit of at the beginning of our common corporate meditation time at the noon office. And so began months of reading one or two of the brief chapters. They opened up worlds to me, not so much in that I did not understand what they said: they are perfectly consonant with the logos theology so prominent in the Eastern church from earliest days. But rather, the beauty of their imagery and expression gave me much to ponder in meditation.
When at last I read and pondered the final one, by Symeon the New Theologian, from his Mystical Prayer, I was not left with a sense of disappointment. I was left with a deep sense of satisfaction. It begins "Come true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery." and on through 29 biddings, ending in "For I must give you all my thanks for making yourself one with me in spirit." That is how I felt at that moment, and indeed, how I had felt for many moments during the blessing of this book over the months past.
One Chapter remains especially with me. It so reminds me of George Herbert (especially in "Prayer 1") that I wonder whether he in his Greek studies -- because he was a formidable student of Greek as well as Latin -- I wonder whether he might have encountered it and pondered it and allowed its rhythms and substance to influence him. It is by Symeon the New Theologian, to whom I am apparently especially drawn:
My Christ,
you are the Kingdom of Heaven,
you are the land promised to the meek,
you are the meadows of paradise,
the hall of the celestial banquet,
the ineffable bridal chamber,
the table open for all comers.
You are the bread of life,
the wonderful new drink,
the cool jar of water,
the water of life.
You are the lamp
that never goes out for all your saints,
the new garment, the diadem,
the one who distributes diadems.
You are our joy and repose,
our delight and glory.
You are gladness and laughter, my God.
Your grace, the grace of the all-holy Spirit,
shines in the saints like a blazing sun.
Now ordinarily that's not such a headline statement. There are good reasons not to finish a book: it has become boring; it is badly written and I just can't bear it anymore; I have figured out the main point(s) and a swift glance through the remaining chapters convinces me that my time is better spent elsewhere. I have abandoned many books over the years for these and other reasons. But I finish more than I abandon. At least I think I do.
Last week I finished a book and I was sorry I had come to the end. It is The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives, translated and introduced by John Anthony McGuckin. It consists of three "centuries" of sayings arranged in the classic Evagrian way: Praktikos, Theoretikos and Gnostikos. The eastern Christian sages include Evagrios (using McGuckin's Greek-based spelling), of course, but also Maximos the Confessor, Theodoros the Ascetic, Thalassios the Libyan, Symeon the New Theologian, Niketas Stethatos, and many others.
When I got the book I was initially disappointed. Some of the pages aren't printed as clearly as they might be. And as I looked at the layout of the sayings, in loose short-line poetic format, I thought, Oh dear, another smallish essay strung out into book length. I did not lay it aside, but began to read it. And as I did I began to be drawn into the world of the sayings. I decided to make it the book I read a bit of at the beginning of our common corporate meditation time at the noon office. And so began months of reading one or two of the brief chapters. They opened up worlds to me, not so much in that I did not understand what they said: they are perfectly consonant with the logos theology so prominent in the Eastern church from earliest days. But rather, the beauty of their imagery and expression gave me much to ponder in meditation.
When at last I read and pondered the final one, by Symeon the New Theologian, from his Mystical Prayer, I was not left with a sense of disappointment. I was left with a deep sense of satisfaction. It begins "Come true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery." and on through 29 biddings, ending in "For I must give you all my thanks for making yourself one with me in spirit." That is how I felt at that moment, and indeed, how I had felt for many moments during the blessing of this book over the months past.
One Chapter remains especially with me. It so reminds me of George Herbert (especially in "Prayer 1") that I wonder whether he in his Greek studies -- because he was a formidable student of Greek as well as Latin -- I wonder whether he might have encountered it and pondered it and allowed its rhythms and substance to influence him. It is by Symeon the New Theologian, to whom I am apparently especially drawn:
My Christ,
you are the Kingdom of Heaven,
you are the land promised to the meek,
you are the meadows of paradise,
the hall of the celestial banquet,
the ineffable bridal chamber,
the table open for all comers.
You are the bread of life,
the wonderful new drink,
the cool jar of water,
the water of life.
You are the lamp
that never goes out for all your saints,
the new garment, the diadem,
the one who distributes diadems.
You are our joy and repose,
our delight and glory.
You are gladness and laughter, my God.
Your grace, the grace of the all-holy Spirit,
shines in the saints like a blazing sun.
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