Liturgical Living: Not Like Any Other Night

April 18, Holy Saturday.

I spent most of the day Thursday cooking a (sort of?) traditional Sedar meal for our little family.  I've celebrated a Sedar meal before but never hosted one myself, but living intentionally and liturgically this past year has given me the courage to attempt bigger and bigger projects.  Also, I couldn't have done it without the Academy: my husband, John, who went out twice to different grocery stores to fetch me ingredients and the normally functioning oven, a great improvement to the Florida stove that burnt everything if I didn't shave off a fifth of the baking time in every recipe and the fire alarm that sounded at the slightest provocation and slight rise in temperature, not to mention normal steam and the occasional sparse smoking.

I got all the recipes from CatholicCulture.org, which has become a staple resource in my intention to live liturgically.

The matzah bread was so easy and came out beautifully, if not as flat as what you can buy in the store.  I don't think north Wales has a very large existing Jewish population.)  The only flour I had was self-rising flour, and we make use of what we have around here.  Especially after spending what we did on a leg of lamb.  (More on that later.)  My father-in-law called the "matzah" rustic (compliment).  It only uses three ingredients: flour, water, and salt.  It was so easy and tasty, I'm going to make this flatbread throughout the liturgical year, I think, and season it with green herbs, like this fresh thyme we have growing the back garden, and slathered with butter.

The matzah is the unleavened bread.  And, no, it is absolutely not a coincidence that this setup looks like the host and paten at a Catholic Mass.  The parallel is utterly intentional.

Chopped apples and nuts soaked in wine with sugar and cinnamon make charoses, meant to symbolize the mortar that the Hebrews made when they were slaves in Egypt.

The egg is for new life, and the "bitter" herbs dipped in salt water reminiscent of the bitterness of our Hebrew ancestors in slavery.  (We also couldn't find horseradish.)

Before preparing this time-consuming though uncomplicated meal, I printed out coloring pages for Afon from Catholic Icing, a great resource that I'm sure everyone's already heard of.  Maybe in a few years' time, we'll cut out the figures and make the small-scale of DaVinci's Last Supper.

He thought all the apostles were "Jesus."  You know, the beards and all.

I'd never made lamb before, so I opted for well done with only the slightest bit of pink around the bones.  The recipe calls for sweet marjoram and cloves, but neither were available, so I substituted oregano and some cinnamon.  We did have brown sugar.  Lots and lots of brown sugar.

That evening, John, as the patriarch of the household, enacted the role of the leader.  There comes a point in the ceremony when he breaks the bread and puts the larger part under a napkin where it is hidden, to represent the Messiah who has not yet come.  But as Catholics, we break from tradition, and eat of the hidden bread before the ceremony ends, reciting the words of Jesus at the last supper: "Do this in memory of me."

You see, our Jewish brethren come to the table of Passover with expectation and remembrance.  They are mindful of their suffering and how God liberated them when they cried out for help.  But we remember not only the exile in Egypt but the exile of Original Sin; how God offered us His Own Son as the spotless lamb to be sacrificed, to be eaten of, to spread His Blood on the wood of the cross rather than a lentil, in order to loose the chains of our spiritual slavery.  And He invites us to eat Him, each time a Mass is said, for "my Flesh is food indeed and my Blood is drink indeed."

"You see, Afon," I said, "this is what the priest does at church on Sunday, up on the altar.  It doesn't look quite like this, but this is what it is.  Only what we eat now is just a meal.  But what we eat at the Mass is not just a meal; it is true magic.  The kind of magic that makes flesh look and taste and smell and feel just like bread and blood look and taste and smell and feel just like wine.  So that Jesus can come into our mouths and go down into our tummy and be with us for the rest of the day, closer than our own heart, and nourish us there.  Because He loves us very much."

And throughout this pretty speech, Afon banged his fork and knife on the table and relocated to the couch.  But I figure after a few years of this, understanding--or, at least, the best kind of understanding a mere mortal can hope to have of the mysteries of the universe--will sink in by osmosis.

A blessed Easter Triduum to you and yours.

Nadolig Llawen!

Dec. 24, Vigil of the Nativity of Our Lord.

". . . there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.  Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.  Is it all real?  Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding."

Christmas blessings to all who visit this blog and all their loved ones, and to our Eastern and Greek brethren, the same hearty sentiments in a few weeks' time!  Nadolig llawen!

Autumn Bounty

Sept. 23, Feast of Saint Linus, Pope and martyr.

Sunday was the first day of autumn.  Our life has been so full of late--with good food, fellowship, new jobs, cherished friends, growing closer to God and the liturgical seasons, discipline in prayer, and much activity.

My middle sister has made her way east from Texas for a visit.  The Squirt is learning new things every day.  We borrowed a picture book from the parish library, whose cover is an image of the Child Jesus and a little boy walking hand-in-hand.  It is his favorite book, and he wants to bring it with him everywhere.  So I showed him an icon I recently bought at the abbey gift shop, a medieval illumination of young Jesus with His Mother, printed on wood.  I gave this to him to hold and kiss; he walks around with it saying, "Baby and mama, baby and mama," and puts it away only to take it out again and admire it.  His favorite illustration in the picture book is one of a little boy at the Tabernacle.  The door is swung open, and a small Christ Child emerges with arms open, and the two reach toward each other to embrace, with angles surrounding.

3 Reasons I Love Catholicism, Vol. 5

Linking up (belatedly) with California to Korea.

1.  Suffering

The thing about suffering in the Church is, you never suffer alone.

I don't mean that there is always someone somewhere praying for you, though maybe not by name.  I don't mean that you can go to any Catholic parish and a Saint Vincent de Paul Society will tend your material needs while a priest in a confessional hears out your spiritual ones.  I don't even mean the Eternal Presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, though that's hardly a mild comfort.

I mean that God Himself knows what it is to suffer; that, if we believe in the eternal sacrifice and know that all of space and time is present before the Most High, God even now is intimately familiar with (what we might call) despair.  And that when our soul's agony cries out to heaven, He weeps with us, saying, "I too have cried out to God, asking why He has forsaken Me."

If I were not a Catholic, I don't know what I'd do with suffering.  It has been Christ crucified, and His silent company, that I've clung to in times of terrible sorrow.

That, and the knowledge that in Catholicism, suffering is not for nothing; it's never wasted.  Suffering can purify.  Suffering can heal.  Through Christ's sacrifice, it is made fruitful.  We can consecrate our suffering and join it to that of Christ on the cross, who said, "Behold!  I make all things new" (Rev.21:5).

2.  Community

Excepting the Arctic and Antarctic circles, and some remote Pacific islands (Pitcairn), the Catholic Church is literally universal.  It can be found in every country in the world.  The apostolic succession set up by Our Lord and the early Church has successfully withstood heresy, rebellion, war, schism, and modernity to remain One.  That's a pretty incredible feeling.  I can wander into a small Swiss village in the Alps one Sunday morning looking for Mass and find an active Catholic parish.*  I can kneel during the consecration of the Blessed Sacrament and be joined in adoration with all the other Catholics that day all over the world, present at the same exact sacrifice.

3.  Ceremony

Human beings thrive on ceremony.  It quenches an instinct as primal as the sex drive, evident from prehistory; surviving through folklore, myth, and artifacts; buried carefully with the beloved dead.  Even atheists happily practice superstitions, and cherish family customs passed down from generation to generation.  Children revere bedtime routines to the point of insisting the babysitter follow Mommy's nightly ritual: bath, book, lullaby . . . and don't forget to tuck her in, just so!  Ceremony is not meaningless but expresses the inseverable union of material reality and spiritual truth.  Since God became man, all matter is sanctified.

The Church recognizes and celebrates this, and gives us ceremony.  She might've interpreted Jesus's command to do this in memory of Me in the simplest of terms.  Many "Bible churches" do.  But every action blesses and enriches.  So the incense and the chanting in Latin; the kneeling and fabric-draped altar; the lips touching crucifixes and colors of candles are for us as much as they are for Him we worship.  We were created as works of art, and our every act of living should be a sublime performance.

Even the simple act of blessing is a ceremony--not a mere thought of good will or a spoken word but a kind of dance.  The lifting of the hand, the touching of the forehead--down to the chest, across the shoulders--to trace a cross in the air, like a magic spell.

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*This really happened to me.

On Trying to Make Everybody Happy

I grew up in one of those families that was super-sensitive to the needs of others, how we made them feel, how our actions affected them; aware of how our very being made an impression.

It can be a slavish way to live.  Far from being the good Catholic, conscious of the needs of others, I developed a nasty habit of service that had nothing to do with Christian love.  Instead, I served others for myself . . . because I didn't want to be thought badly of or didn't want to disappoint.  Because it was expected of me.  Because I didn't want people to go away and whisper to other people about me disapprovingly.  Because I didn't want to feel bad for making others feel bad.

I served out of fear.  If I didn't serve, I lashed out in self-righteous excuses.  When I did serve, I resented because I never really had a choice.

That's not love, and it's not praiseworthy.  It doesn't make me a martyr or a good steward of Christ.  I should indeed care enough for others to want to make them feel comfortable, but not for any need of acceptance from them.  The people worthy of my respect and whose approvals I care for are the ones who are honest with me, without judgement--will come to me in fraternal concern if they feel my behavior is detrimental to myself or others.  And they will respect me, whether I agree with their concerns or not; it will not change the way they behave toward me or feel about me.

To continue to love, without rejection.  To care for others independent of our sense of self.  It is when we love in such a way that we are closest to living the Perfect Commandment.

GKC and Me

I guess you could call me a Chestertonian.  One of my most prized possessions is the (so far) Complete Works of G.K. Chesterton published by Ignatius.  I was a regular subscriber to Gilbert Magazine before finances got tight.  So much of my thought on faith and fairy tales is informed by Chesterton's childlike wonder, intelligence, and simplicity.  I'm a bit of a Chesterton quote spammer.

This post is about GKC and me; how I learned of him; what book of his I first picked up; what about his life, writing, and philosophy resonated with me; how I've come to call him a my patron saint and spiritual father.  This post was inevitable, but a few expressed reservations from kindred spirits makes the time ripe for an introduction.

Before we go any further, the caveats:

1.  Chesterton is a polemicist.  He's not an apologist of the breed of Dinesh D'Souza, C.S. Lewis, and Scott Hahn.  He's certainly not a theologian like Saint Thomas Aquinas or Peter Kreeft.  He's a debater, both verbal and literary; and debate is a unique school.  It requires pithiness; it assumes an ideal listener/reader, and includes an appeal to pathos as well as logos.  There are certain truths, whether timeless or circumstantial, that must be kept in mind when reading Chesterton, and often there are obscure references to current events that would not have been at all obscure at the time of publication.

Chesterton is timeless in the sense that our repeated failures are timeless.  Otherwise, he is very much a man of his time and culture.  That's very important to keep in mind when reading any author, but even more so with GKC because a lot of what he says assumes pre-established facts.  As a debater, he just wouldn't have had time to go into them, and rightly leaves those metaphysical arguments to the experts.  His one-liners are almost never meant to be taken super-literally and, out of context, can appear downright absurd.

2.  Chesterton is not antisemitic.  This ridiculous and unfounded rumor has been proliferated and preserved by figures as weighty as T.S. Eliot.  The slander of antisemitism is lifted from quotes taken out of context, a modern day backwards application of political correctness, and super sensitivity that sacrifices necessary honest but respectful dialogue for "not hurting anyone's feelings."  Gilbert Magazine devoted a whole issue to address this claim, which can be downloaded for free.  There's no longer an excuse to accept the malicious accusation.

I hope that wasn't too unpleasant.

I consider Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton to be My Big 3.  My love for Tolkien led me to Lewis.  My love for Lewis led me to Chesterton.  Each one shaped who I am today, each person tapped into a part of my personality and soul and nourished it; and, if all did it using different techniques and strengths  from different perspectives and at different angles, that part of me that they shaped is the same and oriented toward the same ultimate good.

Toward the end of my first year of college, I had devoured 19 books by C.S. Lewis, a staggering accomplishment for the world's slowest-reading bibliophile.  Still I wanted more.  Much like I did with Tolkien when I "discovered" Lewis, I frequented articles and forums online, gleaned little bits of information and anecdotes.  I had read Surprised by Joy, of course, and once again saw the name Chesterton popping up with reference to Lewis.  Somehow, I ascertained that this guy was a Catholic.  Naturally, my interest piqued.

I read Orthodoxy and was not disappointed.  Now I'll attempt to describe something that is very hard to communicate in prose.  It's more naturally expressed by art and poetry.

A sentence of Chesterton's is a microcosm of any book; a book, of his entire body of work.  When I read Chesterton, his sentences slapped me in the face, like getting a cold shock of water first thing in the morning.  They literally struck me as truth.  This isn't because his thought is so original that I'd never heard of it before and was astounded to realize him right about it.  Rather, he presents what-is in clarity, distilled in purity, like snow melted mountain water.  Here was a man who unlocked all the tightly raveled God-knowledge of my nascent soul and presented it to me: not as a bride, like Tolkien, in beauty and mystery; not as a mother, like Lewis had, in comforting familiarity and profound love and awe and devotion; but as my own child, an impish joyful thing, astoundingly complete in itself, innocent yet immortal, infinitely familiar to me, utterly surprising and unpredictable.

So, in a parodox (of which Chesteroton is a great advocate), I was knocked off of my feet by this unflinching sense, what we call common sense; only it's not so common anymore.  Since the Fall there's been this dichotomy between good human instinct and an idolatry of human thought.  Some people reason themselves into madness; some into a sanitized, inoffensive creed (Luther, for instance, and the philosophers of the Enlightenment).  Since the Catholic Church lost her queenship in the west, sense has dwindled to a rumor, dismissed as prosaic, found altogether inconvenient.  So there's this strange effect of hearing from Chesterton something both new and familiar.

I've heard people more or less chalk up the popularity of Chesterton to bias confirmation.  And to that I would answer: yes, absolutely.  In the sense that siding with the truth, the kind of truth that can't be tested with the scientific method, is bias confirmation.  Chesterton affirms our instincts.

I can see how someone wouldn't like Chesterton.  His word-play and hyperbole is only one taste out of many.  He's easy to mistake for cocky because of his confidence, though his confidence is like that of a saint: completely unfocused on himself but rather on truth, indeed the Truth, out of pure love and devotion to it.  As he says in The Catholic Church and Conversion, "It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong," and he demonstrates that true humility to a T.  Still others consider him chauvinistic.  To that, I point insistently to caveat #1.  As to the rest of it, I can only say: even Tolstoy didn't like Shakespeare.  There's no accounting for taste!

One final thing.  Chesterton is also my teacher in poetry.  Although that wasn't his thing (Tolkien put his perfectionist frown on The Ballad of the White Horse), his worldview is that of the poet.  He said something profound and simple and alarmingly obvious when he said, "The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say.  The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say."  He gets it.

Much of Chesterton's revelations come to him because he sees the wide world the way a poet does.  Not as something familiar and taken for granted, but as an astounding and strange thing, like a fairy tale.  Why, he asks in Orthodoxy, do we assume that because a tree grows apples that it couldn't very well have grown tigers hanging by their tails?  And what will it take for us to notice, gooseflesh and tiny hairs rising, that apples grow on trees?  That the sun rises every day, without having to be wound up?  That breathing is a miracle, and babies laugh, and wine is so, so warm and good?  How can we make ourselves smell and hear and taste, and be shocked out of complacency?

What is the job of a poet if not to bring forth those delightful shivers?  To dare to inspire a soul to prayer or a call to action?  To look at things-that-are in a way that makes us tremble with fear and wonder and walk away changed; either like the man who went away sadly when Jesus told him what he must do to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven, or like the healed one who went out and proclaimed, "I was blind, but now I see."

Quid est veritas?

Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice.

Truth?  What is truth?

Tuesdays with Mary: Ever-Virgin

You've heard of Tuesdays with Morrie, that self-help, feel-good nonfiction account of a sports reporter's last days with his dying professor (may he, through the mercy of God, rest in peace).  I read it and admit I wasn't too impressed.  It seemed to me that Morrie's trite, New Age views of life and death left a lot to be lacking.

Maybe for the religiously disinclined, Tuesdays offered some spiritual insights and an introduction to contemplative thought.  But for those of us raised on the Living Bread of the Eucharist and the milk of Mother Church, it tastes a tad stale.

I propose instead Tuesdays with Mary.

Our Blessed Mother and Holy Lady, ever eager to point us to Christ, to take us by the hand if necessary, tells us, "Do whatever He tells you."

I don't get some Christians' fervent insistence that she was known by her husband Saint Joseph and went on to bear other children after the birth of Christ.  In one book I have been reading, a character confides that she cannot imagine what a virgin woman would know of life and suffering.

The obvious answer is: she knew a great deal of suffering, for the sword in her heart at baby Jesus's presentation did not let her rest easy in the hope of a long and fulfilling life for her child.  But that is not my point today.

What fascinates me about Mary is that God made her, through His grace, accessible to all women, by allowing her to become and remain both mother and virgin.  These are (generally speaking) the two states of womanhood, and while both are precious and honored, they cannot logically exist together.

Except in Mary.

Mary is, like always, the Great Exception (excepted from sin, excepted from death).  She is the Woman of Revelations in scripture and in that role an archetype and representative of all women, but also our ideal.

So naturally, when people wonder why it is so important that Mary remains a virgin, the first reply my thoughts fly to is 

How could she be otherwise?