Category: Prayer

Healing Fire

11/26/2021

So I had this vision.

I was praying for a sick friend the other day, using a prayer-meditation called the St. Anne Chaplet. (Chaplets are strings of beads in various configurations, each associated with short, memorized prayers; I love them, and they are my preferred sitting practice. Buddhists and Yogis, think japa; Muslims, think dhikr. These are not exact equivalents, but they are analogous.)
I am usually careful not to project my prayers “out there” to some distant God or saint “in heaven,” but to be aware of the presence of the prayed-to with me as I pray. In particular, I make an effort to pray the Hail, Mary directly into my own heart, because it, like the “Virgin’s womb,” is where God is born.

But I have lapses, and often catch myself going through the exercise somewhat mechanically. This time, though, I noticed my straying attention, and redirected my prayer into my heart—and immediately began to tremble violently all over. As I continued to pray, I saw myself in my mind’s eye burst into flame—harmless fire that did not consume whereon it burned. And I saw my sick friend, saw myself reaching out to her as the flames leaped from my arms to her, and as we embraced we were both engulfed in Holy Fire. I finished the meditation, sat in rapt silence a while, and went to bed.

Edit: I mention all this because, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am not a pure person. I am impatient, bad tempered, conflicted, sensual to the point of concupiscence, and I have so little faith that I would be hard pressed to defend against an accusation of functional atheism. But the unseen is so close to all of us—“closer to you than your jugular vein”(Qur’an 50:16)—and we never know how near at hand the grace of God is.

Within thy circling power I stand;
On every side I find thy hand;
Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,
I am surrounded still with God —Isaac Watts

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"Those guys left all the cushy jobs to us."

7/26/2021

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I have found most hospice patients happy to see the chaplain, or least receptive. At worst, distracted or indifferent. But I once had a patient who was downright hostile, and made it clear that my visit was something to be checked off with as much dispatch, and as little engagement, as possible. He laid down on the bed in his worn leather jacket and dirty baseball cap, answering my assessment questions peremptorily: yes, he’d made peace with his children; yes, he’d said his goodbyes. He was fine, thanks, And that seemed to be all—until I learned that he was a retired union organizer.

I mentioned that some of my Dad’s uncles helped to organize the West Virginia coal mines. After a rich silence, he said softly, “That was back when you could get shot for doing this. Those guys left all the cushy jobs to us.” Before I left, we held hands and prayed together.

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Wax On, Wax Off: Pilgrimage for Healing, Part 2 of 2

9/19/2018

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In the Roman Catholic devotion called "Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament,” consecrated Host, or communion wafer, is exposed for viewing in a special holder called a "monstrance," so the faithful can pray in its presence. Although the risen Christ is said to be present everywhere, he is believed to be present “in a special way” in the consecrated Sacrament.

Nothing could be more alien to my Methodist upbringing; indeed, I have no doubt that some of my church mentors would have considered the practice idolatrous. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely for that reason, I have attempted to practice Adoration for many years, whenever I found myself in a Catholic environment in which there was Blessed Sacrament exposed for that purpose. In all that time, I never felt even a tingle – no connection whatever to Jesus in, or as, that piece of bread.

There is a sweet little Adoration chapel in the Basilica of St. Anne de Beaupré, and I visited it more than once during my pilgrimage of healing to the Québec shrine. (Below is a picture of it. I don't know whether photographing it is considered disrespectful or not; I hope not.) During my last visit, as I prayed the Adoration of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament Chaplet, I had the impression that the consecrated Body spoke to me. I don't mean that I heard a literal voice, and my ears were not involved; it was more like the words dropped directly into my head.

"You are the Body of Christ," the Sacrament said.

Then, all on its own, my mind supplied the remembered words of St. Teresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

The message was clear: get up out of that little chapel, and start being the Body of Christ in the world.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that there is no validity in Adoration of the Sacrament; in fact, I have no doubt that many, many people draw from the practice the very inspiration that empowers them to function as Christ's body in the world. Maybe you need to grow up with it in order for it to "take." At least, that seems to be the case with me. I seem to have been cut from the team.

It didn't happen all at once, but over the weeks since my return from pilgrimage, I have felt as though all the spiritual practices, all the reading, all the classes and workshops I have undertaken throughout my adult life have finally begun to bear fruit. I feel a little like Daniel in the movie The Karate Kid.

Mr. Miyagi, an Okinawan immigrant (played by Pat Morita,) undertakes to teach karate to Daniel (played by Ralph Macchio) so he can defend himself from some vicious bullies. During the first several lessons, Mr. Miyagi assigns Daniel a number of menial tasks – waxing his collection of classic cars, sanding his deck, painting his house and fence – all with very specific physical motions. Eventually, Daniel decides that rather than teaching him karate, Mr. Miyagi is simply using him as a household slave. As he stalks off, Mr. Miyagi calls him back, and directs him to reproduce the motions he used for accomplishing each of the tasks. “Show me wax-on, wax-off,” he orders, insisting on the specific motions he had originally assigned; he goes through all the tasks, having Daniel show him the physical gestures he had required to use in doing them.

Then he throws a punch at Daniel.

Without thinking, Daniel uses the car-waxing motion – which, by this time, he has used thousands of times – to parry the punch. The teacher throws an array of punches and kicks at the student, who blocks each of them using the gestures he has internalized over many days of performing menial tasks. “You learn plenty," he tells the startled boy. "Come back tomorrow."

Since my return from Canada, two friends have contacted me to ask for prayer about the same issue, as it appears in different forms in their lives. Honoring their requests, I have found reserves of self-application I didn't know I had. I have found myself much more able to remain present in the moment, more patient with myself about the things I find it difficult to do now, and happier to address myself to the things I can. And while I certainly still have stiff, sore days full of debility and foul moods, I am making great progress learning to function within the new normal, and spending less time regretting the past and dreading the future. As long as I keep coming back tomorrow, maybe I can keep the vicious bullies of my soul at bay.

So maybe I do have some healing to show for my pilgrimage; maybe the intercession of Good St. Anne did obtain some grace for me. Or maybe it was just the effort of the pilgrimage itself that awoke my latent spiritual gifts. If you've read much of my writing, you know I consider this a distinction without a difference, and it doesn't interest me much. So though I haven't been cured in the way I wanted, I seem to have been healed in the way I needed – and that is a lot to be thankful for.

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Pilgrimage for Healing (Part 1 of 2)

8/31/2018

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The Sisters' Choir at La Monastére des Augustines, Québec. Photo by SR

Healing is not about getting back to the way things were, but about learning to live with how they are now. --Ram Dass, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying

I went to Québec for three reasons – or rather, one reason in three parts: I wanted "healing of body, mind, and spirit."

Before I went to the Basilica of St.-Anne-de-Beaupré, a shrine to the mother of the Virgin Mary, famous as a site of miraculous healings, I knew that I would love to charge in, full of the faith that moves mountains, fully expecting to be healed of the effects of spinal stenosis. I held back, however, because I feared disappointment. Which, of course, may be precisely the reason I didn't receive physical healing. But healing did come-- though, as usual, not in exactly the form I looked for.

Before I left for Canada, my wife – who missed her true vocation as a travel agent – found a wonderful place for me to stay: a refurbished 17th-century Augustinian monastery, with delicious, healthy meals, a fascinating museum documenting three centuries as a hospital, a working church, and a choice of contemporary or authentic rooms. (Guess which I chose.) There are still about a dozen elderly Sisters in residence, and the secular organization that now runs the hotel has carried on, in a contemporary, nonsectarian way, the Sisters’ ideals around spiritual healing and bodily wellness.

Now, despite my skepticism concerning miraculous physical healing, I was expecting some kind of revelatory experience at the Basilica itself. The shrine is about a half hour bus ride from Québec City, where I was staying, and twice I left the quiet simplicity of the monastery for the splendid and impressive church of St. Anne. It is a place of extraordinary beauty (if you are on Facebook, you can see my pictures hereand here.) But though I prayed in the various chapels and shrines – which was, in its own way, very fulfilling – I did not experience, at least on the first day, anything I could identify as revelatory, nor did I leave my cane behind amongst the various crutches and other aids displayed in the vestibule. I have not made an ex voto offering, nor will I be applying to the Vatican for certification of a miracle.

On Friday, I did go to a weekday English language Mass, and it was as dreary and patronizing as Catholic Masses in English abroad usually are, and as cold and distant as cathedral worship generally is. After the Eucharist, the priest and the acolyte brought out two small silver reliquaries containing bone fragments from Saint Anne, and we were invited to form two lines, come forward, and reverence the relics. Which I did, despite my Protestant-bred heebie-jeebies. (I have mixed feelings about relics; at the Cathedral in Lisbon, we saw some of St. Francis Xavier’s hair. On the one hand, ew, but on the other, I really admire Francis Xavier, and there was something extraordinary about seeing his actual hair.}[1]

On Sunday, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to bus to the Basilica for Mass, and the nearest Anglican church was too far to walk to and difficult to reach by public transit. So I sauntered around the monastery-cum-auberge in the direction of the church until I heard angelic singing coming from the wing known as “the Sisters’ Choir.” (See photo above.) After following the sound to its source, I sat in a chair at the back of the room and observed as the Sisters held their rehearsal. After they had filed out past me, many smiling and bonjour-ing in greeting, I took a seat in one of the stalls, opened my Daily Office book, and read the Morning Prayer service for that day. This was all the church I thought I was going to get. But I soon realized that what I had taken for a rehearsal was actually a warm-up, and that there was to be a Mass that morning.

For some reason, the service was not held in the gilded Baroque church to which the choir was attached; rather, an altar was set up inside the choir itself. A priest arrived, the Sisters filed back in, and one of them handed me a Mass booklet in French. I was able to follow both the prayers and the songs with ease, and was deeply moved by the elegant simplicity of the experience. I imagined the days when the many stalls were filled with hospital Sisters will, some of whom worked 12 hour shifts caring for all sorts and conditions of sick and injured people. I had seen their many names on the wall plaque in the museum section, as well as pictures of their simple lives – caring for patients, singing, sharing meals in the common dining hall, ice-skating, picnicking, playing games. I was filled with a powerful sense of their dedication and fidelity to their mission. And while it would be easy to romanticize such women living such a life, it was abundantly evident in any case that they weren't in it for the applause.

The reflection made me wonder about my own life. In my book,The Dark Hills, I wrote:

I often experience my life as confining, unfulfilling. I expected it to be full of height and depth and gravitas, and found it full of dog fur and goutweed. I looked forward to being intellectually and aesthetically stimulated on a daily basis. (What I thought would happen about the dog fur and goutweed I don’t know.) I thought I would feel more important.

I believe I experienced some spiritual healing, not in the gorgeous basilica I traveled to Québec to visit, but in the unpretentious Sister’s choir in the monastery-hotel. Since my return, I have found myself much less liable to mentally checking out as I go about my daily tasks; in fact, I'm actually doing those tasks more faithfully, at least to the extent that the fatigue caused by spinal stenosis allows. I have resumed using my mantra – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me –as a way of staying present in the moment, a practice I had not followed for a long time.

I know it is a mistake to look for what C.S. Lewis called "an endowment of grace for life;" I know that I cannot depend on this undoubtedly fleeting emotional state to carry me through the years ahead. But I'm equally sure that God touched me through the simplicity and self-dedication I witnessed among those Sisters, and to the extent that I stay dedicated to the simplicities of my own life, I can honor that unadorned gift of grace.

[1]Historical note: during the Roman persecutions, Christians celebrated the Eucharist in underground catacombs, using the tombs of the martyrs as altar tables. This was the origin of having a saint or, failing that, a bit of a saint inside church altars. The veneration of relics grew from there.

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What Can I Do When I Can No Longer Do What I Once Could?

2/28/2018

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Me playing the tabla, before spinal stenosis

Me, playing the concertina at a Renaissance festival, before spinal stenosis

I first knew for sure that I had a problem when I was using the elliptical exerciser. I had been keeping myself in shape with it for years, but it slowly, almost imperceptibly, became more difficult to use. When the reckoning finally came, my left foot would clench up like a fist after only a few minutes of exercise. Then things began to happen faster.

Within a short time, I could no longer play the piano, concertina or harmonium without pain, and could only type with my right hand. (I am using dictation software to write this article.) Centering Prayer became difficult because I could no longer sit still comfortably for any period of time. Cooking became a challenge as my left hand became less adept at holding vegetables while my right hand cut them. And while "any place is walking distance if you have the time" had always been a motto of mine, I soon found even walking taxing. Spinal stenosis – a condition in which the bones of the spine thicken, putting pressure on the spinal cord and causing weakness, loss of dexterity, and decreased range of motion on one side of the body – had left me unable to do a lot of the things which had previously given me joy.

Me, playing the harmonium at a Renaissance festival, before spinal stenosis. The left hand pumps the bellows.

The problem had been a long time coming on; like the frog who boiled to death because the heat under the pan had been turned up so slowly that it hadn't noticed, I failed to register my increasing debility for at least a year before it became too severe to ignore. Besides, I somaticize my emotions a lot, so it was easy to assume that the muscle tension in my left arm, leg, hand, and shoulder were symptoms of stress.

I had surgery which, unfortunately, didn't work; in fact, I was worse after it than before. Everything from picking things up off the floor to putting on my pants became harder, so I did less, and between my physical inertness, and depression urging me to spend many hours sleeping on the couch, I managed to put on about 90 pounds. I went from being a person whose age people routinely guessed ten years low, to getting offered senior citizen discounts at a glance.

I developed an obsession with my "glory days," when I could do so many things I could no longer do, or do as well as I used to. At the same time, I would see friends 10 to 20 years older than me – I am 53 now – move around much more spryly than I could, and be beset with panic about ending up a miserable, contracted 65-year-old in a wheelchair. I was caught between mourning the past and dreading the future.

And the fatigue! Just walking eight tenths of a mile to church and back for Morning Prayer leaves me well-nigh exhausted, and if I follow that up with an aquacise class at the gym, I’ll either need to take a nap or drag myself through the rest of the day at 60% power. My left hand has become so maladroit that even tying my shoes makes me break a sweat. Moving around in a crowded room has become an ordeal, as I strive not to use other people as a luge course from my seat to the bathroom or buffet. Even if it’s for something I love, like shape-note singing, if it’s going to involve a lot of people in close quarters, or there aren’t comfortable chairs, I may stay home. My world is contracting.

“Most people start the day with an unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people,” wrote a blogger with Lupus. “The hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to.”

I hate it, too, and the anxiety and weariness still trouble me during my weaker moments. I still fiercely miss making music with friends, cooking without dropping things all the time, and walking for pleasure, and I still dread those further losses that may be coming. But the good news is, I have begun, with the help of my wife and a lot of prayerful introspection, to emerge from that narrow space between the Scylla of the past and the dire Charybdis of the future. It sounds ridiculously obvious, but the secret is to focus on what I can do now.

I cannot play instruments that require the equal use of both hands, but I can play predominantly right-handed instruments like the Irish bodhran, the Basque string drum, the Indian karatals (tiny brass cymbals)—and thanks to some kind biomechanical engineers at Temple University, I now have a motorized harmonium that doesn’t require my left hand to pump the bellows. (I also found a one-handed accordion, with a keyboard on the right but no bass or chord buttons on the left.)

I cannot sit, erect and still, in meditation any longer, but I can pray Evening Prayer or Compline out of the Prayerbook, pray the Rosary once a week with the Morning Meditation group at church, and observe novenas when saints to whom I feel a connection come up in the calendar.

I cannot practice yoga or use the elliptical exerciser, but I can go to aquacise classes and walk to church for Morning Prayer.

It’s hard to slice and dice by hand, but it’s easy to use a Cuisinart and buy frozen chopped onions and pre-minced garlic. (Helpful hint: a hardboiled egg slicer can be used to slice mushrooms, too.)

All of these accommodations have been exercises in humility, of course; having to face loss of ability and accept help are potent medicine for a misplaced sense of self. The cooking accommodations have also shown me that many of the things I thought were quality-of-life choices—always using fresh garlic, rather than powdered or pre-minced, for instance—were actually ego-driven choices rooted in pride; whatever else I was, I wasn’t one of those sorry people who didn’t know what to do with fresh herbs. Now, I save physical discomfort by opening a bag of frozen chopped onions rather than chopping them fresh, and each time I do it, the ego discomfort is a little less.

Best of all, God seems to be validating my adjustments with a stream of successful and rewarding workshops, discussions, and other professional and volunteer opportunities; chances to use the training I received at the Shalem Institute, graduate school and seminary. It almost seemed as though every time I resigned myself to finding a new way of doing something, I get a phone call or email about some new project. It's enough to make you think you're doing something right.

Perhaps most excitingly, I got an email asking me to serve as a Formation Counselor for the Third Order of St. Francis--a religious order within the Episcopal Church whose members live a Franciscan life, with a Rule and under vows, but in the world rather than in community. I had plenty of reservations, and plenty of reasons to say "no". Things like deadlines, files, email, and other things to be kept straight and organized can be daunting to me. Moreover, as I read the handbook and other materials, I realized how much I had been bobbing along the surface of Third Order life in some ways.

When I was in formation, I took to heart what the formation letters said about how it was I, and not my family, who was becoming a Franciscan, and when my children were small – and until quite recently – I missed a lot of fellowship meetings because they were on Saturday mornings, which I considered family time. While the day-to-day business of keeping the rule was something I could still do, I fell out of touch with the larger order in some ways; the newsletters, the intercession list, and other ways of keeping my finger on the pulse sort of fell through the cracks. But I remembered what the Principles of the Order say about humility: "when asked to undertake work of which they feel unworthy or incapable they do not shrink from it on the grounds of humility, but confidently attempt it through the power that is made perfect in weakness."

Harmonium with an electric motor to pump the bellows, courtesy of the Temple University Department of Biomechanical Engineering.

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You Can't Build a Tree

7/31/2017

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Mustard Tree

I have come to believe that one of the best reasons to read and listen to sacred texts many times over many years is that when we are ready, the texts spring into life and offer us the healing or insight we need

I have been anxious and on edge these past several weeks without understanding why. It had gotten so bad that my family was suffering because of it. Then, this past Sunday, I found myself becoming suddenly and inexplicably emotional, to the point of wiping away tears, during this portion of the Gospel reading:

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)

After the reading, I racked my brains in order to understand why this passage, which I have heard and read ever since I can remember, should have had such a powerful effect on me on this particular Sunday. I realized that I had recently begun a new per diem hospice chaplain job, and had just been contacted about interviewing for another. I still have not lost the weight I have put on since my spinal surgery, and have been frustrated with the painfully slow pace with which occupational and physical therapy yield tangible results, if they yield any. I'd been struggling to re-learn how to play the harmonium, re-establish my physical and spiritual exercise regimens, reclaim the weed-choked flowerbed and half a dozen other things.

In a flash, I knew what had been making me so anxious: I have been trying to build a tree for myself, when what I needed to do was to plant a seed and trust God that it would grow. I could cultivate it to the best of my ability one day at a time, rather than trying to force it all into existence at once. Because the trees we build for ourselves may stand up, more or less, but they don't grow, they don't make good signs of the Kingdom, and they certainly aren't hospitable to those who perch around our lives.

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What We Want Most

3/11/2017

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"I have always wondered about the reasoning behind giving up your favorite thing for Lent," wrote a friend a few moments after I announced that I was staying off my personal Facebook page for Lent.

Well, a lot of people observe Lent, and for a lot of reasons. (I've even noticed a growing number of non-Christians observing it.) Some people do it as a way of bringing unruly desires under their conscious control, increasing their level of self-mastery and winning themselves a measure of personal freedom. Certainly when I was younger, and even more of a slave to my baser instincts than I am now, that was my goal.

It's a little different now, however; at any rate, I frame it differently.

A colleague of mine says that "we give up what we want most for what we want now." I genuinely want to read that book about Aristotle, but with a Christopher Moore vampire novel at hand, that's going to be a challenge unless I give up fiction for Lent.

There's less to be gained by walking to church for morning meditation if I stayed up late the night before watching Netflix than if I'd gotten a good night's sleep and came in fresh. I genuinely want a fruitful meditation time, so I give up Netflix for Lent.

Time spent on Facebook, while I enjoy it, is time not spent on musical and writing projects, so away Facebook goes for a while. That way, when Easter comes, I can meet it as something closer to my best self than I was forty days ago, having spent that season of preparation trading in what I want now for what I want most.

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My Book

10/9/2015

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If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I have struggled off and on with depression for the past ten years or more. When I began blogging after leaving my university teaching job, I noticed that I always got very positive responses from readers when I wrote about that topic. Evidently, there are a lot of people out there who are dealing with this disease, and my thoughts on the subject were helpful to some of them.

For that reason, I decided to write a book on faith, spirituality, and depression. When The Sacred Feet Publishing Imprint--a project of the Jones Educational Foundation, which also oversees the Slate Branch Ashram--expressed an interest in publishing such a book, I sifted out my depression-related blog posts from Elephant Journal, Progressive Christianity and Recovering Yogi and dunked them into the boiling pot of my thoughts the way you might dunk a string into a pot of sugar water, and the book built itself around them like rock candy around the string.

If you have "Liked" Open to the Divine on Facebook, you will be getting notices of upcoming promotional events, such as combined book signings and kirtans in New York and Philadelphia. (And if you haven't, why haven't you?) In the meantime, you can learn more about the book here.

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Two Less-Familiar Rosaries

8/21/2012

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Those of you who follow this blog have already figured out that I love chaplets–prayer beads like the Dominican, Franciscan and Anglican Rosaries. (I also love malas–prayer beads used by Hindu and Buddhist devotees for chanting mantras.)

My older daughter just took up lacrosse this past spring, and if you’ve ever seen girls’ lacrosse, you know about “cradling”–the constant side-to-side twisting of the stick the player must do in order to keep control of the ball, women’s sticks not having the deep pockets that men’s sticks do. I think of the prayers associated with each bead as a similar thing–a sort of mental “cradling” that keeps the ball in the air, as it were–keeps me focused and allows my spiritual faculties to work unhindered (or, to be honest, a little less hindered) by my chattering mind.

I also use the familiar Dominican Rosary (what most people mean by “the Rosary”) and the similar, but less familiar Franciscan Crown Rosary as aids to intercessory prayer, about which you can read more here. I also use the even less familiar, but wonderfully uplifting Holy Spirit Chaplet[i] for that same purpose, and for the many people who are strangers to this devotion, here’s how it works.

The rosary consists of a medal of the Holy Spirit. three small preparatory beads, and six sets of two large beads each, enclosing five sets of seven small beads. Like the Dominican and Franciscan Crown rosaries, each set of beads is associated with a "mystery" to be contemplated whilst reciting the prayers: 1) Jesus is Conceived by the Holy Spirit, 2) The Holy Spirit Descends Upon Jesus at Baptism, 3) The Holy Spirit Drives Jesus into the Wilderness, 4) The Holy Spirit Empowers the Church at Pentecost, and 5) The Holy Spirit Dwells in the Souls of the Righteous.

The traditional way of praying this chaplet is a little complicated; as I am prone to do, I’ve simplified it. (In fact, in some places I’ve outright changed it; you can learn the traditional method here if you wish.)

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT MEDAL

            Almighty God, to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from You no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Your holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (Collect for Purity, Book of Common Prayer. I begin all my Christian chaplet devotions–with one exception, about which more below–with this prayer.)

ON THE THREE PREPARATORY SMALL BEADS

            Breathe in me, Holy Spirit, that all my thoughts may be holy;
   Act in me, Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy;
            Draw my heart, Holy Spirit, that I may only love what is holy;
            Strengthen me, Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy;
            Guard me, Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. (St. Augustine)

ON THE FIRST OF EACH OF THE FIVE SETS OF TWO LARGE BEADS

            Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name;
            Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
            Give us today our daily bread,
   and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
   Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil. Amen.

ON THE SECOND OF EACH OF THE FIVE SETS OF TWO LARGE BEADS

            Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;
            Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
   Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen

ON EACH OF THE SEVEN SMALL BEADS BETWEEN THE SETS OF TWO LARGE BEADS

            Glory to God, Transcendent Majesty, Incarnate Word, and Indwelling Spirit,
            As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen. (Traditionally, this is the familiar “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit," etc. I prefer this version because it is not only more gender-neutral, but also more beautiful and, because it is longer, it allows more time to “hold in the light” each person for whom I am praying. It also just makes the whole exercise a little less like falling down the stairs.)

In the traditional version, one recites the Apostles’ Creed and the Our Father on the last two large beads, but I prefer to maintain the Our Father/Hail Mary pattern.

One other chaplet I am fond of is the Adoration of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament Chaplet. This one, as it turns out, I actually pray in the traditional manner–but not in the traditional circumstances.

This simple chaplet consists of a medal of the Blessed Sacrament[i] and thirty-three beads, one for each year of Jesus earthly life. It is traditionally prayed during Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, when the consecrated communion bread is exposed to view in a vessel call a monstrance, and the faithful pray in the presence of Christ in this form.

As Eucharistic Adoration is not part of my tradition, I most often pray this chaplet when, for whatever reason, I find myself in a Roman Catholic church rather than and Episcopal one. Since I, as a non-Catholic, am forbidden to receive Communion in a Catholic church, the chaplet gives me something to do while the other worshippers are communing. (I find this far more edifying than my former practice of sitting there and being resentful.) Here’s how the devotion works:

ON THE BLESSED SACRAMENT MEDAL

Oh, my Jesus, as I cannot now receive You in Holy Communion, come spiritually into my heart and make it Your own forever.

ON THE BEADS:

Lord Jesus, ever present in the holy sacrament of the altar, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.

For reasons that I will write about later, I have found myself becoming ever more dependent on structured devotions like chaplets, and the more I practice them, the more satisfying they become. If you find it difficult to sit in utter silence during your contemplative prayer time, you may find rosary practice as fruitful as I have.

[i] Not to be confused with the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit Chaplet, which is different.
[i] The Eucharist, or Holy Communion

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Techno, Chianti and the Praise of God

1/20/2012

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Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy temple;
praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts;
praise him for his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the blast of the ram’s horn;
Praise him with lyre and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and dance;
Praise him with strings and pipe.
Praise him with resounding cymbals;
Praise him with loud-clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath
Praise the Lord. Hallelujah!

(Psalm 150, Book of Common Prayer translation)

There is a classic formula for Christian prayer whose acronym in ACTS: Adoration, Confession,
Thanksgiving, Supplication. (Some versions include a separate category for Intercession, which
Is otherwise included as part of Supplication–or as I prefer to call it, Petition.)

I have never really understood the need for Adoration. “Why does God need our praise?” I
wondered. Surely such a thing is superfluous. Which, of course, only illustrates how easy it is
(for me) to know something without bringing (my) knowledge to bear.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. (Ps. 145:3)

Earlier this week, while preparing for intercessory prayer with the Franciscan Crown Rosary (a
practice I wrote about in my last entry) I decided that my usual modes of address at the
beginning of a prayer were becoming more than a little pat. So I cast around for some other ways
to address the Eternal: All-Pervading Energy, Ground of Being, Source of the Universe, Fountain
of All Being…there were many more, but I can’t remember them now because I very quickly
entered an exalted state as my efforts to put God’s reality into words brought me a fresh, vivid
sense of the unfathomable vastness of that reality. Praising God–which any meaningful form of
address to the Divine will almost necessarily be–brought home to me the hitherto purely
intellectual knowledge that “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

Here’s an example: I used to require students–non-music-majors–to attend a live musical
performance and describe what they heard. Most often, whet I got instead of descriptions were
labels: heavy metal, techno and the like. When I’d insist on actual descriptions of musical
parameters like volume, rhythm, melody and timbre, they’d object that, as non-music-majors,
they weren’t able to talk about music in that way. This, I maintained, is untrue; you needn’t have
access to specialized jargon–just use your own words.

Over Thanksgiving break, my wife’s godfather opened two bottle of red wine and removed the labels, offering each for sampling and our estimate of what they were. “That tastes like a Chianti,” I said of the first. My wife, who’d been listening to me bitch about my student’s papers all morning, shouted from the next room, “That’s not a description–that’s a label!” “I don’t speak wine!” I rejoined. “You tell your students they don’t need to speak music,” she answered.

She had me there, so I applied myself to describing what I tasted without recourse to jargon.

“Well…on top, it kind of tastes like flowers.”

Holy Moly, I thought: Distinct floral notes!
.
“But underneath, I can taste herbs.”

Hey—would that be “herbal undertones”?

Two remarkable things were happening as I tried to describe what I tasted: 1) I paid closer
attention to what I was drinking, and 2) the argot of professional wine critics began to make
sense for the first time. Phrases that had previously washed over me like some foreign language
suddenly yielded up their meaning as I verified their accuracy by experience.

That’s what praising God does: sharpens our attention to the Divine, and elucidates the
descriptions used by those who have gone before us. "The old words of grace are worn smooth
as poker chips,” wrote novelist Walker Percy, “and a certain devaluation has occurred, like a
poker chip after it has been cashed in." Groping for our own words restores the texture of the
time-honored ones.

I used to wonder why we should praise God, because I had forgotten a cardinal rule of prayer, as expressed by C.S. Lewis: “It doesn't change God- it changes me.” The more we dwell on God, the more surely we come to share in the Divine nature. “What we think,” said the Buddha, “we become.” And surely this is why Paul exhorted the Christians at Phillipi, saying:

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. (Phillippians 4:8)

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