I always pray to the Holy Spirit before writing an article or preparing a homily, so that whatever it is I wish to say will be said well and in such a way as to benefit whoever will hear or read what I say, and hopefully thus give glory to God. But sometimes I don't even know what I wish to say, so my prayer takes on a somewhat different character. It's something like, "Come, Holy Spirit, I haven't the slightest idea what to say, but I have to say something, so please give me something to say." This is where I find myself at the present moment, but my computer is indicating that I've already written a hundred twenty-three words without having said anything at all!

If I go blathering on about having nothing to say, I might, with a little luck, complete this entire article without making a single point. But I suspect you would find that entirely unsatisfactory, so I'll try at least to direct my attention toward Lent and Pascha, since this is our Lent-Pascha newsletter (OK, I'm up to 186 words now, maybe another 1800 to go).

All right, where do I find myself now? This is my 28th Lent since entering the monastery. What have I got to show for myself? Have I learned anything or changed for the better? Perhaps the only thing I've learned is that I've not changed much for the better. That may seem insignificant, but perhaps a bit of real self-knowledge is worth more than one might suspect. It's true that I've filled my head with a lot of information since I entered the monastery, so in that sense I've learned a lot. I know much more about the Bible and Catholic theology than I did as a rather clueless postulant who was merely trying to flee the wrath to come and get a jump on saving his soul before all his options were exhausted.

I think I've learned a bit more about human nature as well, in some cases more than I would like to have known. I've also been disabused of many illusions, not only concerning human nature, but also concerning monastic life, and life in general. I suppose that life, if one is moving in more or less the right direction, consists to a considerable degree of dispelling all its illusions while learning the appropriate lessons, working toward the understanding of its sine qua non, and trying to get one's thoughts and words and actions in line with it.

But let's get back to Lent and Pascha. That's another way of saying let's get back to death and resurrection, which is another way of pointing toward the sine qua non of human life, which isn't something but Someone. (Let's see, what have I done up to this point? Shucks, only 477 words.) Well, this Someone ought to be the criterion for whether or not I've learned anything in 28 years of monastic life, or whether I've changed for the better. I'm a little afraid to ask Him, if you know what I mean, but all the same, I think it would be really good if He and I could have a leisurely lunch together, say for a few hours, and just clear up a lot of questions and see how far off the hard and narrow path I may be at this time.

One thing I've learned, though, is that this is not his style, and it's vain to hope for such a clear and orderly set of answers. His style is more like that of an experienced guide who is leading a blind person through a jungle full of things that like to trip you and things that like to land on you or sting you or eat you, and who sometimes gets far enough ahead of you that you don't know where He is anymore and you start wailing and then He says, "It is I. Fear not. Where is your faith?" I'm tempted to answer that I left it at the last pit I fell into, but I realize that things could be worse and that He has in fact saved me from a lot of bad stuff, and He's never really very far away, and all this is for my own good anyway. No, really, it is.

But I was supposed to be talking about death and resurrection. In my other article in this issue, which is less mine than that of the person I was copiously quoting, there is sufficient mention of the daily dying that is not only proper to Lent but to Christian life as such. Resurrection is sort of implied, but not made quite explicit. In a sense, death plus resurrection simply equals love, and there you have the answer to everything. Need I go on? (I guess I do; only 816 words). I've always maintained that the mystery of the Cross is the mystery of this life, and the mystery of the Resurrection is the mystery of the next. Probably a lot of Christians would disagree with me, especially Eastern ones and scholars of the writings of St John the Evangelist (the Apostle, the Theologian, the Divine, the Beloved). St John is a favorite of mine, too, but, well, he laid his head on the breast of the Lord and I didn't, so I think I'm missing something, and thus my eternal life still seems to have to wait till this trouble-ridden one is over.

I guess, then, that for me Lent is an image of this life and Pascha an image of the life to come. Maybe that's why I tend to want to hurry through the lentil soup of Lent and get to the cream pie of Pascha. (Not that I can eat a cream pie anymore, unless it's a sugarless one, but in that case what's the point?) It would behoove me, though, to linger over the lentils a bit longer if I'm to learn any more lessons about life. If all I ever had were cream pies, then they might not seem like something so glorious, food of the gods and all that. (It's probably different with the angels, though; they've been happy forever without once having had to break a tooth on the occasional stone found in unwashed lentils, but once you see God face to face you don't need to learn any lessons; you just be, and it is great.)

Sometimes I seem to forget (for about 3 seconds) that I'm actually a fallen man, an exile from angels and cream pie, and that Lent and its lentils are my lot in life. I have a feeling that the first thing that Adam successfully grew east of Eden, after the first bumper crops of thorns and thistles, were lentils, which he ate by the sweat of his brow. He lived for 930 years and probably never even had a single slice of cream pie, because his Redeemer had not yet arrived. But old Adam set the tone for us fellow exiles. In the Latin rite, Adam's curse is put right in the face of the faithful at the beginning of Lent: dust you are and to dust you shall return, and then they get ashes smeared all over their faces. Then they go home for some lentil soup.

So where is God in all this? we might ask. Well, if you want to go back and see what happened to Adam and his luckless bride, you'll see that God was not harsh with them, even though they irrevocably lost their right to Paradise. He noticed that while the little fig-leaf aprons might have sufficed for Eden's pleasant weather, things were rather inclement on the outside. So He made them some warm and sturdy garments of skin (quite reluctantly surrendered by animals that had hitherto enjoyed a carefree life in Paradise—see how our sin affects more than just ourselves?), in order that they would at least be able to deal with the rude surroundings in which they were about to find themselves.

He did something else, too, or rather there was another reason for banishing them from their former bliss, one that is not always obvious to someone who has not accumulated 28 years of Bible trivia. After the unhappy couple disobeyed his strict commandment, God probably thought, while considering the Tree of Life, which was also in the garden, that it would be pointless to say to them: "OK, it didn't work the first time; let's try something else, so now don't eat from this other tree." Too risky, and at this point they were much more prone to sin than when that accursed serpent first slithered into Eve's orbit. So as it turned out, it was actually an act of mercy to throw the woebegone Adam out of Paradise, "lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and live forever" (Gen. 3:22). You might think that God was just protecting his hurt feelings by telling Adam that since he disobeyed Him, he couldn't live forever and had to die. But if Adam would have eaten of the Tree of Life after he had fallen, he would have had to live forever in his fallen state, which makes death look like a blessing instead of a curse. The fact that Adam and Eve's earthly lives had to end meant that there was hope of ultimate redemption for them. Their fate would have been like that of the fallen angels had they eaten the fruit of life in a state of sin. (Hey, I'm on a roll, 1615 words and suddenly I can't shut up!)

So now we come to Resurrection. In the icon used on the Feast of feasts in our tradition, we do not see Christ raised from the dead. Instead, we see Him descending to the netherworld to release all the souls held captive there since the very beginning. And who's that old guy and that old gal that Christ is grabbing by the hand and pulling from the depths of Hades? Why, it's none other than those primordial nudist hippies that refused to fast when the Lord imposed upon them the rule of abstinence—Adam and Eve! (I think in some rare instances, Adam is depicted casting a half-finished bowl of lentil soup behind him, but such are probably not canonical icons.) Thus the curse of death was lifted, and they're probably still thanking the Lord that the curse of eternal fallen life was never imposed.

So where does that leave us? Well, we're still midway between lentils and cream pie. Hopefully we have learned the lessons of Scripture and realize that we are fallen, and redeemed, but not yet glorified. We still need reminders of our checkered past, so that we don't reach for the Tree of Life prematurely and forsake the hope that the Lord has given us, because things are going to work out well only if we do it (at last!) his way. Lent comes around once a year to dispel a few more illusions that we may have collected since last year, to help us grow in self-knowledge, to remember the heights from which we have fallen, and to get back on track, following our Guide back to Paradise. Yeah, it's a jungle out there, and we're not going to arrive at the end unbruised or unbroken. But in the end the Lord is going to take us by the hand, just like he did our ancient forebears (I'm still working on forgiving them for the unwelcome baggage with which I was burdened when coming into this world), and He will take us to the Land of Cream Pie forever. In his mercy, the Lord has made the whole of the Heavenly Jerusalem a lentil-free zone.

We begin every Lent with a liturgical commemoration of the banishment of Adam and Eve from Paradise (sans the ashes; we get enough dirt on our foreheads with all the prostrations), and every year my sense of exile deepens. I tend to dread the thorns and thistles (and the lentils followed by prostrations and the inevitable reflux), and I'm scratching my head as the long-dead authors of our liturgical texts are telling us to do it all with joy. But they're right, after all, since the curse is only temporary. Redemption is a done deal and we just have to stick it out in faith and humble labors until the glory falls from on high.

If I learn to embrace Lent, then I will truly have learned something. For now I'm still just a smart-aleck with amateur literary pretensions, looking in vain for legal loopholes in the decree of my exile. But as illusions fall and I grow closer to my Sine Qua Non, perhaps I'll realize that it has all been worthwhile, and good, and necessary, and I won't wail (so much) when I bungle in the jungle, wondering why I can't find my ever-present Guide. I'll just keep my eye on the Pie on High, knowing it's no curse to die, as long as I don't believe the lie or eat my lentils with a sigh, oh my!

All silliness aside, though (at least some of it, anyway), Lent demands much of us because life demands much of us. We can't escape the fact that we are fallen, banished, exiled sinners stuffed into ill-fitting garments of skin, and therefore in desperate need of the mercy, grace, and love of Him who created Paradise for us in the first place. It's a long way home, but He who pulled Adam and Eve out of Hades is offering us his hand as well. So let's endure patiently for now, trusting in the Good Things to come. All right, I'll take another helping of lentils…

(2314!)

—Abbot Joseph

During the time of Lent we are asked to do things that we either find difficult to do or simply would rather not do. But this, come to think of it, is not something that is limited to one penitential season. For the greater part of our lives we are asked to do things we either find difficult or would rather not do. In my less sanguine moments, I tend to think that life itself is nothing more than a long series of things I'd rather not do! But since it is in fact Lent, a time which demands from us a bit more than what ordinary times or festal times tend to demand of us, it might be good to see if there actually are within us some inner resources for meeting the challenge—resources that we are not aware of or perhaps never even thought to look for in the first place.

While I usually seem to be unable even to catch up to myself, let alone surpass myself, I did receive some insight from a book that was graciously given to us some time ago by our good friends the Poor Clare nuns in Los Altos Hills, CA. The book, not surprisingly, was written by a Poor Clare abbess, Mother Mary Francis. It is a reflection on the traditional prayer, Anima Christi, and it is entitled, not surprisingly, Anima Christi: Soul of Christ. She has had decades of experience in the spiritual life and has learned how to be joyful and loving even in the midst of hardship and trial. So hers is a trustworthy voice, and we ought to pay attention.

One of the themes of her book is that, because of the grace of God, we have within us the wherewithal to go beyond what we may think is the limit of our strength or our capacities. Not only are we able to do this, we are called to do this, precisely because God's grace makes it possible. But must we do something just because it is possible? Someone once asked Barbra Streisand why she held those minute-long notes in many of her songs. Her response: "Because I can."

This, however, is insufficient when it comes to the spiritual life. We're not training for some sort of spiritual Olympics for which we have to push ourselves beyond our strength in order to perform some extremely difficult maneuver, just to show that we can do it. If God prods us to go beyond our perceived limits it is for the sake of our inner transformation as well as our outer expression of love toward our fellow human beings. God is not trying to get us to jump through certain hoops just to see if we can, but rather he is purifying us and making us grow in his likeness. As the story goes, God, like a refiner of precious metals, keeps "turning up the heat," so that more of the dross floats to the top and He can remove it. He will only be satisfied when all the dross is removed, and it becomes so pure that He can see the reflection of his face in it.

So what I'd like to do here is to focus on a few passages from Mother Mary Francis' book that refer to this surpassing of ourselves and what we thought we could do. Such "straining forward" to the goal (see Phil. 3:12-14) is for the sake of greater faithfulness to the Lord and hence a continuing spiritual transformation and the inner purification that will allow his image to shine clearly through us. The first petition of the Anima Christi prayer in which she develops the theme is the striking, and perhaps misunderstood (and therefore often piously mistranslated) expression: "Blood of Christ, inebriate me." I will quote her here at length.

"The kind of drunkenness we understand in our ordinary use of the word is a debasement of what true inebriation should be, that of which the poets and mystics have written when they said they were drunk with the love of Christ, inebriated with God, set reeling with the thought of God's glory and of God's love for them…

"Inebriation describes a state of exaltation, of enlivenment above what is ordinarily possible… this is what the Church proposes to us in this prayer: that we should be enlivened, lifted up above our ordinary functioning, abilities, even potential, by the precious blood of Christ… In considering the unfortunate usual meaning of inebriation, we see a certain parallel there in that first exhilaration and false enlivenment of which we spoke before.  There follows the stupor, the spirit's inevitable comment on artificiality. In much the same way, when we stimulate a storm of emotion or a hurricane of passion, we can be made somehow to experience a strength beyond ourselves for a brief moment.   But because it is artificial or perverse or both, it quickly degenerates into the precisely opposite effect…  In the true inebriation of the spirit, the antithesis of all that is perverse or evil or self-indulgent, there is a strength beyond what we could ever have of ourselves, but which never lapses into languor…

"It is the spilled blood of Christ that through the ages has inebriated souls to the point of martyrdom.  One has to be enlivened beyond one's own possibilities to be a martyr… Nature clings fiercely to life.  The spiritual inebriate runs singing to martyrdom.  All the saints of God were inebriated by the blood of Christ… It is the blood of Christ alone that can enliven us to respond with a service beyond ourselves, that can achieve the overextension of ourselves without harm and, in fact, with glory…

"When we go singing, not necessarily emotionally, but with that great desiderium of the will, which functions with or without the supportive factor of emotion, into daily little dyings, it is again the effect of the blood of Christ.  In all the hidden, humdrum martyrdoms that are part of real Christian daily living, one must be inebriated to agree to them singing.  In all the little sacrifices of each day when God cheerfully invites us: 'Come and die!' we can respond with a joy more profound than a merely human one… We die to our own preferences; we die to the tart response that nature quickly frames when we are offended; we die to the caustic reply that pride proposes; we die to the sensual urges that often surprise us with their insistence.  One goes singing into all these invitations to the little deaths of every day only when one is inebriated with the blood of Christ…

"When what is asked of us in daily life seems to our niggardliness and fear to be just too much, too much to give, too much patience to sustain, too much meekness to achieve, it remains wholly possible to turn to Christ, who shed all his precious blood that we might be inebriated by its effects, to achieve ends far beyond our own unaided powers… so that we might have a strength that can discover: 'No, that is not too much!  I can do it. I can lift the weight of this cross.  I can sustain this activity.  I can suffer this oppression.  I am inebriated!  I have a strength beyond the ordinary.  And all because I am possessed of the inebriating power that arises out of union with Christ.'

"Could this not be a precious aspiration of our daily life on all the occasions that seem 'too much'?  Could we not turn to Christ, look at him upon that Cross, and say: 'Agreed. It is too much for me as I am.  I would need a strength beyond my own. And that strength awaits my begging: "Blood of Christ, inebriate me!"'

Perhaps we have never thought of our spiritual life and struggles in quite those terms, but I think it is a way of understanding that Christ can provide for us what we cannot provide for ourselves, that his grace within us enables us to "go the extra mile" and to do the difficult things that living the Gospel (especially the Sermon on the Mount) requires. The Lord didn't merely give us impossible commandments and then say, "You're on your own! Good luck; you'll need it!" It may in fact seem that way if our faith is weak or if we do not make use of the means He has given us for the fruitful living of his words. The metaphor of spiritual inebriation (which was not invented by this Poor Clare nun, but comes from the Fathers of the Church), can perhaps make us more aware of the real possibility of our surpassing our perceived limitations and, as she said, to do so singing!

In the petition concerning the water flowing from Christ's side at his death, she reflects on death, but not on the death that is the end of our bodily life. It is the daily dying, as St Paul says, which constitutes our self-sacrifice for the sake of love. Christ's own death was the ultimate sacrifice of Himself out of love for us, and we are called to share in that mystery in small or great ways every day. She writes:

"Love always seeks to give at its own expense and at the sacrifice of itself. Have we not all experienced something of this? The joy of being worn out in doing something for one we love?... Far from its being masochistic that we should find happiness in 'dying' that we might give, this lies at the healthy and happy heart of love itself. Sometimes we witness this rather dramatically in ourselves. We are conscious of being tempted not to give but rather to sit down and enjoy our self-pity, fatigue, disappointment or hurt. Then, by God's grace, we make a great effort to rise out of that and we die to it. And we experience deep spiritual joy. We decide not to live in self-pity or disappointment or hurt, but to die to them so that we might give, through Christ, understanding or strength or new clarity of mind to another. And, behold, we rise! There are many ways to die in order that others might live."

It has been said—and I don't know if it's true, but it seems likely that it might be—that part of the daily dying of a priest (and, I think, of anyone with the welfare of souls entrusted to them) is that oftentimes the graces that he might seek for himself, or that might in other circumstances be granted to him, are given instead to those who are entrusted to his prayer and care. This is "laying down his life for his sheep." It can at times be a great sacrifice, especially when I think I'm really in need of certain graces. When it seems I'm left high and dry, I remember: the graces are going to others. Sometimes I may not feel too happy about that, but on the whole it is a sort of consolation, for it means that because of my vocation others are receiving grace they might not otherwise have received. And perhaps this is the best thing, especially when I feel powerless to help someone who can only be reached interiorly by the grace of God. Oddly enough, even when I may not be well-disposed to such spiritual altruism at my expense, I'm content with the situation. I might say to God something like: "Well, in my rotten mood, your grace probably would roll off me like water off a duck anyway. You may as well give it instead to someone who will benefit from it, because it's only going to be wasted on me!" Eventually I lighten up, and then He can give me whatever grace He sees I most need.

Mother Mary Francis is a tough lady. But she's a wise one, and a loving one as well. She won't let us get away with a cheap or mediocre spiritual life. She's a sort of mouthpiece of the Lord, who knows that He has given us more than what our customarily meager return implies. So when she reflects on the petition of the prayer that reads, "Passion of Christ, comfort me," she doesn't let us get too comfortable. The first thing she says is that "comfort me" literally means, "make me strong." And if God is going to make us strong, it's because we're really going to need to be strong! Let us listen to her further about the strength that helps us surpass ourselves.

"We dare not underestimate the strength we have once we have been redeemed in love by Jesus. When we make promises to God, we cannot disavow the power put into us to observe them faithfully. When we are given by God any circumstance, any work to do, any suffering to sustain, we are also given the power and the strength to do or to suffer it. So, when remembering and focusing on our identification with the Passion of Christ, we need also to make active his own mandate through the inspired word of his apostle, that 'in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions' (Col. 1:24). What is lacking in Christ's Passion in me? It is my own bruises of body, of heart, of spirit, bruises of disappointment, bruises of frustration, bruises of misunderstanding, bruises of ingratitude, bruises perhaps of rejection. Aware of this, remembering, focused, identified, we can truly pray, 'Passion of Christ, make me strong!' We dare not pray it unless we are prepared to accept the responsibility of having the strength of the Passion of Jesus given to us…

"In this way [St Paul] says: I was flogged this many times, I was shipwrecked, I endured this, I suffered that… But this is the same man who said: Take this temptation away; it's too much. We know that Christ said: No. Be strong in infirmity. 'My grace is sufficient for you' (2Cor. 12:9). And Saint Paul let himself be made strong in infirmity… All of us can look back on our own little lives and search out instances in which we have allowed God to let us surpass ourselves. Because we are redeemed by Christ's obedience in his Passion and death, we no longer have the right to say: I cannot do it. Strength has been given. So now we pray: 'Passion of Christ, make me strong'… Yes, it is a dangerous prayer. For if I ask to be made strong in this way, I will be made strong and have to abdicate any further right to say, 'I can't.' In this prayer I deliver up to Christ my former right to say, 'I cannot do it.'"

Well, in case you haven't had enough, I'll give you one more example. Sometimes I read really good things that on a certain level I wish I had never read, for the reasons she advances for praying the Anima Christi: once we do it, we're responsible for it! I suppose, though, if we really are seekers of divine truth, we'd rather know it than not know it. I'm reminded of the saying: "Ignorance is bliss, but it won't stand up in court." If we think we can get off scot-free at the Divine Judgment Seat on a plea of ignorance, having chosen beforehand not to avail ourselves of the hard lessons of the Gospel and the insights of those who have bravely walked the walk with Jesus, we're going to have a really long time to reflect upon our error. What our Poor Clare abbess is doing is not only lighting a fire under the indolent, but also showing us how we tend to interpret even the holy things in a way most suited to relieving ourselves of responsibility or struggle. Well, she's not going to let us get way with that, as the follow reflection shows. It is on the petition, "Within your wounds, hide me." As you'll see, there's no place to hide from the demands of true Christian life.

"It is not a question in this invocation… of my safety in a superficial sense. It is by no means to say, 'Fold me into this wound so that I do not need or want to be concerned about anything. I am safe! There is nothing that can trouble me now'… No this is not my wound; it is clear that this is a wound of the crucified Christ. We look at the crucifix… and do we not feel: I have to do something. Hide me in those wounds. Bring me into them to soothe the wounds of your mystical body which is the Church. Let me be a healing, soothing agent… Let me not be angular with pride, arrogance, selfishness, but let me be humbly round enough for insertion into the wounds of Christ… Let me not be astringent. Let me not have a caustic tongue, a sharp eye, a harsh word. But let me be the gentle, healing one who brings soothing to the wounds of Christ in his Church. Yes, this prayer is a love song. It is a desire to comfort the Lord…"

She goes on to say how people will attempt even the impossible for love's sake, like the women who went to Jesus' tomb, knowing they would never be able to roll away the stone. But Jesus was on the other side of that huge stone, so they had to go to Him because they loved Him. "In the same way, Saint Mary Magdalen, a frail and battered woman, was to say: 'Tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away' (Jn. 20:15). She did not even stop at: 'I'll get help to take him away.' Just, 'I will take him away.' This is the language of love that worldlings and those who know not of love but only of self-satisfaction will never understand, though every true lover understands it readily enough. Love is always seeking to do the impossible. And one may truly say that love is always in some sense capable of the impossible.

"Thus we make, in the midst of the Anima Christi, this quite impossible prayer that only a lover will understand. 'I must soothe you, I must heal you, I must help you. Hide me in your wounds.' We would not want to stop at the invocation: 'Hide me!' at a merely superficial consideration of our own safety, our supposed well-being. Indeed, all that will be so when we abide in the wounds of Christ. Truly, we are safe, but not in the sense that we are preserved from suffering… We cannot ask to be hidden in the wounds of Christ as though sealed off from being wounded ourselves…

"In this prayer there is nothing of the desire to be aloof, nothing of the spineless wish to be released from pain and suffering and earthly reality, but rather agreement to a very suffering safety. Our blessed Savior was always safe in the love of the Father, always secure in the will of the Father. At the same time, in obeying the Father, Jesus was always in peril of his very life… If we do not want to be in peril of misunderstanding, ingratitude, discouragement, perhaps even of denial and betrayal, of acute disappointment, sometimes precisely from those of whom we had expected much, then we had better not make this prayer… Like all mystical flights, this petition is an arrow of truth. We achieve the safety we seek on a much deeper level than might appear. We are saved from aloofness. We are placed directly at the heart of redemption. 'Hide me within your wounds.'"

Mother Mary Francis has a lot more to say, and I recommend that you get the book yourself and give it the time and reflection it deserves. As we have seen in her discussion of this petition—and as we should know when we consider both the means and the end of spiritual life—it is love that is the driving force behind our ability to surpass ourselves in faithful service of God and obedience to his will. It is God's love within the grace He gives, and our love in our graced response.

If the whole program sounds very difficult—not shrinking from hardship and self-sacrifice, making no provision for self-pity or self-indulgence, curbing our tongues and softening our hearts while firming up our resolve—that's only because it is. She's not saying that it's going to be easy to surpass ourselves, even with divine help. But she is saying, as Jesus did to Paul, that his grace is sufficient. She's saying that the Lord's way is the right way, even if it's not the easy way, and we are called to live in the truth. She is saying that for love of Jesus we can attempt the impossible, and by his grace we can actually do it, insofar as it is his will. We don't tempt the Lord by leaping off the pinnacle of the temple and expecting angels to catch us, but we do live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So, while there's still time remaining in this Lent, we ought to look at some of the practical applications our good abbess has made in her reflections upon this prayer. But it's more than a program for some Lenten housecleaning. There's much more to be done than temporarily smoothing away a few rough edges. We have to develop a vision of life that goes way beyond our own selves and the whole sorry little package of our wishes and woes and whatnot. To be transformed into the image of Christ is to come out of ourselves in love for God and for the members of the Body of Christ. This labor of love goes on, whether we're in a penitential season or not. Soon we'll be singing "Christ is risen!" and forthwith heading for the dessert table. But this is not the end of our labor and our struggle. For our lives, said the Apostle, are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), hidden in his wounds, washed with the water and inebriated with the blood flowing from his pierced side. That precious wound is always open, because his love is ever available to us. The grace of Blood and Water is always flowing, and we are invited to go ever deeper into the mystery of Jesus Christ.

At length, then, having lived a life of loving sacrifice and self-forgetfulness in service of God and man, we can pray in peace the final petition of the prayer: "In the hour of my death, call me and bid me come to You, that with your saints I may praise You forever and ever." Amen!

—Abbot Joseph

Would you be suspicious of the motives of a churchman who said that regular meditation is necessary for your salvation? I was, till I read carefully Fr. Aloysius Biskupek's explanation (in his Conferences on the Religious Life, 1957). It wouldn't be fair play if anyone were to make false claims—especially were they falsely to invoke the authority of the Most High, or falsely threaten us with eternal damnation—just to get us to undertake some practice to bolster some group activity, but Fr. Biskupek explained carefully and well. We can lead up to this with brief examples.

To become a good artist, one spends years, learning and doing: one takes courses, observes good art, practices with models and landscapes etc. One has a goal, uses some means or other, and spends effort and time, learning and doing. The story is similar for other professions and endeavors. To become good at business, it helps to have a knack for it, as in any field, but one must also spend time and effort, learning and doing, whether on the job or in business courses. The story is similar for becoming good at 'most anything from good housekeeping to brain surgery; from dog catching to astronautics. To become good at most things, one has got to desire the goal, and spend time and effort, learning and doing, using one means or another. There are many things one will never be able to do at all, otherwise, and others that one will do only in a poor or mediocre way.

Well, so it is in spiritual life, or Christian life, or (in reality) any human life. The real goal (like it or not, know it or not) is Heaven. "Heaven or bust!" is the motto writ large on the covered wagons of our lives. Do a good job of life on earth, you go straight to Heaven in great glory. Do not so well, it'll be less glory, and maybe some purgation en route. Do a bad or careless job, and… well, there's a real and serious danger of hell and damnation, of the eternal sort. If you've reached the age of reason, then, it will obviously be of help to become aware of the goal, and find some means towards it, and pursue it earnestly.

Bring to mind such gospel passages as the parable of the treasure buried in the field, the pearl of great price, the sheep and the goats, the wedding banquet, the ten virgins, and so on, to verify our point from sacred scriptures. As Jesus put it, attaining our goal takes an earnest and deliberate effort, and is top priority. As our catechism and tradition have it, if you're before the age of reason, you'll still want baptism and the prayers of the faithful who have attained that age of reason. (If you're before the age of reason, I'd also like to know how it is you're reading this…!)

To do so surely includes learning and doing, as for other endeavors, but in spiritual life what we learn and do or practice is God's will, which is found mainly in the gospel accounts of Jesus, supplemented by other spiritual writings. If we apply ourselves to this, regularly and earnestly, so as to live God's will towards Heaven (so to speak), well, that's about what "meditation" is, in Christian parlance. It doesn't matter much which method one uses, although having some method obviously would make for steadier progress, and although any given type of personality will probably do far better with some methods of meditation while finding others tough sledding.

So, with a few caveats, one might say that regular meditation is necessary for salvation—the caveats being: no particular method is necessary for salvation; no meditation is required for those too young to do it; and it's not absolutely required (as in "no meditation, impossible to be saved"), but only relatively required (as in "unlikely to reach a goal you're not seriously aiming for").

I suspect, however, that most folks interested in Christian meditation would like to do it regularly, and would only take exception to it being "required" when they haven't figured out just how to do it, or when they have tried recommended ways and found them unworkable: i.e., they need to consider the wide range of available styles of meditation, and find one that is workable. (They may find they're already meditating, and just didn't realize it.)

How have Christians meditated? It's a curious thing, how Christian prayer has developed. I'm no expert, but I'll give my impressions and, since we're talking meditation, we'll leave aside liturgical prayer, despite its importance. (The simplest, briefest sources for this, for those who check sources, are: 1. Prayer and Temperament: Different Prayer Forms for Different Personality Types by C. P. Michael and Marie C. Norrisey, 1984, of whose suggestions, more below; and 2. Scriptural Rosary, c.1961, Christianica Center—historical background, p.9 ff. Irenee Hausherr's work on the Jesus Prayer is relevant, too.)

One basic prayer of the early desert fathers was the prayerful repetition and savoring of a brief scriptural quote—for example, a psalm verse. (See St. John Cassian's Conferences.) This was carried, probably by St. John Cassian, from the Eastern churches to the West, and was adopted by St. Benedict in his Rule, becoming the form of meditation known as Lectio Divina, which in turn was the basis for at least 4 main kinds of Christian meditation much later in the Western Church—each one of which is especially suited to one of the 4 most basic types of personality, according to Michael and Norrisey's book (cited above), who named the four basic prayer types after four famous Saints: Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Thomas of Aquin, and Ignatius of Loyola (with Benedict for the Lectio Divina, basis of the other four; and mention of some other important forms and periods of history.)

Meanwhile, in the East, the desert fathers' prayer developed into the hesychastic prayer and crystallized into the Jesus Prayer of recent centuries, while in the West it seems to have continued as "ejaculatory" prayer, and into early forms of the Holy Rosary (in which at first 150 Hail Marys, or 150 Our Fathers, would alternate with a scriptural verse, a new verse for each prayer), these forms merging and varying till they eventually became today's familiar Rosary—all aimed at fostering a deep familiarity with at least some scriptural verses, a pondering of them, and a praying and a deepening of closeness to God, the aim being fruits of the Holy Spirit becoming evident in our lives as we cooperate with God's will. Many people take this as their way of meditating.

Oddly enough, in today's Protestant literature, we find something like this. In I Hate to Bother You, But…: Clues for Youth on Personal Problems, by William E. Hulme (1953), then a professor of Pastoral Care at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, the very first chapter explains how to apply Scriptures to one's problems in a way very reminiscent of the desert monastic prayer. Taking a dozen verses of Scripture especially meaningful to the person (as an abba would choose some for his disciple in the early desert times), the instructions are to go to some place where you can be alone, take each verse, and focus your attention on it for one or two minutes, bringing your mind back when your mind wanders, keeping this up no matter how often your mind wanders—just think about that verse, drain it of all its meaning. And memorize those verses that mean most to you. It's very similar to the early desert monastic prayer. (Norman Vincent Peale once put it as letting the verse dissolve in your mind, like a lozenge!)

Thus one can, indeed, meditate using the Jesus Prayer, or the Rosary, or repeating and pondering a selected scriptural verse, and as they say, "the proof is in the pudding": if you and God's grace are overcoming your faults, or acquiring virtues and religious practices—in other words if you're becoming more Christ-like—then you've found a method of meditation, and scriptures, that are workable means for you to attain the goal (the goal of theosis, deification, Heaven, becoming perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect, attaining "the one thing necessary," becoming a sheep rather than a goat… or however you'd like to call it).

All the same, may people want a more "official" form of meditation, and one approach to seeking one out is that of Michael and Norrisey, as cited above. They would suggest finding which personality type you are, and matching it to one of four main "prayer forms" or styles of meditation. I'll give only a very oversimplified taste of it here. If you'd like the whole dish, read their book, Prayer and Temperament: their work is based on the Myers-Briggs theory of personality types which, in turn, is based on C. Jung's theories, about some of which we have reservations; however, let's borrow the Myers-Briggs personality types for a moment if they seem useful, and lay them aside if they aren't, and still enjoy knowing that traditional Christian meditation offers enough variety to encourage 'most anyone. Here then, for just a moment, we'll dabble in personality types, in the Myers-Briggs style:

If you feel drained when much alone, and gain energy socializing, give yourself an "E" (for "extravert"); if you gain energy alone, and feel drained by much society, give yourself an "I" (for "introvert"). There's your first letter, for a basic "attitude."

If you'd gather information or data for your decisions, from your five senses, the concrete present reality around you, give yourself an "S" (for "sensing"); but if you find yourself gathering general impressions, possibilities and potentials on which to base decisions, then give yourself an "N" (for "intuition", the "I" being used already for "introvert"). There's your second letter, a basic "function."

If you decide things and judge situations according to objective facts, truth as it is, then give yourself a "T" (for "thinking"); but if you'd rather decide things based on how people will feel about them, give yourself a "F" (for "feeling"). There's your third letter, for a basic "function."

If you'd rather have things settled and decided, and prefer to approach things with a well worked-out plan, give yourself a "J" (for "judging"); but if you'd rather leave things open-ended, gather still more information while putting off a decision, or like to plan as you go along, then give yourself a "P" (for "perceiving"). There's your fourth letter, and another "attitude."

There: one could be an "ISTP" or an "ESFJ," and so on, the different "personality types" having different "license plates"; and one can then enjoy reading and being embarrassed at how an author you've never met can "peg" you pretty well, just by knowing your type. The suggestions for prayer, however, depend only upon part of the "personality type"—namely:

The SJ would probably do well with a carefully-organized, well-planned agenda of steps to follow, commemorating the events of the liturgical year, and projecting themselves into the scriptural scenes, or in the place of one of the historical characters, arousing feelings to make a proper response to Jesus' presence. This would be the "Ignatian" prayer form. It requires some training and practice.

An NF would probably do well with Augustinian prayer (spending plenty of time in prayer, transposing the Biblical subject matter into our modern scene, learning what it says to us in today's world). This would be the "Augustinian" prayer form.

An SP would probably do well with a "spirit-filled," free-flowing and flexible form of prayer, using all the five senses, thinking always of God, but never restricted to any particular method, and wouldn't stand more than 20 or 30 minutes of formal prayer a day but would excel at practicing the presence of God all day long. This would be the "Franciscan" prayer "form."

An NT would probably do well with orderly progression of thoughts from cause to effect (or vice versa), usually thinking of some fault to overcome or some virtue or religious practice to acquire, and remembering to pray despite it seeming so much like mere study, and remembering to come to some firm resolution—and on not letting the prayer turn into mere study. This would be the "Thomistic" prayer form.

One may well try a prayer form one's not suited to, but not as a regular diet or it would take so much extra effort that one's in danger of giving up meditation altogether. There are various suggestions and cautions for each type, too, but for those, well, read the book—and, if those weren't variety enough, there are also Devotio Moderna, and Carmelite meditation ("Teresian"), Liguorian, Salesian, and others as well.

The bottom line, however, is to earnestly seek to do God's will, and undertake whatever practice one finds helpful. (As they say, with a humorous choice of words: "Pray like you can, not like you can't.")

I add a caution from Fr. Biskupek's book, with which others agree: though a good meditation ends with a specific resolve that improves one's life in Christ, it would spread one's efforts too thin to change the basic resolve often; better it is to take one or at most two, and work at them heartily for a whole year, to deepen them. That's the way to make some progress, and will incidentally make other improvements along with it.

In closing: for 'most everyone, the very nature of following Christ for our salvation, pretty much requires some form of daily meditation, although the forms vary quite widely; and every type of personality will likely find a form of prayer most suitable, and other forms which, while profitable to try once in a while (for balance and for surprising insights), would not work regularly at all, being too difficult.

I hope this romp through my impressions about kinds of meditation and types of personality may afford useful clues to help somewhat with your prayer.

—Br Seraphim

Our title was the famous line of Alfred E. Neuman, of "Mad Magazine" fame, and the present article is a whimsy about the topic of worry, in the form of a pop quiz. Ready? (You'll have to help out.) Here we go:

Question 1: How many times did Jesus teach the disciples not to worry, not to be afraid, or not to fear?

(My answer: I don't know.)

Question 2: Did Jesus teach us never to take care of the future?

(My answer: No, He did not. Although He taught us not to worry or fret over things, He also allowed that people do take concern, and do plan things—as in the parables of the king faced with war, or of the man who built half a tower; and while Jesus said not to worry about tomorrow, He allowed that today has enough troubles of its own. Do the part now that you can, and leave the rest for later.)

Question 3: What's your favorite story about worry?

(My answer: Of course, I don't know your favorite story, unless you tell me, but here's mine…)

Here is Norman Vincent Peale's account of a conversation he had, while sitting for his portrait, with the artist, Mr. Christy, for his church insisted that each pastor have his portrait painted for their gallery. This is quoted from Peale's p.128 of The Power of Positive Thinking (c. 1952, 1956)—we can imagine the painting in progress as they speak:

"While sitting for Mr. Christy, I asked, 'Howard, don't you ever worry?'

"He laughed. 'No, not on your life. I don't believe in it.'

"'Well,' I commented, 'that is quite a simple reason for not worrying. In fact, it seems to me too simple—you just don't believe in it, therefore you don't do it. Haven't you ever worried?' I asked.

"He replied, 'Well, yes, I tried it once. I noticed that everybody else seemed to worry and I figured I must be missing something, so one day I made up my mind to try it. I set aside a day and said, "That is to be my worry day." I decided I would investigate this worry business and do some worrying just to see what it was like.

"'The night before the day came I went to bed early to get a good night's sleep, to be rested up to do a good job of worrying the next day. In the morning I got up, ate a good breakfast—for you can't worry successfully on an empty stomach—and then decided to get to my worrying. Well, I tried my best to worry until along about noon, but I just couldn't make heads nor tails of it. It didn't make sense to me, so I just gave it up.'

"He laughed one of those infectious laughs of his. . . ."

(Mr. Peale pressed for more information, however, and Mr. Christy admitted that he had a way: "Every morning I spend fifteen minutes filling my mind full of God. When your mind is full of God, there is not room for worry. I fill my mind full of God every day and I have the time of my life all day long.")

Question 4: Have you a saying, to bypass worry?

(Here's my answer: . . . )

"Do your part,
and do your best;
let God and others,
do all the rest."

—Br Seraphim

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