Fire Within chapter 04

red pen

Fire Within: Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and the Gospel on Prayer (Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.) https://ignatius.com/fire-within-fwp/

(If you are catching up: chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3)

Chapter 4: “Creation and Meditation”

[Saturday 2/1/2025 readings of the day https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020125.cfm ]

Lord, here am I in Your basement chapel of Your church and I guess I need to refill the black pen so I am using the red one... also please remind me to go up stairs again in time for Mass.

Yesterday [Jan 31] the lamp I ordered (ordinary electric one) arrived and I thought of the previous Gospel [Jan 30] as I unpacked it and put it in the living room and not under a bed. But I have to buy bulbs for it because a lamp w/o bulbs is no use and just takes up space, the same as an electric lamp if it is not plugged in is no use and takes up space. And if we pray w/ no desire to amend our lives this also seems to me to be of very little use — St. Teresa of Avila says (in The Way of Perfection [chapter 22]) that when reciting prayers we need to make ourselves aware of who we are talking to — Someone who likes to hear the sound of their own voice sings a love song or a lullaby in the shower to themselves but someone who loves sings a love song or a lullaby to the one they love.

Lord, many times after I had joined the choir (in grad school) in which I played guitar (not well) and sang (not much better), I played hymns not only at Mass but also in two other “times”: 1. at practice and 2. on my own. If I had played and sung on my own only because I liked to (and only because I needed to maintain finger calluses) then it would not be much better than playing any “pop” song, folk song, etc, that I had the chords for... because I would not have been thinking of You. ... however, although I think it is accurate to say that most of my motivation was “b/c I enjoyed it”, I did also think about what I was singing and intend what I was singing.

The part of it which was “think about what I was singing” is, in hindsight, “meditation”, although, Lord, I did not know the word in that sense (b/c translators of far-east practices got their English words wrong we now primarily associate it w/ something that is the opposite: not-thinking.) But I did know, as any choir member knows, the tagline “if you sing (a hymn) you are praying twice” (not an accurate quote but it is what people say.) [Looking up a source for the typical correction “he who sings well prays twice” I have found instead even this is a mutation so say whatever you like I guess.] Therefore I understood [intentional] hymn singing in some sense to be prayer.

But, Lord, there is a key piece that is missing and which we were never taught... having aroused one's emotions, to what purpose are they put? It is supposed to be amendment of one's life or how will we get anywhere?

At most the songs for Lent sang about a generalized need for change, attempting to instil a willingness to change, but — and here I will complain, Lord, that I was not brought up in a practice of examining one's conscience and going to confession regularly — I think most people were not anymore (I met one person at work at a previous job, a little older than me, who had been brought up by an older mother to go to confession weekly — I am unable to judge whether ... [Whether it would have done me personally any good and that in any case complaining is not good for me and I should not have begun to: this was the general trend of my thought. However, here I observed that it was 1 minute until the start of Mass and bolted up the stairs.]

(After Mass) You love me, Lord, even though I am an idiot — a prize idiot — (and I love You in return but not as I should) and You loved me even when I was a self-satisfied fool content w/ natural virtue and uninterested in the pursuit of holiness ... Had I been even a little willing, You would have found a way — I read Little Women (at 12 or 13 — Amy or Beth's age) and had no curiosity about “Pilgrim's Progress” (would it have done any good if I had? [here I was thinking that I, and my entire generation, read “Three Men in a Boat” because the father in Have Space Suit Will Travel, a Heinlein juvenile that I remember only as truly excellent and therefore have not reread as an adult because why ruin it, was always reading TMiaB. This book might also have been the reason that I took Latin in high school, but probably it was because Latin looked like the hardest thing offered.]) — although to be fair I also read all of Edward Eager w/o ever finding “E. Nesbit” (by whom he was inspired)... If I had been willing, Lord, to read about saints, You would have provided. The fault is mine. Having acknowledged this, I ought not to dwell on it. (What an idiot I am really, though.)

... For free I would tell someone about “Reimagining the Examen” (I used this app for a while, after I had repented) and if someone wanted a classic work (not for free), the most interesting one I know of is Divine Intimacy — there is one re-ordered for the calendar in common use [I may have hallucinated this] but Latin Mass calendar folks could use the old ordering.

...The most common form of meditation that we find today, Lord, in an ordinary parish, is the group rosary before or after daily Mass — if the leader is announcing “fruit of the mystery: _____” and a participant is asking God for this fruit [or anything else], contrition for example, and then thinking about its [the decade's] mystery (agony in the garden) until moved to love which is the electricity for the lamp (faith w/o love is dead) then this is a stripped-down version of the traditional instructions in, e.g. Introduction to the Devout Life. [Is it? I have made no effort to confirm this. However, the text on this page is a typical example of the latter, I think.]

Since, Lord, so many practice this form of prayer ought we not to see many also who... this is probably a later chapter, though — I ought to be looking at the book. [I did read chapter 4 earlier in the week and had the book with me but it does not seem to have kept me on topic; I was writing here about the rosary largely because there was one going on in the back of the church at the time.] The rosary was out of favor when I was a child. But the difficulty w/ a group rosary is that there is a sense of pressure to keep up w/ the group... like being on a tour of a cathedral in which you have to stay w/ the group and get on the bus and not wander off to remain near the tabernacle.

People teach one another how to pray the rosary but there is no instruction in how to know when you have arrived or what to do when you get there. More than that: no one knows that there is a destination.

When the rosary is over [as it then was, so again I was writing here about what was going on nearby], there is deep silence and Your presence (not that You had ever left, Lord) — You will have to tell me when to get in the confession line, however, and what to confess — in what way, Lord, have I most displeased You this week? I beg You to let me know and to give me the grace to be truly sorry for it. I have brought a handkerchief.

...the silence is thick like honey

and this opportunity [i.e. sacrament] was bought for me by Your blood poured out like water [here I had contrasting mental images of viscosity for a while, not particularly meaningful]

and yet I am afraid to know the thing for which I have asked (You should tell me anyway.)

Sometimes the contrition arrives first w/o a particular knowledge of what I have done (everything! I have done everything wrong or badly!) (and I am sorry for it! You still love me but also I am very sorry for I don't know exactly what, except that I have not lived as I ought. Only You can fix it anyhow and I ought to let You. (all right, then, I will.) [I seem to have forgotten a close parenthesis: ) ] [here I wrote a parenthetical note with arrow pointing to “anyhow”, clarifying “Only You can fix it” lest it sound quietist] <--(either b/c one no longer commits deliberate sins or b/c one does not have the desire, which you can give if asked, to stop.) Generally at this stage what You want is permission to do a root canal or something of that sort — very well then, I'll sign for it. [here I drew X_________ a signature line and signed on it.] (Calm + patient waiting.) Is all of this really going in the newsletter, Lord? who would want to read it? - well - I'll get in line.

[In line] --> I am sure that You will tell me what to confess b/c that is how we roll now (ride or die). At this rate, though, Lord, it is ride AND die [second in line is next to the 12th and 13th stations of the cross, see photo below.] The problem is, Lord, that I am so far from knowing what matters to You that You just have to tell me. Otherwise I will confess how I have offended the world by the world's standards, which are upside down sometimes from Yours. O help!

[top of next page] O God! my God! so much of the time I have not been asking You what to do! and You have told me so many times already to do that, and to live that way. All right — one ought to firmly resolve to amend one's life — (what supports might I use to remind myself? [1]) and one ought to beg You for the grace (as I now do) to carry out this firm resolve [for no apparent reason except emphasis making a line break and an indent]

trusting You in blind faith that my life will be much better if I do this thing that You have asked. Please help me though b/c You know I am an idiot. (this is not self-hatred but a fond statement of fact to which I am cheerfully resigned. [as an owner of several cats might be fondly resigned to one of them being particularly stupid even for a cat.])

You're all like, that wasn't so hard was it? (here I am putting words in Your mouth [the “you’re like” or for self-deprecating emphasis “you’re all-like” idiom here is intended to convey something that no one in fact said].) [This week the Saturday morning priest was Fr. The Slowest Confessor Whom Everyone Loves and that would be why I spent so long writing before bothering to get in line (knowing it was going to take a red hot minute i.e. half an hour and preferring to wait sitting down), and then even in the line but at this point it was my turn.]

Next chapter: https://withoutcost.substack.com/p/fire-within-chapter-05

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[1] so far this consists of writing on a post-it note (having looked it up) σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν. and posting it where I put reminders; is this doing any good? who can say.