Fire Within chapter 10

replying, we sing

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, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9)

Chapter 10 “The Transforming Summit”

• “He has struck us, but he will bind our wounds” — Saturday’s readings, Hosea 6:1-6 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032925.cfm

• “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” Sunday’s readings, Psalm 34 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033025-YearC.cfm — we do not seem to understand the word “all”, nor the word “fears”.

My Lord Jesus, I have returned today (I never really left since I was home every night) from a weekend retreat on St. Edith Stein. I did read this chapter in order to write a post about it but what is there to write? I know only what I have read — the people who write from experience have been proved trustworthy [Fr. Dubay laid out the argument for this in some previous chapter] and so I am constrained to believe what they say, which is that “the Good News is better than you think” [this is what I tell Arians when I run into them on street-corners, but after I had said it a few times I realized that it is also better than I think] and beatitude begins in this life if you have the moxie to stick with it.

We don’t need to understand it to pursue it but we do need to trust God that “it will all be worth it”; happy are the poor in spirit, for example, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, in which “all things are mine and I am Christ’s and Christ is God’s” [1] as the saints say even in this life.

In the preliminary stages we need this trust: what I give up now, I will receive a hundredfold in this life (with trials and persecutions) [2]. In the intermediate stages a person forgets this concern and wants to do what God wants simply because He wants it — does this mean they are working for no pay? No, because God is justice, and literally cannot forget about them. but their own cessation of anxiety over “what’s in it for me” is itself a down payment on the great reward — to live in love, and for love, and, living by love, to receive all as love — to trip while hastening (late) up the stairs[3] and to fall on one’s knee and elbow, one blesses the Lord and remembers Christ’s falls on the way of the cross, desiring to be made like Him in every possible way and rejoicing, in this small and over-literal way, to suffer a tumble, because He did; one thanks God because this moment is received as love. It is stubbed toes and a bruise on the knee and elbow and a cautious walk up the stairs holding the handrail and a slight shakiness as the body “stands down” from a sudden red alert. In the unitive state everything that happens would be seen in God as God’s great love for us, not only the stray moment we have now and then (a rainbow; a parking space, hoped for[4]; a rose where roses are not found[5]; a smile.)

In the night of the spirit the creature sees that it is nothing and this is excruciating.

But now the creature sees that it is nothing and rejoices in this. [6] Do you see — readers — that the reality of what we are never changes? [7]

(but then I was interrupted [by a child for a while].)

Because the soul’s will is united perfectly to God’s, which reminds me of the black very thin leather motorcycle cop gloves that I had when I cosplayed with the 501st Legion, well fitting and compatible with touch screens — it is a more perfect union than the best of gloves —... , St. John of the Cross says a number of things about the logical consequences of this, which he would not simply have reasoned but also observed.

But since The Gondoliers is already on my mind today (You reminded me of it and in a way that maybe I will get to before I run out of paper) so I am thinking of the bit in the Act 1 Finale [8] where the business is that the two male leads sing in alternation “Replying, we sing as one individual; as I find I’m a king,...” (one of them is king, or presumed to be king, and no one knows which... “long story”). In a comic operetta it is funny because you can see (the audience can see) that here are two people acting as one. But we cannot see this directly in a person who has reached this state of union with You. Perhaps from the outside it looks very ordinary — heroic virtue in a humble state of life (is this not the carpenter’s son? [9]) is obscure.

So this person does everything with You, and You do everything with them, which You are pleased to do (sweeping floors, making sandals or washing pots + pans, whatever else... washing clothes [10]) because when You said that whoever wants to be the greatest, which means the one most conformed to Christ, [11] must be the least and the servant of all, You were giving directions for the imitation of You. There is no task too small or menial for You to delight in, because You do it in love and for love and with love... golly this sounds like an preposition exercise in English class ... we do not have cases and I bet in Greek they would all be different... ANYWAY — Lord — what was I even saying? It seems to me (and what do I know? and it’s not as though You will correct me if I get it wrong) — oh dear an interruption again (but You have made me very calm today, or possibly too tired to complain). —

To put things in their proper context, yesterday driving home from the retreat house Anima Christi [the Marco Frisina setting which probably everyone has heard?] came on the car stereo and I was struck by how this prayer is full of Your sacred humanity — first I reflected that You have (because You are both God and man) a human soul (anima), having desired to take on our humanity to redeem it and to be close to us... [then I reflected line by line, incompletely recalled here] anima Christi, corpus Christi, sanguis Christi, aqua lateris Christi; Your wounds in which we request You to hide us; had the Word not been made flesh and dwelt among us, none of these things would be. This You did for love of us. I was very much struck by all this. When I write it down with pen and ink I can convey nothing of it — don’t know why I try. “Voca me...”

The next day, this morning, driving back to the retreat (now someone is singing along to Sesame Street songs in a falsetto — just in case I wanted to be able to think [therefore I have probably imperfectly recalled my thought process from the drive]) I thought of The Gondoliers [12], which I hadn’t in years, and in particular the song “Rising early in the morning” [13] in which the two half-kings are doing their employees’ work: lighting the fire, polishing the silver, dressing the valet — topsy turvy comedy in a class-based society (America is also class-based and the President would not be permitted to relieve one of the Secret Service to march up and down while the latter has a beer) — so at first I thought: this is the servant leadership we are commanded to undertake and we ought to understand how absurd it is — then I thought: we are commanded it BECAUSE it is what YOU do. (As I said already... spoilers I guess.) ... how absurd YOU are... writing our letters because our spelling is shaky [14], and so on... In any task in which we cooperate with You (which ought to be: all of them), You also co-operate with us. Last night, what I had been looking up to bookmark them (because they were referred to in the retreat, with some other materials): Letter #45 [in Letters] and, in “Essays on Woman” a more fully developed form is given at the end of “Fundamental Principles of Women’s Education” in the last three pages: how to embark on the duties of the day as it were, in union with God, and at the end of the day, resting without anxiety. If we rest each night with childlike trust...

But, Lord, it seems that the day never goes the way I expect it to; I lose sight of You; I falter and become anxious; I am tempted to work when I should pray, and tempted to be idle (not prayer which seems like idleness, but idleness which seems like activity: shopping online, or arguing, or looking up useless facts) when I should work; I write a smashing [15] essay on the particular examen, for friends, and then fail mightily to do any of the things I have said [in it] for the next three days. Toss me overboard for the whale-fish [16]. I am of no use. Yet You love me anyway and there is peace in my heart.

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[1] cf. St Paul in 1 Cor 3 and also St John of the Cross in the middle of a prayer “Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God and all things are mine, and God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.”

[2] cf. Mark 10. “Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and [the] last will be first.” This was in response to Peter’s question and it is interesting that St. Mark’s Gospel (which tradition associates with St. Peter (which we ought to find plausible from a literary perspective, since it is generally harder on Peter than the others and more apt to point out his boneheadedness, or, during the Transfiguration, what was going on in his head (nothing! because he was scared!))) is the only one that mentions persecutions. He was paying attention to the answer he got.

[3] Literal stairs; this was not a metaphor but the sort of thing that happens at work on the way to the cafeteria on 4.

[4] A half-overheard anecdote this weekend

[5] Really not found; I was thinking here of https://beyondthesestonewalls.com/posts/a-shower-of-roses

[6] I do not know what that is like but too many people (primarily canonized saints, due to selection bias in my reading) have written about it for me to not put stock in it as a real thing that really happens.

[7] this was at the bottom of a page and I was definitely going to write something profound when I turned the page, or let’s pretend that I was..

[8]

(singing in alternation: begin at 18:55, end at 19:40)

[9] cf. Matthew 13

[10] in order, thinking of: sainted nuns generally (sweeping); Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (sandals); St Teresa of Avila (pots and pans); St Therese of Lisieux (being splashed doing laundry)

[11] Does it mean that? But I don’t see why it wouldn’t.

[12] I have probably thought of it more recently than the 1990s, however https://web.mit.edu/gsp/www/Archive/1994spring_gondoliers/gond94.html

[13] on YouTube I have located a very solid performance of the song, and creative costuming I must say

(Rising early in the morning)

[14] see lyrics https://gsarchive.net/gondoliers/web_opera/gond12.html (Rising early in the morning)

[15] there is no danger of my becoming humble anytime soon

[16] cf https://bible.usccb.org/bible/jonah/2?1 or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im_schwarzen_Walfisch_zu_Askalon