Bergman's "The Virgin Spring"

Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960) is a graphic telling of a 14th-century Swedish ballad. As do many Bergman films, this one revolves around the issue of faith. This film has long periods of silence and long-held shots. To say that the acting is powerful would be an understatement. Töre is played by Max von Sydow, who often appears to stand-in for Bergman himself.

(Warning: this post gives every spoiler away. Do not read it if you want to be 'surprised' by the plot of the movie. I do not find the story as interesting as Bergman's telling of it, so I give away the whole story here.)

The story is set in medieval Sweden. We are first introduced to Ingeri, a dark-haired, grimy, heavily pregnant young woman. Coming forward from deep in the shadows, she reaches toward the sunlight coming through a shaft in the roof and intones, “Come, Odin! Come!” It is clear that Ingeri is consumed by hatred and a desire for revenge, although we do not yet know why. We next meet landowners Töre and Märeta praying their morning prayers before a crucifix. There is a little talk about the laziness of their innocent teenage daughter, Karin, and it is implied that they have had, and lost, other children, leaving blond overindulged Karin as the light of their lives. (In Sven Nyqvist’s masterful cinematography, she does indeed seem to be a point of illumination.) She is sent to bring candles for the Virgin to the local Church, with foster sister Ingeri as a companion. Karin chides her mother Märeta for her over-concern, and gets her way by wearing some of her best finery. Karin clearly has her father Töre wrapped around her finger, managing to elicit smiles from the usually stern and duty bound man.

Karin and Ingeri set off, and a few encounters and a brief conversation finally reveal the source of Ingeri’s anger: Karin is a beloved blond maiden who talked and danced the previous night with the man who impregnated (and abandoned) Ingeri. When Ingeri taunts Karin, “You won’t be able to say no when a man wants you…What would you do if a man decided to take you in the fields?” Karin lifts her chin high and says, “That will not happen. I would rather be killed.” Spying a cawing raven, looking over the darkness of the approaching forest, and noticing the pagan talismans of the man who helps Karin across the river, Ingeri does not continue on their journey, eventually running away into the forest separately.

Now alone, Karin meets two herdsmen and a young boy. As she is late to the Church and has already missed matins, she offers to share her food with them, and the four enjoy a repast in a clearing. When she recognizes their sheep as stolen, Karin begins to flee, only to be captured and brutally raped by both men as both the boy and Ingeri - from a distance with rock in hand - watch. (Warning: this is one of the most graphic portrayals of rape in film – the story inspired Wes Craven’s horror movie The Last House on the Left.) Karin gets up, stumbling, only to be hit on the head by a staff and killed by one of the men. Quickly they undress her, take her clothes, rummage through the rest of her stuff, throwing the candles for the Virgin upon the ground, and run off, telling the young boy to stay there. Looking at her lifeless, mostly naked body, he throws some dirt on her as Ingeri continues to watch.

Eventually, the three make their way to a house: Töre stands in the door like a totem, looking for his daughter as the sun is falling. Not knowing who they are, he feeds his guests, offers them a place to spend the night, and suggests that he may have work for them on his farm. Later that night, Märeta is awoken by the boy’s screams and goes to check on them. One of the men offers her Karin’s bloodstained finery – he hopes to sell it to her. She presents it to her husband. He walks outside where he meets Ingeri, who tells him all about his guests’ actions, and confesses that, motivated by jealousy, she did nothing while Karin was raped and killed. He tells her to prepare a hot bath, and in one of the most striking visual scenes of the movie, wrestles against a lone, young birch tree on a hill, trying to bring it down. He beats himself with its branches, dons a leather cloak and pants, and with the butcher’s knife, stabs the two men to death. His wife tries to protect the boy, but he picks the boy up and flings him against the wall, killing him too.

Led by Ingeri, Töre and Märeta and their farmworkers find Karin’s body. Töre turns away, falls to his knees, opens his hands and says, “You saw it. God, You saw it. The innocent child’s death and my revenge. You allowed it. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand you. Yet now I beg your forgiveness. I know no other way to be reconciled with my own hands. I know no other way to live.” His head and hands fall, and recognizing his own need for repentance for his blood-stained acts, he says, “I will build a Church for You here.” He and his wife go to move their daughter’s body, and from where her head was suddenly flows a spring of water. Ingeri gathers this water in her hands and pours it over her face, a symbolic baptism.

Early in the film, one of the servants chides baby chicks for nearly being trampled underfoot, telling them, “God could trample them to death. So you poor thing, live your wretched life the way God allows all of us to live.” Indeed, all life belonging to God is one of the central tenets of this film. How could God allow a middle-aged couple to be robbed of their only remaining biological child? How could God allow this brutality to be visited upon a woman, much less a maiden bringing candles for His own Mother? How can these human beings – the herdsmen and Töre – engage in such evil acts, and how could others – the boy and Ingeri – just crouch and watch? How does one keep faith in the face of such acts? Bergman’s answer, through Töre, is simple yet complex: “I know no other way to live.” The cynic can say, "well, he just needs to find atheism" (and Bergman did find agnosticism). But the son of a Lutheran pastor would have well known Psalm 139:

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

Our Lady, the Jealous Bride?

Now man, have mind on me forever

Look on thy love thus languishing;

Let us never from other disserver...

Take me for thy wife and learn to sing...

(The Virgin in a poem from the 14th century)

Giovanni di Paolo, Coronation of the Virgin, c 1455

One of the more interesting aspects of Marina Warner's Alone of All her Sex is the evidence she has found for devotions to the Virgin that became repressed during and after the Counter-Reformation. There is the repression of the devotion to the Madonna of Mercy and the Madonna's Milk; the traditional image of the conception of the Virgin when Sts. Joachim and Anne meet at the Golden Gate is banned in the 17th century. Especially interesting is the devotion to the Virgin as the bride of clerics and celibate men. According to Warner, this portrayal probably developed from the turn of the troubadours to more religious themes, and the Virgin as the "Highest Lady." There are images of her (both in painting and literature) placing a wedding ring on a young man's hand to indicate that she is his bride. Even more amusing and fascinating are accounts of the Virgin as a haughty, jealous bride who holds herself higher than all other women and who demands vengeance on any young man who would dare to spurn her for an earthly lover.

From Warner's book (pp 156-7):

In one of the fourteenth-century Miracles de Notre Dame par Personnages, a young canon who had promised to serve the Virgin forever is told by his uncle that he has inherited a great fortune and must marry a girl his uncle has chosen. He remonstrates that he wants to take orders and serve Dieu et nostre dame but the girl turns out to be a paragon of weath, connections, and beauty. He gives in. On his wedding night, the Virgin summons John the evangelist and several angels, and in the haughty tone of a severely vexed suzerain announces she has some business on earth with [the young man].

How can this be, since I am who I am,

That you are leaving me for another woman?

It seems you're badly underrating

My worth and my beauty...

You must be drunk

To give your whole heart and all your love

To a woman of this earth?

And to leave me, the Lady

Of Heaven? Tell me true, where is the woman

With greater goodness and beauty than I?

She tells the cleric that since he has been unfaithful, he shall burn for it in hell. [The young cleric runs away, and his family finds this letter the following morning, that the Virgin was]

So jealous

Of him because she had made him a bed in heaven,

And he had unmade it by his great crime.

The young wife follows her husband and becomes a nun; the Virgin appears and takes the hero with her to heaven.

Our Lady, the Bride of Christ

Coronation in Santa Maria in Trastevere

The Bride of Christ

Leva eius sub capite meo et dextera illius amplexabit me

Veni electa mea, ponam in te thronum meam

(Our Lady: His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me)

(Our Lord: Come my chosen one, I shall place thee on my throne)

Interpretation as Doctrine

There is a moment in the central adagio of Balanchine’s Diamonds where the ballerina is in fourth position on pointe and then tilts her head back ever so slightly, places her right palm against the back of her head, and extends her left arm parallel to her upturned sight-line. For two decades, this pose became the source of endless speculation, with people suspecting that it gave hints of the mystery at the heart of this pas de deux. It proved that Balanchine was writing in movement the story of the chaste goddess of the night, Diana, on a hunt, showing her bow – the jutting right elbow – and her arrow – her extended left arm. Or it revealed that Diamonds was Balanchine’s take on A mon seul desír: a maiden walking in the woods, unaware of all around her, but so enticing that a unicorn would lie in her lap – see, the ballerina’s hand at the back of her head is a position of lady-like authority from the 19^th century ballet Raymonda, and the extended left arm is the unicorn’s horn. Or it was similar to the arm positions that the trapped maiden Odette makes and “Diamonds” was Balanchine’s Swan Lake fantasy with a happy ending.

And then Suzanne Farrell, the originator of the ballerina role, wrote about the origin of the pose in her autobiography: she was standing on pointe, and since Balanchine had not told her what to do with her arms at that moment, she decided, “oh, I'll model the beautiful headpiece Karinska (the costume designer) is going to make for me.” Balanchine didn’t disapprove of the unorthodox epaulement, so she repeated it several times and it remained in the ballet, to be debated over by a whole generation of critics and balletomanes. And one can see immediately, once knowing this, that this is the type of glam-girl pose a 20-year-old (as Farrell was at the time) would strike to show off her beautiful headpiece – slightly petulant and haughty, meant to draw attention to her face and head. Balanchine hadn’t created that pose and Farrell wasn’t thinking of any high-brow notions when she tossed her head and arms that way; it probably could have been any number of poses at that moment without disturbing the ‘meanings’ within this non-narrative ballet.

In one sense, the actual reason behind this pose doesn’t matter – what matters is the meaning the audience draws from it in the context of the ballet; in other words, what matters is what the audience feels. But I think it’s also a good example of our tendency to see greater meaning in moments that are entirely practical – the romanticism that Arturo speaks of. Reading a forum for Catholic traditionalists several weeks ago, I was struck by one thread about the ‘meaning’ behind each part of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite (as it is now known), linking each part with the Passion narrative. Ironically, one of the few religious books my grandmother owned also had text explaining the ‘meaning’ of what the priest was doing, and unsurprisingly, the ‘meaning’ of various parts of the Mass differed from the descriptions given on the forum. All of that is fine and dandy, but I noticed the tendency to treat the lack of these exact moments as the reason the Novus Ordo was invalid – it didn’t show the Passion like it should, the priest HAS to kneel three times here to show that Christ fell three times, etc. It took something, that from my reading, was a late medieval inclination to provide explanations for events in the Mass in terms of the Passion narrative, and turned it into dogma, part of the faith once delivered.

Another example was with a family member, who thought that the sanctus/sacring bells HAD to be rung during the Mass, because that was the way, according to the Psalms, that the angels and the Holy Spirit knew that Christ was about to be present on the altar. No sanctus bells, no Holy Spirit, and no angels. Sanctus bells of course have an entirely practical and earthly purpose – they are rung at the epiclesis and at the elevation of the Host and Chalice. When the priest is speaking softly in Latin and at a distance (if viewable) facing ad orientem, it would indeed be difficult to know when the former moment had arrived without the ringing of bells, a non-noxious attention-getter. And of course, at a church with side altars, the congregation knows when the Host is elevated in one part of the church through the ringing of the bells. However, a pious nun, probably hoping to enrich her students’ participation in the Mass, had taught my relative that the angels came to earth at those moments, and the Holy Spirit wouldn’t know to come down without the bells. Such thoughts are worthy of meditation and remind one of what is occurring in the Mass, but they are not part of the deposit of faith and were not intended to be, and their lack certainly does not automatically render one practice (or liturgy) superior to another.

I also notice that this tendency towards romantically treating moments for meditation in liturgy as if they are Tradition seems to be especially prevalent among converts and those who grew up in a Protestant milieu. I wonder if they don’t know from where to get tradition (with a small t). All tradition must be Tradition, because one has never really seen tradition, in action? Everything that happens during the liturgy must have a separate grander purpose than what we see/hear that is filled with rich meaning, because we lack an organic sense of how to be religious in our lives? I grew up in an area of the country where everyone attends Novus ordo Masses and we also have elaborate, saint-filled Churches, Mardi Gras, St. Joseph’s altars, processions on Palm Sunday and Corpus Christi (even around the whole town!), St. Rosalie Festivals, white-washing of tombs for All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, blessings of the fishermen’s boats, etc. Perhaps the French in southern LA, feeling superior to American Protestants, never quite capitulated to Protestantism the way it seems many Irish and Italian immigrants did within a few generations, letting their traditions die. Perhaps it’s just New Orleans Creoles and Cajuns being particularly ornery when it comes to their own French and Italian-derived Catholic traditions. And while there’s plenty of longing, it isn’t “oh, we need rediscover what it is to be Catholic in this way that has been lost to us….” You just pray, participate in the activities and live your life. The way for those in southeastern Louisiana doesn’t have to be the way everyone else does it – never has been – but it also doesn’t necessarily have to be expressions from the past treated as apostolic practice.

Why I love Jesus

Response to a very old meme from Crimson Catholic, so it gets a very long post

1. Because my mom taught me to. When I was a very young child and my older sister was off at school, my days were spent entirely with my mom, just the two of us. Our schedule began with her coming into my room, singing “Good morning to you!” Then after the usual morning activities (getting dressed, eating breakfast), she’d dab some Holy Water on my fingers so I could make the sign of the Cross and off we were off…to church. My mom attended (she still does) daily Mass, and I’d play with her crystal and blue rosary, or look at the statues, or read my picture books on the Virgin Mary or the saints – my parents allowed us to bring books to Mass, but only if they were about religious figures – and she would do the responses, the kneeling, and so on that I couldn’t follow. I’d have to move from my odd positions sitting on the kneeler, arms across the pew (as young children often get into strange positions when kneelers and pews are available) when she came back from Communion, and then I’d watch her and she’d kneel down, place the first and second fingers of both hands on her temples, cover her face with the rest of her hands, and bow her head. She would go on praying like this for three minutes or so, and I’d wonder what she was thinking or saying. Then her head would lift and she’d gaze at the tabernacle.

After Mass, we’d pray the Stations of the Cross; rather, she would pray them while I would walk back and forth, up and down, from the Resurrection to the Fourth or Seventh Station, repeatedly, because it was taking her so long to crawl on her knees up those stairs, and I liked the blinding effect of the sudden sunlight at the end of the Stations (on the roof) compared to the darkness on the stairs inside the building. After the roof, we went back into the building that looked like a blue cave for a statue of the Virgin.

Then we would go and run the daily errands. In addition, often we would visit a nursing home, where the elderly would pinch my cheeks or tug on my pigtails, and come March, bring me lots of fig and sesame cookies from the St. Joseph’s Altars that were set up in many Catholic nursing homes. I hated the smell of the old people and would ask not to go there, but my mom would say, “You don’t know how happy it makes the people there to see you. Do it for Jesus.” And oh, my mother’s constant refrain to any report of discomfort (after a quick lookover): “Offer it up for the poor souls in Purgatory.” As I got older, I realized that we already prayed, every night, for the poor souls in Purgatory, so I asked my mom would I should continue offering up my small sufferings for them – wasn’t praying for them enough? With a look of subdued horror and infinite patience that I think only mothers can perfect, she said to me, “AG, many of the poor souls don’t have anyone to pray for them.” I thought it was so awful, all these people wandering around in Purgatory with no one to shine a little prayer light on them, and I’d nearly start crying and pray for them even more.

As I got older, my mom began spending much of her time with other people’s young children, teaching them their colors and shapes, how to read and how to count. She taught these children in their homes, wrecked by a combination of teenage pregnancy, poverty, substance abuse, and incarceration. She’d also clean the houses, wash laundry, and prepare dinner for older people who were homebound – people she had learned of through Church who didn’t have family nearby, and who everyone else seemed to have no time for – and she would do these things for free, of course. I would sometimes get annoyed when she was away for 5 hours cleaning someone’s house – “How long does it take you to do that?” And she’d reply, in her way, “I can’t just do those things; it’s very important that I stay and chat with them and sit and have a cup of coffee. That’s what matters the most to them.”

My mom taught me other things too – she read the children’s Bible to me, she taught me all my prayers, she pointed to the Virgin and told me that she was my mother too – but it was her example that made its imprint. What does it mean to receive God? It means to bury one’s face in one’s hands and pray intensely, and then extend one’s gaze in contemplation at His earthly dwelling. Why in the world would my mom, who in my estimation has always been as far from a great sinner as night is from day, get in her knees and crawl up stairs while meditating on the Passion? How in the world could my mom clean the house of an ornery elderly woman who was given to making nasty statements about blacks (unware of my mom’s race), and then even come home and make cookies for this woman because she thought the woman would appreciate a homemade treat? What could move her to do that?

2. Because of the examples of Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II. The twin pillars of light of my early childhood. The images of Mother Teresa holding sickly children and comforting the dying. Why would anyone choose such a life? And oh, John Paul II. I wasn’t moved by him just because I wanted to be pope one day, and he was keeping the chair warm for me. When this Polish guy with a round face and charismatic smile stood amongst a million people, holding a Crucifix and said “I love you! Christ loves YOU!” I could feel it to the tips of my toes. He didn’t even know me, but through Christ, he loved me? How amazing is that! “How much do I love you?” “This much!” with an arm span that can wrap around the whole world. I have no real patience for those who harp on the pastoral decisions of John Paul II during his pontificate, when the man yelled to the world over and over again that life is love, the Cross is love, suffering is love. His cry is the response to our cynical age, so it’s no surprise that cynics can’t hear it. If Mother Teresa was what love looked like in the small spaces of suffering and death – My arms can tenderly hold the least of you - John Paul II was what love looked on the big scale where love is never-ending and keeps giving of itself– My arms can hold all of you.

3. Because of Mother Mary and the saints. Enough said.

4. Because in the above three points, I began to understand what Jesus was all about, to use modern slang. What could lead these people to do the things they did? They showed me that it’s not about them, but about Jesus in them. And they are examples of the most mind-blowing fact of our existence – that Jesus works on the individual level, in each of us; He’s the one who makes it possible for us to give of ourselves, He loves us perfectly and unceasingly, and He gives us everything and can move us to every good thing. And not just me, but everyone.

Jacob's Family History: The State Isaac is in

A prologue to the discussion of Jacob

Isaac is the patriarch principally remembered for being conned by family members, twice. First, by his father to his near sacrifice (he even carried the wood); second, by his wife and younger twin son for the only thing an old man has left to give: his blessing.

Compared to the chapters covering his father Abraham and his son Jacob, Isaac gets short shrift in the Bible. One rabbi wrote that his story is meant to indicate "continuity." Indeed, Isaac has a wife brought to him by his father's servant, he leaves for new land as his father did, he gets in a scuffle with a ruler for his wife, as his father did. He even re-digs his father's wells. His prayer comes in the afternoon (Genesis 24:64), neither the stand of his father at morning (Genesis 19:27) or the alertness of his son at night (Genesis 28:11). God gives him wealth and blessings, but his is a static personality in between that of two dynamos. What's up with Isaac?

We get a hint near the end of his life: his eyes are too dim to see (Genesis 27:1). According to Genesis Rabbah 65:6, "when Isaac was bound on the altar, and his father was about to slaughter him, the heavens opened, and the ministering angels saw and wept, and their tears fell upon Isaac’s eyes. As a result, his eyes became dim." In Jewish tradition, it is also significant that Isaac is the patriach who introduces suffering as a blessing of God (for Abraham, old age; for Jacob, sickness). Isaac's blindness is not just a physical malady, but a mental state. He has seen death at his father's hand, and death haunts him like a shadow the rest of his life. He has no vision of his own, for suffering and death cloud his eyes.

The binding of Isaac, the Akedah, then takes on new meaning: Isaac is not only physically bound onto the altar to be a sacrifice, but is henceforth psychologically bound. His vision, while still under formation, becomes trapped. He serves the Lord without rebellion and is successful, but he has no creative spirit to drive him into the spiritual territory of Abraham or Jacob. In some ways, he is a dead man walking. God even accounts for him as dead while he is still alive. When Rebekah meets him, she covers her head with a veil. While this is the tradition of marriage and modesty, it can also be read as covering one's self with a death shroud. The Hebrew word used -"she covered herself" - also means "she was buried." She dies to herself to live with a dying man.

In childhood, I had a book about female women of the Bible. In these girl-friendly tales, the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah is seen as a "happy" marriage, free of the conflict and turmoil that occurred in the households of Abraham and Jacob, who both took other wives/concubines. But a woman who dupes her blind husband in as elaborate a plot as Rebekah sets up and then stands watch to make sure Jacob receives the blessing isn't the happiest and most devoted of wives. Indeed, Rebekah cries, "Why am I here?"

It's into this strange environment that Esau and Jacob are born. Why does Isaac favor Esau? Esau is a hunter, he wanders the field - those who wander cannot stand firmly on the ground. To wander is a curse from God (see Cain), yet Esau chooses to do so. Esau takes an unbeliever as a wife. Is Isaac's love for Esau a manifestation of his own rebellion against God?

Rather, Esau is Isaac's physical state. In his mind, Isaac must wander, haunted, lacking a vision for his life. Even Esau's statements to Jacob, "I am faint...I am dying," are the words of his father on Mount Moriah and throughout his life. Isaac and Esau are both trapped: one by events under divine decree, the other by choice. Isaac sympathizes with Esau, and favors him, as he also favors Esau's displays of virility, without seeing their superficiality.

P.S. An important point here: the God of the Old Testament, of Judaism, is not an arbitrary God. When St. Paul writes that God 'hated' Esau, one has to look at what Esau has done in his life. He takes an unbeliever as his wife; he "cares little for his birthright/ he despised his birthright." Esau chooses to be a hunter, forever wandering. Esau has earned God's disregard.

In addition to Genesis Rabbah and Rashi's commentary, see also Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's The Beginning of Desire

Glory

If anyone says "I am God," apart from the One, he should
set up a world equal to this and say, "This is mine."
He should not only set it up and call it "mine," but also should himself dwell
in that which he has made. For it has been made by this one.

Credited to Pythagoras by Pseudo-Justin, De Monarchia 2 (3rd century A.D.)


Behold, the Lord is our mirror.
Open your eyes and see them in Him.

And learn the manner of your face,
then announce praises to His Spirit.

And wipe the paint from your face,
and love His holiness and put it on.

Then you will be unblemished at all times with Him.

Hallelujah.

Ode 13 of the Odes of Solomon (early 2nd century, A.D.)


Christ Speaks

I took courage and became strong and captured the world,
and it became mine for the glory of the Most High, and of God my Father.

And the gentiles who have been scattered were gathered together,
but I was not defiled by my love for them,
because they had praised me in high places.

And the traces of light were set upon their hearts,
and they walked according to my life and were saved,
and they became my people for ever and ever.

Hallelujah.

Part of Ode 10 from the Odes of Solomon


I extended my hands
and hallowed my Lord;

For the expansion of my hands
is his sign.

And my extension
is the upright cross.

Hallelujah.

Ode 27 of the Odes of Solomon

Works from The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 2, edited by JH Charlesworth (1985). Thanks Fr. Greg!

"Let him kiss me with the kisses from his mouth!"

Song of Songs 1:2

todo se transfigura y es sagrado,
es el centro del mundo cada cuarto,
es la primera noche, el primer día,
el mundo nace cuando dos se besan,

all is transformed, all is sacred,
every room is the center of the world,
it's still the first night, and the first day,
the world is born when two people kiss,
(Octavio Paz)

Song of Songs (Shir ha-Shirim) Rabbah II:ii.1

A. Another interpretation of the verse, "O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!"
B. Said Rabbi Yohanan, "An angel would carry forth the Word from before the Holy One, blessed be He, word by word, going about to every Israelite and saying to him, 'Do you accept upon yourself the authority of this Word? There are so and so many rules that pertain to it, so and so many penalties that pertain to it, so and so many decrees that pertain to it, and so are the religious duties, the lenient aspects, the stringent aspects, that apply to it. There also is a reward that accruse in connection with it.'"
C. "And the Israelite would say, 'Yes.'"
D. "And the other would go and say to him again, 'Do you accept the divinity of the Holy One, blessed be He.'"
E. "And the Israelite would say, 'Yes, yes.'"
F. "Then he would kiss him on his mouth."
G. "That is in line with this verse: 'To you it has been shown, that you might know' (Deut. 4:25) - that is, by an angel."
H. Rabbis say, "It was the Word itself that made the rounds of the Israelites one by one, saying to each one, 'Do you accept me upon yourself? There are so and so many rules that pertain to it, so and so many penalties that pertain to it, so and so many decrees that pertain to it, and so are the religious duties, the lenient aspects, the stringent aspects, that apply to it. There also is a reward that accruse in connection with it.'"
I. "And the Israelite would say, 'Yes.'"
J. "So he taught him the Torah."
K. "That is in line with this verse: 'Lest you forget the things your eyes saw (Deut. 4:9)' - how the Word spoke with you."

An affirmation, "Yes, yes," and the Word of God kisses the Israelite on the mouth.

II:ii.4

B. "In the entire Torah there are six hundred thirteen commandments. The numerical value of the letters in the word 'Torah' is only six hundred eleven. These are the ones that Moses spoke to us."
C. "But 'I [am the Lord your God]' and 'You will not have [other gods besides Me]' (Exodus 20:1-2) we have heard not from the mouth of Moses but from the Mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He."
D. "That is in line with this verse: 'O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!'"

The two commandments of God, spoken from the mouth of God Himself, like kisses from His lips. It recalls this moment (Deut 4:10-12):

Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when He said to me, "Assemble the people before Me to hear My Words so that they may learn to revere Me as long as they live in the land and may teach Them to their children." You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

And these verses (Proverbs 2:6; Proverbs 24:26):

For the Lord gives wisdom,
and from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

He kisses the lips [and wins the hearts of men] who give a right answer.

But what does it mean to be kissed by the Word of God? What does it mean to be kissed? In Genesis 29, according to the rabbis, through the Spirit Jacob sees all of Israel: its history as a people, its Temple practices, its life in the synagogue (the field, the the well, the three flocks of sheep, the rock: all have symbolic meanings.) When he sees Rachel, his great strength moves the rock and he kisses her (Genesis 29:11):

Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud.

Rashi wrote that he wept because he saw that Rachel would not be buried with him (Genesis 48:7). But Jacob's weeping should also be read as the weeping for his people, the nation that he has foreseen that will arise out of his love for her. In a way, his own tears will be transferred to her, as she will weep for children (Genesis 30:1) and from her burial place will weep for the descendants of her husband and remind God of his promises to her husband, as Rashi writes [commentary on Genesis 48:7]:

and I buried her there And I did not take her even to Bethlehem to bring her into the Land (i.e., into the inhabited region of the Holy Land- [Sifthei Chachamim]), and I know that you hold it against me; but you should know that I buried her there by divine command, so that she would be of assistance to her children. When Nebuzaradan exiles them (the Israelites), and they pass by there, Rachel will emerge from her grave and weep and beg mercy for them, as it is said: “A voice is heard on high, [lamentation, bitter weeping, Rachel is weeping for her children]” (Jeremiah 31:14). And the Holy One, blessed be He, answers her, “‘There is reward for your work,’ says the Lord,… ‘and the children shall return to their own border.’”

When two people kiss, mouth to mouth, as Rambam wrote, they become one flesh. "No true companionship is possible unless a man dies to himself" (Oesterreicher, The Israel of God). As Adam fell into a deep sleep, a sleep like death, and then celebrated Eve as his flesh, so to does the kiss between Jacob and Rachel bind their flesh, at the pivotal turning point of salvation history - out of Jacob's love for Rachel will arise the people Israel - and they mourn the future struggles of their children. The world is re-born with Jacob's kiss, and is re-born again in the kisses of the Word of God on the mouths of the people Israel at Sinai.

The Incarnate God, the Word Made Flesh, kisses us at baptism, where we first hear the commandments of God; in the Eucharist, when we share in the flesh of God. Through kisses, we become one flesh with Him. We say Yes, die to ourselves, and He kisses us with the kisses from His Mouth, joining our flesh to His. And so the saints swoon at these moments.

But there are other kisses, most notably the kiss at the moment of death:

Song of Songs Rabbah II.ii.20

E. Rabbis say, "The souls of these are going to be taken with a kiss."
21 A. Said Rabbi Azariah, "We find that the soul of Aaron was taken away only with a kiss: 'And Aaron the priest went up to Mount Hor at the mouth of the Lord and died there' " (Numbers 33:38).
B. "How do we know the same in the case of the soul of Moses? 'So Moses the servant of the Lord died there ... according to the mouth of the Lord'" (Deut. 34:5).
C. "How do we know the same in the case of the soul of Miriam? 'And Miriam died there' (Numbers 30:1). And just as 'there' in the former passages means, 'by the mouth of the Lord,' so here too the fact is the same."
D. "But it would have been inappropriate to say it explicity."
E. "How do we know the same in the case of the soul of all the righteous? 'O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!' "
F. "[The sense is,] 'If you have occupied yourself with teachings of the Torah, so that your lips are well-armed with them, then, at the end, everyone will kiss you on your mouth.'"

And we also pray to St. Joseph that the Lord will kiss us as we draw our dying breath, that we will be enveloped in His Body at that moment.

In future posts, I will write about Jacob, the most dynamic person in the Old Testament. Jacob gives up his identity and his name, joins his flesh to Rachel's, struggles with God and still stands, and opens up a future where the Lord can kiss His people and lift and unite His creation back to Himself.

amar es combatir, si dos se besan
el mundo cambia, encarnan los deseos,
el pensamiento encarna, brotan alas
en las espaldas del esclavo, el mundo
es real y tangible, el vino es vino,
el pan vuelve a saber, el agua es agua,
amar es combatir, es abrir puertas,
dejar de ser fantasma con un número
a perpetua cadena condenado
por un amo sin rostro;
el mundo cambia
si dos se miran y se reconocen,
amar es desnudarse do los nombres...

to love is to battle, if two kiss
the world changes, desires take flesh,
thoughts take flesh, wings sprout
on the backs of the slave, the world is real
and tangible, wine is wine, bread
regains its savor, water is water,
to love is to battle, to open doors,
to cease to be a ghost with a number
forever in chains, forever condemned
by a faceless master;
the world changes
if two look at each other and see,
to love is to undress our names...

Octavio Paz, Piedra de Sol (Sunstone), 1957. Translated by Eliot Weinberger.

Translations of Song of Songs Rabbah by Jacob Neusner.

Rads, Trads, & Cads

If you are from a really large (extended) family, as I am, there's an age where you realize that certain members of that family really don't get along with other members. Indeed, they are so fed up with the other members that if distance doesn't suffice, they make snide comments about being eager for the other to receive their eternal 'reward.' Even though an eternal haven of love and peace is the last place that the offended relative thinks will be the final destination.

In many ways, this situation is similar to that of the Catholic Church. Do you ever read some blogs where the contributions are largely made by those of the Catholic persuasion (is there any such thing as a Catholic blog? How do I know that these people are Catholic?) and where statements are made about the hopeful "dying-off" of the more radical elements of the Church and the "breed them out" desire of the more traditional-adhering members of the Church? Or how some are so "out of step" with the modern world, meant as a pejorative phrase? And the even better, "I love my fellow members in the Body of Christ, but..."

I especially 'love' (having the same meaning as 'reward' above) when some express a desire to choose the town and community where they live around a desire to be close to certain elements, like making sure to have a conservative bishop or a local Indult Mass, or a liberal bishop and a 'relevant' Mass, etc. It's so deliciously arrogant, just like this essay is. It suggests that one knows something above and beyond that of one's fellow Catholics, that material success is God-given and meant to be expended in carefully choosing where one's feet should touch, whose hands one should have to shake (or not), who one should talk to after Mass. "I only want to be around those who have read Newman, Chesterton, and von Balthasar, and can sing Gregorian chant!" "I only want to be around those who know such things are out-dated and represent oppression!" The over-education of the laity may be the worst development of the modern world. Forget the "new" evangelization of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council; no, we must (through de facto schism) cast those sinning members, nay, those who are different from us, out of the Church! Or at the very least make them feel really unwelcome, because we all know Christ only died for those who want ad orientem postures during Mass and frilly lace on the altars, or those who want altar girls and worship Him with guitars. Only those smart enough to know that such is the right way to worship should be allowed in the Lord's House, the ark of salvation. Let's all turn up our collective noses at the little people!

"But didn't worship develop over centuries, and who were they to change it forty years ago?" some astute reader with traditional inclinations wonders. They are probably the same people who have been screwing things up for centuries, whether through the teaching of heresy or denial of the sacraments based on race and ethnicity or abuse of power...etc. 'They' are 'us', and we're all guilty of failure to love, caritas. And the result is disorder - the abuses sometimes displayed in the Novus Ordo liturgy aren't the result of the evil actions of a small group of men - the Almighty is certainly great enough to preserve liturgy - no, they are your fault and my fault. Those "Clown Masses?" They are the result of what I have done and what I have failed to do. And what I have failed to do is not to banish the participants of the Clown Mass out of the Church, but to pray, to give myself over to God. I've chosen sin, too many times, over Him Who gives Life. And by doing so, I have allowed Him to be mocked.

The best (as in ironic) part in the divisions in the Church is certainly that both the rads and trads want schism. They are eager for it. They don't want to be around the other; they see the bleeding body of Christ on Calvary and run the other way - the trads trying to catch up with the Pharisees, the rads wanting to just be part of the larger mob. In mentality they are typically Protestants. My interpretation is correct, and this is what should be done about it, and I will not allow myself to be around those who disagree. Clearly from this essay this is my own mentality too, except for that very last crucial phrase.

Back in the New Orleans metro area, I used to attend evening Mass with my mom on the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. These Masses featured guest speakers and musicians, and would draw every Charismatic Catholic in the area out of the woodwork, with their speaking in tongues, intensely personal revelations on the Spirit at work in their lives, and the altar calls to come forward and be born again of the Spirit, for some of the participants 'knew' through the voice of God that a member of the congregation had recently experienced a death in the family, or bore lack of forgiveness towards an uncle, or other revelations. Those who participated in these Masses were the same as those who regularly attended daily Mass and also included those who sometimes got tired of the 'stuffiness' of a typical Sunday Mass. Good for them. How wonderful it was to be around such a group of people assured that God was acting personally in their lives. And it wasn't some quasi-Gnostic belief that only through special knowledge could one have this experience of God - no, He's waiting for you, He wants to send out His Spirit upon you. People could have had all sorts of other motivations in being there, other proclivities that rendered them 'susceptible' to the Charismatic movement, but the message as I heard it was right on. I didn't become a Charismatic Catholic (neither did my mom), but it was joyous to hear people be excited about the hand of the Lord at work in their lives, and I have yet to meet any lay Catholics willing to proclaim it as much as those Charismatics were. Yes, it's a movement inspired by a Protestant movement and it will probably die off, but in many ways it may have served a valuable purpose, even if only for a few souls. After all, God can use the seemingly ridiculous human ideas and inventions to get His message across too.

And that, finally, is the problem as I see it. For some people - the cads of the rads and trads - God seems to be very small. He is only present here, or there, or gives graces most abundantly here and not there, and He cannot preserve me from influences there, so I must be here instead. But in truth, it's only by the grace of God that I am kept, and only the grace of God that can keep me. So for those who want to start judging where your small God gives graces to your fellow Catholics - and isn't it always members of the laity who are quickest to judge? - go sit in the corner and pray that He gives grace to you.

"Without the grace of God I should not know how to do anything"

For those history buffs, on 7 May 1429 Jeanne d'Arc was wounded below the neck and shoulder during the siege of Orleans. Read about the siege here.

St. Joan of Arc's Feast Day is on May 30th. One can read an English translation of the transcript of her trials (one to condemn her to death in 1431; the other to declare her innocent in 1456).

Perhaps the most famous lines from the first trial (found in the 3rd public examination):

"Do you know if you are in the grace of God?"

"If I am not, may God place me there; if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest in all the world if I knew that I were not in the grace of God."

Saints meme

In response to Sarabite:

Four favorite saints:

1. St. Maria Goretti. I was baptized at St. Maria Goretti Church in New Orleans East and have always had a particular affection for her life story, in all its macabre details (it says something about my psychology inchildhood). When I wasn't determined to become the pope (not out of belief in women's ordination, but solely out of firm conviction that God was reserving the papal crown for me), I really hoped to die a martyr at the age of 12. What could be better than to be stabbed multiple times and then forgive one's would-be rapist while having the names of the Blessed Virgin and Our Lord on your lips? My mother was concerned. But though my 13th year passed without major event, she's still a favorite saint - one of those who showed such remarkable piety at an early age.

2. Two Italian St. Catherines: (I'm cheating) St. Catherine of Siena and St. Catherine of Genoa, born one century apart, and both writing Dialogues. (I can't turn my nose up at St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine Laboure either - there's something about the name Catherine...)

3. St. Joseph: Here's a man who could have been considered all sorts of crazy for listening to what a voice/angel is saying to him in his dreams about his pregnant betrothed carrying the Messiah. And yet he goes along with it. Gullible and faith-filled can appear awfully similar to the undiscerning. But he also showed compassion in not turning Mary over for an offense that was punishable by death before angel voices had whispered to him. There's a wonderful painting of the Holy Family on the Flight to Egypt - it's one of those technically awful paintings that incorporates overly enthusiastic Catholic devotion where Christ is a blond, rosy cheeked sleeping cherub, the Blessed Virgin wears pink and blue and gazes loving down at his cute blond curls, and St. Joseph, curly gray beard flying, wraps his arms around them both while looking with grim determination - steely blue eyes - into the wind that is causing his locks to flow behind him. It sounds like the description of the cover of a Harlequin romance novel and I think it's somewhat inspired by that aesthetic, and yet it conveys better than any I've seen the importance of St. Joseph - his protection, his strength, his leadership, of the Holy Family. And according to tradition, he died in the arms of both the Virgin and the Lord (he is the patron of departing souls). What could be better?

4. St. Stephen, St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, St. Anastasia, St. Lawrence... (I'm really cheating!): I like the early martyrs, that's all. And I've always felt bad for St. James the Less/Little.



Favorite Blessed: Fra Giovanni da Fiesole better known as the Blessed Fra Angelico. At his beatification in 1982, in the words of John Paul II:

"Angelico was reported to say, "He who does Christ's work must stay with Christ always." This motto earned him the epithet "Blessed Angelico," because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

The work directly above is Madonna with Angels and Sts. Dominic and Catherine (c 1435) Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome; the one below is Christ in Limbo (c 1440), San Marco, Florence.


Someone who should already be blessed: Henriette Delille, a Creole woman in New Orleans who defied the placage system and persevered over a great deal of discrimination to found a religious order (being mixed race, she wasn't allowed to join a white convent) for mixed race and black women, the Sisters of the Holy Family, who ministered to and educated slaves and urged them to be baptized, and have educated and catechized countless black Catholics in southern Louisiana for the past 150 years. She once wrote, "I believe in God. I hope in God. I love and I want to live and die for God."

Someone who should be canonized (who is most likely not going to be):

I'm surprised some rather unscrupulous French pope hasn't canonized Abbot Suger of St.-Denis yet. And wouldn't his canonization now be utterly scandalous to those who advocate separation of Church and State? He did take the criticisms of St. Bernard of Clairvaux to heart in his own personal dwellings, at least, but give him sainthood for his role of inspiration and patron of Gothic art. (To the left is a picture of the Abbey Church of St.-Denis. In his words:

Thus, when--out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God--the loveliness of the many colored gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues: then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the Universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven; and that, by the grace of God, I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner.

Marvel not at the gold and the expense but at the craftsmanship of the work. Bright is the noble work; but, being nobly bright, the work should brighten the minds, so that they may travel, through the true lights, to the True Light where Christ is the true door.



And since plastic artists are so under-represented in the calender of saints (compared to the number of saints who wrote words about God, why not all those who created images of God?), Pietro Cavallini, come on down too for sainthood.



The mosaic is The Annunication (1291) at Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome; the fresco is The Last Judgment (c 1294) at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome.

And Sarabite knows I have no friends and I communicate with no one.

St. Catherine of Siena, a day late

You are rewarded not according to your work or your time
but according to the measure of your love.

Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God's true nature. God's heart is more gentle than the Virgin's first kiss upon the Christ. And God's forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being.

I see that You have endowed Your vicar
by nature
with a fearless heart;
so I humbly, imploringly beg You
to pour the light beyond nature
into the eye of his understanding.
For unless this light,
acquired through pure affection for virtue,
is joined with it,
a heart such as his tends to be proud.

Today again let every selfish love be cut away
from those enemies of Yours
and from the vicar
and from us all,
so that we may be able to forgive those enemies
when you bend their hardness.

For them, that they may humble themselves
and obey this lord of ours,
I offer You my life
from this moment
and for whenever You wish me to lay it down
for Your glory.

Paintings by Beccafumi (c. 1486-1551). The Stigmatization of St. Catherine (1515) and The Miraculous Communion of St. Catherine (1513-1515); note the angel offering her the Host. And check out a website all about her.

I found Him Whom my heart and soul love; I held Him and I will not let Him go.

I'm less than a month away from the defense of my thesis, and am currently working on the final draft of that thesis. I am very busy, to say the least, so I apologize if my posting is sporadic. Below is the post I meant for Easter. Above is a picture of me on my second Easter in a pale pink dress, my favorite color as a child. Didn't my parents have great shag green carpeting? At least they could monitor my height.

When I was a young child, on Easter Sunday my family would go to Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter for beignets. It is right next to the Mississippi River, so we could see the sun gradually rising higher in the sky over the West Bank (because of the way the Mississippi curves in N.O., the West Bank is across the river and east of the Central Business District and French Quarter - it flows northward). Covered in powdered sugar, we then walked through Jackson Square and in front of St. Louis Cathedral.

For me as a child, decked out in pink dress, white patent leather shoes with bows, and jewelry decorated with flowers (I was such a girly-girl), Jackson Square was the perfect place to dream of a fairy-tale prince. In the right mid-morning lighting, St. Louis Cathedral bears the faintest of resemblances to Cinderella's Castle at Disneyworld, and Jackson Square is the flower-filled garden right outside the gates. The perfect place for Mary Magdalene to look for the Lord, and mistake him for a gardener. Adding to the image were the society women who would parade through the French Quarter on Easter Sunday in horse-drawn carriages on their way to Sunday Mass at the Cathedral. Royalty, going to greet the Savior on the first day of a new world.

I will rise then and go about the city;
In the streets and crossing I will seek Him whom my heart loves.
I sought him but I did not find him.

The watchmen came upon me,

As they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen him whom my heart loves?
I had hardly left them
When I found Him whom my heart loves.
I took hold of him and would not let him go. Song of Songs 3:2-4

I loved to get dressed up, walk near those trees and by those emerald green hedges - and I love grass that looks velvety - and dream of encountering a prince. (The sugar high from the beignets also helped.) In the Disney cartoon fairy tales, the princess almost always meets her prince in the darkness, whether it be of death (Sleeping Beauty and Snow White) or of twilight (Cinderella). However, they must await the triumphal ringing of bells and the new morn that their love brings.

Seek ye the Lord, and be strengthened:
seek His face evermore. Psalm 105:4

In numerous symphonies, those bells toll to symbolize death, and celebration. But it's the upwards arpeggios that really get me. Upwards arpeggios, when performed slowly and deliberately, are the clouds slowing parting in the sky to make way for the sun. Performed fast, they are the flutterings of the heart in love. In Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, over and over again that F sharp pierces the otherworld where beautiful maidens are trapped in the bodies of swans, and suggests the hovering between tragedy (B minor) and happiness (B major). Finally, after the double suicide of Odette and Siegfried, the dawn comes, and the lovers are united as the strings trill in the key of B major.

There's a cheery secular song written in the 30's that I think encapsulates this feeling, this joy of finding the beloved, and refusing to let Him go:

Dear when you smiled at me,
I heard a melody
It haunted me from the start!
Something inside of me
Started a symphony
Zing! Went the strings of my heart!

I still recall the thrill
I guess I always will
I hope 'twill never depart
All nature seemed to be
In perfect harmony
Zing! Went the strings of my heart

St. Gregory Nazienzen wrote of the soul: organum pulsatum a Spiritu Sancto. When the Holy Spirit is there, your heart and soul trill with joy. Before you find Him, it is darkness. But when you do, you cannot let Him go.

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me. Psalm 63: 1-8

P.S. Titian's Noli me tangere is already featured on my blog. I've always liked Thomas Wyatt's secular use of the phrase is in "Whoso list to hunt..." For those unfamiliar with it, the white hind in the verse has a diamond inscription on its collar that reads: "Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame." The rumor is that the hind was Anne Boleyn, and Henry VIII was Caesar. Wyatt may have been quite infatuated with Anne (shh! they may have been lovers!), and he was in prison when she got her head chopped off.

For New Members of the Church

The soul, touched with the love of Christ the Spouse, and longing to attain to His grace and gain His goodwill, goes forth here disguised with that disguise which most vividly represents the affections of its spirit and which will protect it most securely on its journey from adversaries and enemies, which are the devil, the world, and the flesh. Thus the livery which it wears is of three colors – white, green, and purple – denoting the three theological virtues, faith, hope and charity. By these the soul will not only gain the grace and goodwill of its beloved, but it will travel in security and complete protection from its three enemies: for faith is an inward tunic of whiteness so pure that it completely dazzles the eyes of the understanding. And thus, when the soul journeys in its vestment of faith, the devil can neither see it nor succeed in harming it, since it is well-protected by faith – more so than by all the other virtues – against the devil, who is at once the strongest and the most cunning of enemies.

It is clear that St. Peter could find no better protection than faith to save him from the devil, when he said: Cui resistite fortes in fide (1 Peter 5:9). And in order to gain the grace of the Beloved, and union with Him, the soul cannot put on a better vest and tunic to serve as a foundation and beginning of the vestments of the virtues, than this white armor of faith, for without it, as the Apostle says, it is impossible to please God, and with it, it is impossible to fail to please Him. For He Himself says through a prophet: Sponsabo te mihi in fide (Hosea 2:20). Which is as much as to say: If thou desirest, O soul, to be united and betrothed to Me, thou must come inwardly clad in faith.

This white garment of faith was worn by the soul on its going forth from this dark night, when, walking in interior constraint and darkness, it received no aid in the form of light from its understanding, neither from above, since Heaven seemed to be closed to it and God hidden from it, nor from below, since those that taught it satisfied it not. It suffered with constancy and persevered, passing through those trails without fainting of failing the Beloved, Who in trials and tribulations proves the faith of His Bride, so that afterwards she may truly repeat this saying of David, namely: ‘By the words of Thy lips I kept hard ways’ (Psalm 17:4).

Next over this white tunic of faith the soul now puts on the second color, a green vestment. This signifies the virtue of hope, wherewith the soul is delivered and protected from the second enemy, the world. For this green color of living hope in God gives the soul such ardor and courage and aspiration to the things of eternal life that, by comparison with what it hopes for therein, all things of the world seem to it to be, as in truth they are, dry and faded and dead and nothing worthy. The soul now divests and strips itself of all these worldly vestments and garments, setting its heart upon naught that is in the world and hoping for naught, whether of that which is or of that which is to be, but living clad only in the hope of eternal life. Wherefore, when the heart is thus lifted up above the world, not only can the world neither tough the heart nor lay hold on I, but it cannot even come within sight of it.

And thus, in the green livery and disguise, the soul journeys in complete security from the second enemy. For St. Paul speaks of hope as the helmet of salvation (1 Thess 5:8) – that is, a piece of armor that protects the whole head, and covers it so that there is uncovered only a visor through which it may look. And hope has this property, that it covers all the senses of the head of the soul, so that there is naught so ever pertaining to the world in which they can be immersed, nor is there an opening through why any arrow of the world can wound them. It has a visor, however, which the soul is permitted to use so that its eyes may look upward, but nowhere else; for this is the function which hope habitually performs in the soul by directing of its eyes upwards to look at God alone, even as David declared that his eyes were directed, when he said: Oculi mei semper ad Dominum (Psalm 25:15). He hoped for no good thing elsewhere, save as he himself says in another Psalm: ‘Even as the eyes of the handmaid are set upon the hands of her mistress, even so are our eyes set upon our Lord God, until He have mercy upon us as we hope in Him’ (Psalm 123:2).

For this reason, because of this green livery, the Beloved has such great pleasure with the soul that it is true to say that the soul obtains from Him as much as it hopes from Him. Wherefore the Spouse in the Songs tells the Bride that, by looking upon Him with one eye alone, she has wounded His heart (Song of Songs 4:9). Without this green livery of hope in God alone it would be impossible for the soul to go forth to encompass this loving achievement, for it would have no success, since that which moves and conquers is the importunity of hope.

Over the white and the green vestments, as the crown and perfection of this disguise and livery, the soul now puts on the third color, which is a splendid garment of purple. By this is denoted the third virtue, charity. This not only adds grace to the other two colors, but causes the soul to rise to so lofty a point that it is brought near to God, and becomes very beautiful and pleasing to Him, so that it makes bold to say: ‘Albeit I am black, O daughters of Jerusalem, I am comely; wherefore the King hath loved me and hath brought me into His chambers’ (Song of Songs 1:5). This livery of charity, that of love, causes greater love in the Beloved, and not only protects the soul and hides it from the third enemy, the flesh (for where there is true love of God there enters neither love of self nor that of other things of self), but even gives worth to the other virtues, bestowing on them vigor and strength to protect the soul, and grace and beauty to please the Beloved with them, for without charity no virtue has grace before God. This is the purple spoken of in the Songs (Song of Songs 3:10), upon which God reclines. Clad in this purple livery the soul journeys when it goes forth from itself in the dark night, and from all things created, ‘kindled in love with yearnings,’ by this secret ladder of contemplation, to the perfect union of love of God, its beloved salvation.

This is the disguise which the soul says that is wears in the night of faith, and these are its three colors. They constitute a most fit preparation for the union of the soul with God, according to its three faculties, which are understanding, memory, and will. For faith voids and darkens the understanding as to all its natural intelligence, and herein prepares its union with Divine Wisdom. Hope voids and withdraws the memory from all creature possessions; for as St. Paul says, hope is for that which is not possessed (Romans 8:24); and thus it withdraws the memory from that which it is capable of possessing, and sets it on that for which it hopes. And for this cause hope in God alone prepares the memory purely for union with God. Charity, in the same way, voids and annihilates the affections and desires of the will for whatever is not God, and sets them upon Him alone; and thus this virtue prepares this faculty and unites it with God through love. And thus, since the functions of these virtues is the withdrawal of the soul from all that is less than God, their function is consequently that of joining it with God.

And thus, unless it journeys earnestly, clad in the garments of these three virtues, it is impossible for the soul to attain to the perfection of union with God through love. Wherefore, in order that the soul might attain that which it desired, the loving and delectable union with its Beloved, this disguise and clothing which it assumed was most necessary and convenient. And likewise to have succeeded in this clothing itself and persevering until it should obtain the end and aspiration which it had so much desired, the union of love, is a great and happy chance.

St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul

For Members of the Church

An Act of Contrition

I, in the Presence of God and of all the Company of Heaven, having considered the Infinite Mercy of His Heavenly Goodness towards me, a most miserable, unworthy creature, whom He has created, preserved, sustained, delivered from so many dangers, and filled with so many blessings: having above all considered the incomprehensible mercy and loving kindness with which this most Good God has borne with me in my sinfulness, leading me so tenderly to repentance, and waiting so patiently for me till this year of my life, not withstanding all my ingratitude, disloyalty, and faithlessness, by which I have delayed turning to Him, and despising His Grace, have offended Him anew: and further, remembering that in my Baptism I was solemnly and happily dedicated to God as His child, and that in defiance of the profession then made in my name, I have so often miserably profaned my gifts, turning them against God’s Divine Majesty: I, now coming to myself prostrate in heart and soul before the Throne of His Justice, acknowledge and confess that I am duly accused and convicted of treason against His Majesty, and guilty of the Death and Passion of Jesus Christ, by reason of the sins I have committed, for which He died, bearing the reproach of the Cross; also that I deserve nothing else save eternal damnation.

But turning to the Throne of Infinite Mercy of this Eternal God, detesting the sins of my past life with all my heart and al my strength, I humbly desire and ask grace, pardon, and mercy, with entire absolution from my sin, in virtue of the Death and Passion of that same Lord and Redeemer, on Whom I lean as the only ground of my hope. I renew the sacred promise of faithfulness to God made in my name at my Baptism; renouncing the Devil, the world, and the flesh, abhorring their accursed suggestion, vanities, and lusts, now and for all Eternity. And turning to a Loving and Pitiful God, I desire, intend, and deliberately resolve to serve and love Him now and eternally, devoting my mind and all its faculties, my soul and all its powers, my heart and all its affections, my body and all its senses, to His Will. I firmly resolve never to misuse any part of my being by opposing His Divine Will and Sovereign Majesty, to which I wholly immolate myself in intention, vowing ever to by His loyal, obedient, and faithful servant without any change or recall. But if unhappily, through the promptings of the enemy, or human infirmity, I should in anyway fail in this resolution and dedication, I do most earnestly resolve by the Grace of the Holy Spirit to rise up again so soon as I shall perceive my fall and turn anew, without any delay, to seek His Divine Mercy. This is my firm will and intention, my inviolable, irrevocable resolution, which I make and confirm without any reserve, in the Holy Presence of God, in the sight of the Church triumphant, and before the Church militant, which is my mother, who accepts this my declaration. Be pleased, O Eternal, All-Powerful, and All-Loving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to confirm me in this my resolution, and accept my hearty and willing offering. And inasmuch as Thou hast been please to inspire me with the will to make it, give me also the needful strength and grace to keep it. O God, Thou art my God, the God of my heart, my soul, and spirit, and as such I acknowledge and adore Thee, now and for all Eternity. Glory be to Jesus. Amen.

St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life