Brother Lawrence

At a recent silent prayer meeting at All Saints church, the rector read a lovely piece from Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection to get us started. This reminded me of how much over the years I have come to appreciate this humble and unassuming giant of the spiritual life. Br Lawrence was a seventeenth century Carmelite lay brother in Paris. He spent most of his life doing kitchen chores and repairing sandals for his fellow religious, and gradually became known as a spiritual guide. His letters and sayings were published after his death, and quickly, under the title Practice of the Presence of God, became an instant classic.

There is much wisdom in his simplicity and approach, all focused on calmly throughout the day, in whatever work or occupation one finds oneself, calling gently to mind the presence of God. As he puts it,

“He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”

The seventeenth century was a great time of spiritual writers, and many of them devised rather complex forms of meditation. Lawrence tells us that after reading many books about  these methods, he came up with a much simpler approach. Br Lawrence had been a soldier before becoming a Carmelite friar, and that is reflected in the following description of his method:

“A little lifting up of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, an interior act of adoration, even though made on the march and with sword in hand, are prayers which, short though they may be, are nevertheless very pleasing to God, and far from making a soldier lose his courage on the most dangerous occasions, bolster it. Let him then think of God as much as possible so that he will gradually become accustomed to this little but holy exercise; no one will notice it and nothing is easier than to repeat often during the day these little acts of interior adoration.”

It is not surprising that this little book has become a classic in the ecumenical sense, and has helped countless Christians of all stripes in their spiritual journey. His deep sense of finding God and abiding in His Presence among the pots and pans, and in every task and every human encounter, can resonate with everyone.

Back to Basics

I think back increasingly these days, catching my breath from time to time in St Andrews, on why I became a medievalist, and what made me first realize I wanted to study the middle ages. It was undoubtedly the influence of books and teachers back when I was a freshman at Monsignor Farrell High school on Staten Island. My religion teacher, Ed Stivander, was quite a character, and literally taught theatrically, dressing up on one occasion as St Francis and another as the pope! But one thing he did was tell me was that it was time for me to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; and he was absolutely right. As I devoured these, and then CS Lewis’s space trilogy, I not only loved these books, but also fell in love with what Tolkien and Lewis were in their professional lives, namely scholars who studied and taught about medieval language and literature. I began to realize that I wanted to do what they did.

While I read these books under Ed Stivander’s tutelage, I also simultaneously was enjoying an etymological book that we used in English class. The book was in alphabetical order, and I still remember  enjoying the Latin roots of “abdicated” and “abrogate”. But when we came to “baneful”, and I learned the Old English word bana for “slayer”, it was love at first sight. I began to spend countless hours going through the old giant Webster’s dictionary we had in our house, enjoying finding Anglo Saxon roots, and also references even to Old Norse and Sanskrit! Later in high school I expressed the desire to learn Old English, and Fr. Maurice Carroll helped me. He introduced me to the old Barnes and Noble textbook warehouse on 18th street at 5th Avenue, which I understand sadly closed some years ago. While walking through the old place, its creaky floors and giant shelves, I came upon a book sitting in a corner by itself and purchased it, Markwardt and Rosier’s Old English Language and Literature.

I took this book home and began to teach myself Old English, and made some good progress. While I would also work at home, I began the habit, after an introductory visit with Fr. Carroll, of working with Bosworth-Toller’s Old English dictionary, located in the Great Reading Room of the Public Library located on Fifth Avenue. I soon felt at home but never lost my sense of awe of this wonderful space, which to me was as sacred in its way as my beloved St Patrick’s Cathedral a few blocks away.

 

As an undergraduate at Emory I was able to study Old English for a year, and even took a semester of Gothic, the ancient Germanic language of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths. As college went on I moved more into historical studies, and eventually went on to get my doctorate in medieval history. But I never forgot my love of ancient Germanic languages, and what first made me love the middle ages. And now, with the help of an old friend, which I purchased long ago in Manhattan, I am once again reviving my reading in Anglo Saxon, and reading the biblical text in Old English. I am thoroughly enjoying it,and if I can keep it up, a day at a time, I hope soon to be reading Old English poetry again. Can Gothic and Old Norse be in the future? Who can say, but what I can say is that I am very happy to be back to basics, doing something that speaks to my heart for the sheer joy it brings. And I hope professors Tolkien and Lewis are watching over me.

Justine Ward

 

The roots of singing in Christian worship lie deep in the Old Testament. Whether the victorious hymn of deliverance by Moses or most obviously the Book of Psalms, song has always been an essential part of the prayer of God’s people. As the corporate worship of God in the Catholic Church developed throughout the centuries, chant, whether or not accompanied by musical instruments, became a very important way Christians expressed intense devotion in the liturgy. But by the modern period, the congregation had come to rarely participate in the singing or chanting of the Liturgy, and one of the goals of the modern liturgical movement, encouraged by no less an authority than Pope Pius X ( 1903-14 ) , was to restore to the laity their appropriate and active role in sung prayer during the Eucharist.
One of the most active forces in the renewal of sung liturgical prayer was Justine Ward (1879-1975). A convert to the Catholic Church, she was a scholar and musician who promoted an understanding and appreciation of the Church’s musical heritage among the laity at every level, from elementary schools to the cofounding of the Pius X School of Music in 1918 at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. Through her work at this school and her many writings and addresses, Justine Ward tirelessly promoted the work of liturgical beauty and renewal.

In an essay entitled “The Reform in Church Music”, published in 1906, Justine Ward developed the idea that church music is an art made up of music and prayer. Thus musicians involved in the liturgy must not only learn the musical arts, but also learn the ways of prayer by listening to the saints. As human beings and part of nature we need ritual, but this ritual must express the faith which lies behind it.

“In the Mass, music is not merely an accessory, but an integral part of the ritual. Words and music form together an integral whole.”1

Liturgical music then is not something to be added to the liturgy to create a sentimental atmosphere, and the forms of music which fit the liturgy “need not fit the latest fluctuation of popular taste.” Music is not a mere aesthetic exercise, but must directly contribute to help the liturgy to teach and to pray.
Justine Ward also stresses how liturgical prayer is an expression of the whole Mystical Body of Christ, not a private devotion:

Liturgical Prayer is not the expression of individual reaching up to God, as in private devotion; it is the Church praying as a Church, officially, as a corporate whole. Her prayer has a fixed form, the outgrowth of the spiritual evolution of the Church, a survival of the fittest in the realm of religion. This prayer has, first of all, dignity: it is addressed to Almighty God.2

Music must not distract the congregation from contemplating the Word of God and the Mystery of the Eucharist. Instead it must act upon the imagination in a way which interprets and intensifies the hidden beauties found in the realm of the Spirit.
It was a deeply held conviction of Justine Ward that the celebration of the Eucharist would be greatly enhanced by the active and informed chanting of the Mass by both priest and congregation in their respective liturgical roles. She felt that the revival of church music must be a “democratic and participatory movement.” As she said on another occasion:

“The desire of the church that the people should take an active part in the liturgical singingí would be pointless unless that singing were one of the essential ingredients of a full Catholic life, unless its vivifying influence were like oxygen to the body, required by each of us, whether rich or poor, talented or not–winged words of eternal life.”3
Finally, it must be said that Justine Ward did not feel music was somehow a “neutral”ingredient of the liturgy. Even the most beautiful music of the world’s most esteemed composers, let alone the merely mediocre and trendy, had no place in the celebration of the liturgy if it did not directly contribute to the task of the liturgy to raise one to the heights of the supernatural. The mere presence of hymns and cantors and congregational singing does not necessarily lead to sung prayer. There is no place for music in the liturgy which interrupts and distracts God’s people from the seriousness and sublimity of hearing the Word of God proclaimed and participating in the Eucharistic Sacrifice:
“If chant is not there to make me pray, let the cantors be silent. If chant is not there to appease my inner anxiety, let the cantor leave. If chant is not as valuable as the silence it breaks, let me go back to silence.”4

1. Justine Ward. The Reform in Church Music. . Educational Briefs Series, 1906. p. 7. Originally published in “The Atlantic Monthly”, April, 1906.

2. Ibid., p. 12.

3. Justine Ward. In Orate Fratres 1 (1927): 112.

4. Justine Ward. Spoken in Paris, 1957. Quoted from How Firm a Foundation; Voices of the Early Liturgical Movement. . Compiled and Introduced by Kathleen Hughes. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1990. p. 256.

Assumption 2016

What follows is the homily I delivered at All Saints, St Andrews, for the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Given at All Saints, St Andrews, Assumption 2016.

Today we commemorate a great mystery, surrounded in this church by lovely images and sculpture of the Virgin Mary. This is the day of her passing from this life to the next, in the East emphasizing her Dormition or falling asleep, in the West, while this remains a very important aspect of the mystery and how it is portrayed in art, such as in the fifteenth century sculpture in Frankfurt cathedral, the emphasis in recent centuries has been upon her bodily assumption, a precursor, we hope, following in her footsteps, of the resurrection of own body and its eternal glory in heaven united to our soul. So this is a feast not only about the Virgin Mary, but really about our whole destiny as human beings. It is a time for rejoicing in the face of profound mystery, as an ancient antiphon puts it: “Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating the feast day in honour of Blessed Mary the Virgin: in whose Assumption the Angels rejoice, and highly extol the Son of God.”

The Dormition of Our Lady, Frankfurt cathedral, 15th century.

 

Yes, the Son of God, and also the son of Mary. At the heart of what we celebrate today is in fact a poignant emphasis on the Humanity of Christ, with prayerful reflection on the nature of Christ’s existence from his infancy and early childhood, through his ministry of preaching, and above all in the suffering he endured for humankind during his Passion. This devotional focus manifested itself in manifold ways in the liturgy, art and literature of Christendom. In turn, this devotion to the humanity of Christ also increased attention upon the role of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the Christian story, and the implications of Mary’s role in the lives of believers. For after all, in considering the life of Christ as the central drama of all human history, who else was there, from the moment of his conception? who also nurtured and taught him through his childhood? who also was present at his first miracle and throughout his ministry, and who, with a mother’s compassionate grief, also witnessed his torture and crucifixion, standing at the foot of the Cross, and also his death and burial? And then felt the inexpressible joy of experiencing her Son alive again, being present at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Who else, due to the glorious mystery of her Assumption after death, is present body and soul with Jesus in heaven, an active intercessor for humanity while at the same time an intense contemplative of her Son and the Blessed Trinity?

Heinrich Bullinger, a Reformed pastor of Zurich who had a very important influence on the 16^th century Reformation in this country, and one whom at first thought we might not find to be supportive of this doctrine, surprisingly expresses his belief that Mary’s “sacrosanctum corpus” (“sacrosanct body”) had been assumed into heaven by angels: as he says in recounting the tradition, “For this reason we believe that the Virgin Mary, Begetter of God, the most pure bed and temple of the Holy Spirit, that is, her most holy body, was carried to heaven by angels.”

What does this mean for us? When we look to our earliest traditions, the patristic Christianity of the North, the Anglo Saxon church which wove together so beautifully threads of Germanic, Roman, Celtic and Greek traditions, we get some beautiful clues to who Mary is to us right now. As the Venerable Bede expressed it, commenting on the very gospel we just heard, first of all we wonder at her uniqueness:

“Mary says My soul magnifies the Lord, and this is true of her more than any of the saints, for she rightly exults with more joy in Jesus, that is, in her special Saviour, because she knew that the one whom she had known as the everlasting author of salvation was, in his temporal beginning, to be born of her flesh; in the one and same person he would most truly be both her son and her Lord.”

But as Bede goes on to point out, Mary’s song in the gospel is about all of us, you and me, right here and now:

“Turning from God’s special gifts to herself, to the general decrees of God, Mary speaks of the state of all humankind, as though she were to say: He that is mighty has not only done great things to me; but in every nation he is pleasing to the one who reveres God.”

So let us take hope today on this solemn, festive day, in this season of earthly and spiritual harvest. Let us turn with trust and reverent awe, inspired by these lovely windows, including this one of Mary and all the Scottish saints, to turn into our own heart and mind, to gaze upon Mary who is now where we aspire to be, who points us toward her Son, and let us share in the lovely prayer of an anonymous Anglo Saxon poet, who I think would have appreciated this window of Mary and all saints:

“O splendor of the world,

now show towards us that grace

which the angel, God’s messenger,

brought to you;

reveal to the folk that consolation,

your very own Son.

Then may we all rejoice

When we gaze upon the Child at your breast.

Plead for us now with brave words…

That He may lead us into the kingdom of His father,

Where free from sorrow we may dwell in glory

With the Lord of the heavenly hosts.”

The Blessed Virgin and the Saints of Scotland, in All Saints, St Andrews