Guerric of Igny and Advent

The Cistercians, ever since my frequent visits to their abbey in Conyers, Georgia while an undergraduate at Emory, have had a deep appeal to me. There are so many great spiritual writers found among them in their earliest flourishing in the mid twelfth century, and one of the finest is Blessed Guerric of Igny (+1157), who with Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St Thierry and Aelred of Reivaulx, is considered one of the “four evangelists of Citeaux”.

 

We do not know much about Guerric’s early life as a teacher and scholar, but we do know that like so many others he fell under the spell of St Bernard and became a Cistercian monk and then abbot at the new foundation of Igny in France. There he attained a saintly reputation as a scholar and spiritual teacher.

Igny abbey today

Igny has gone through many travails in its long history, suffering much in the French Revolution and modern trials. After various closures and persecutions, it once again flourishes as an abbey for Cistercian nuns, who in their daily lives continue to live out this beautiful tradition of prayer and work, ora et labora, that is at the heart of the Benedictine and Cistercian heritage.

 

Guerric has left to us fewer writings than many of the other Cistercians mentioned above, but his 54 Liturgical Sermons are a precious and in my opinion unequaled reflection on the meaning of the liturgical year and the Christian way of prayer and salvation.  In this beautiful setting of Igny, Guerric set forth for his monks the spiritual riches of the liturgy, and the profound meaning of the important seasons and festivals of the Church year.

As we approach the great feast of Christmas, I would like to share with you two brief passages from Guerric. The first concerns an exhortation to the monastic practice of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Scripture which the monks and nuns make time for everyday. In one sermon Guerric has this to say:

Search the Scripture.  For you are not mistaken in thinking that you find life in them, you who seek nothing else in them but Christ, to whom the Scriptures bear witness.  Blessed indeed are they who search his testimonies, seek them out with all their heart.  Therefore you who walk about in the gardens of the Scriptures do not pass by heedlessly and idly, but searching each and every word like busy bees gathering honey from flowers, reap the Spirit from the words. (Sermon 54).

This is an invitation in this busy season to take time in the days leading up to Christmas and in the subsequent holiday to quietly and prayerfully read the Infancy Narratives in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke, and the Prologue to the Gospel of John. Let them speak to your heart, and bring new insights to light, to nourish your soul with these familiar stories in new and even unexpected ways.

In one of his sermons for Advent, in a striking manner Guerric urges us to also cultivate silence in a season not always known in our contemporary society for quiet reflection. Indeed, he strikingly draws upon the imagery of Christ patiently waiting in the womb of his Blessed Mother these days before his birth as a model for our own spiritual practice:

“As the Christ-child in the womb advanced toward birth in a long, deep silence, so does the discipline of silence nourish, form and strengthen a person’s spirit, and produce growth which is the safer and more wholesome for being the more hidden.”(Sermon 28)

May this Advent and Christmastide bring us many moments of productive silence, and a fresh appreciation, with the eyes and ears of a spiritual child of God, of the treasures of familiar yet always new Sacred Scripture, and what the Spirit is trying to teach us through them.

Aphrahat

The conventional  view of western history sees the conversion of Constantine and the end of Roman persecution of Christians in the fourth century as the beginning of a new relationship between church and state which lasted down to the modern era.  However, not all Christians lived in the Roman empire, and many in fact lived in modern Iran, Iraq and other regions of Rome’s bitter political rival, the Persian empire. When the Roman state became Christian in the mid-fourth century, the formerly-tolerant Persian government began to persecute the Church in its own realm.  In this atmosphere of persecution and uncertainty, a Christian writer known as Aphrahat “the Persian Sage” produced a series of twenty -three homilies on various themes which have survived and are known as “Demonstrations.”

The  Fourth Demonstration concerns prayer, and is the earliest Christian treatise on the subject that is not primarily a commentary on the Lord’s Prayer.  In this brief but profound work, Aphrahat has much to say about the proper approach to liturgical prayer,  as is clear from the opening sentence:

“Purity of heart constitutes prayer more than do all the prayers that are uttered out aloud, and silence united to a mind that is sincere is better than the loud voice of someone crying out.”

Aphrahat of course is not saying that vocal prayer is unimportant or inappropriate, but rather that singing hymns or saying responses in itself does not constitute true liturgical prayer. The words we say must be united to what spiritual writers call “mind and heart” for them to become real prayers.  Aphrahat’s comment on the importance of silence is also noteworthy.  Lectors, cantors and celebrants must take special care to ensure that moments of reflective silence are prominent in the Eucharist.  Incidental chatter and unnecessary explanations and announcements on the one hand, as well as rushing from one part of the Mass to the next, can destroy the moments of silence so essential for true prayer. Such moments of liturgical silence prepare us “to listen to every word with discerning, and catch hold of its meaning.”

Prayer is an offering, and it must never be forgotten that it is offered in the presence of God, who sees through all pretensions. Aphrahat takes us all the way back to the prayer of Abel the Just, whose offering was acceptable to God because of his purity of heart.  Turning to Christ, Aphrahat stresses the communal or social aspects of prayer as epitomized in  Matthew 5: 23-24,  where Jesus admonishes that you must first be reconciled with your brothers and sisters before approaching the altar of God.  This reconciliation has two aspects.  First of all, it involves seeking forgiveness for one’s own transgressions. What is perhaps more difficult is the forgiveness of others, but as Aphrahat teaches, if you do not forgive, your offering is in vain.

Aphrahat insists upon a crucial connection between true prayer and love of neighbor .   The requirements of liturgical prayer, important as they are, must never be used as an excuse to avoid helping anyone truly in need of it, for authentic prayer in the end consists in a pure love of God that manifests itself in an unfeigned service to our fellow human beings:

 

“Thus you must forgive your debtor before your prayer; only after that, pray: when you pray, your prayer will thus go up before God on high, and it is not left on earth…Give rest to the weary, visit the sick, make provision for the poor: this is indeed prayer…Prayer is beautiful, and its works are fair; prayer is heard when forgiveness is to be found in it, prayer is beloved when it is pure of every guile, prayer is powerful when the power of God is made effective in it.  I have written to you, my beloved, to the effect that a person should do the will of God, and that constitutes prayer.”

 

*All quotations taken from Aphrahat ˜Demonstration on Prayerˇ Found in ˜The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life. Edited and Translated by Sebastian Brock.  Cistercian Publications. 1987.

 

St Bonaventure on the Prophetess Anna

Here is a piece I just published on the blog of Systematic and Historical Theology at the University of St Andrews, where I teach. It is a reflection on what St Bonaventure has to say about the Prophetess Anna in Luke’s Gospel:

Bonaventure on Anna in the Temple

A Marian Prayer

Lately I have been thinking of plans for the next Leeds Medieval Congress, which in turn reminded me of one of my favourite altars in England, the Blessed Sacrament chapel with the Pugin Reredos in Leeds Roman Catholic  Cathedral. I am already looking forward to some quiet contemplation there in that lovely urban oasis.

 

This Victorian work of beauty made me also think of one of my oldest heroes, Cardinal (now Blessed) John Henry Newman, and a lovely prayer of his which unites Marian devotion to the longing for greater and eternal union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I share it in the hope that it may find resonance with some of you as it does for me, to help nourish hope, strength, and expectation this season of  Advent.

O Mother of Jesus, and my Mother,
let me dwell with you, cling to you
and love you with ever-increasing love.
I promise the honour, love and trust of a child.
Give me a mother’s protection,
for I need your watchful care.
You know better than any other
the thoughts and desires of the Sacred Heart.
Keep constantly before my mind the same thoughts,
the same desires, that my heart may be filled
with zeal for the interests of the
Sacred Heart of your Divine Son.
Instill in me a love of all that is noble,
that I may no longer be easily turned to selfishness.
Help me, dearest Mother, to acquire
the virtues that God wants of me:
to forget myself always,
to work solely for him,
without fear of sacrifice.
I shall always rely on your help
to be what Jesus wants me to be.
I am his; I am yours, my good Mother!
Give me each day
your holy and maternal blessing
until my last evening on earth,
when your Immaculate Heart will present me
to the heart of Jesus in heaven,
there to love and bless you and
your divine Son for all eternity.

Amen