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Day: July 23, 2006

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Can we all be contemplative mystics?

Ben Johnson from Western Orthodoxy comments on people seeking a mystical experience in every liturgical service in A Thirst for Spooky Religion. He works off a post on the same subject by Huw Raphael.

He states that people are looking for:

…something otherworldly, exotic, cryptic, ethereal, irrationally exuberant, a spiritual high, etc…

The experience of liturgies and most especially of the Holy Mass is to lift the eyes of our hearts and minds to God. The architecture, the music, the prayer, the postures and actions we undertake are meant to set us apart —“ for a time. It is a time of refreshment and nourishment for our souls. Each experience of the Holy Mass is a moment in the presence of the Godhead.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus and the apostles couldn’t even get away to rest. They didn’t have time to eat. We too are only allowed a brief break before we get back to working on our own journey to God and to witnessing Christ’s truth to others.

I agree. Seeking the ‘other worldly’ all the time, to the exclusion of our brothers and sisters in the world is sinful. It is escapism rather than acting in accordance with our mandate and our gifts.

Pope Benedict XVI stated in commending terrorists to a cloister’s prayers:

“Contemplative life, rich in charity opens heaven to humanity, which so needs it, as today in the world it is as if God did not exist. And where God is not, there is violence and terrorism,”

Contemplative life can indeed lead to the mystical experience of God. It can open us, and through us the world, to the experience of heaven. However, like all gifts and crosses, it is not for everyone.

Those truly called to such a life have received the grace necessary for the journey. Those seeking that unity with God have a very long and hard road to follow —“ often a lifetime’s journey —“ that may still leave them desiring at the point of death.

Each of us is on a path to God with gifts necessary for the journey. We simply need to remember that:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.
To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit;
to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another varieties of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues.
But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.

Poland - Polish - Polonia

Roadside Shrines in Poland

Gillibrand at Catholic Church Conservation provides a link to photos of roadside shrines in Poland in his post: Poland, still Catholic.

During my time in Poland what impressed me more than the shrines themselves, was that people still doffed their hats, bowed, or crossed themselves when they passed these shrines, even while driving by.

The shrines are often memorials to those executed by the Nazi Germans or the Soviets at those places. If you visit major cities you will see small shrines in the foundations of buildings or plaques in the pavement. Memorials to those killed there.

May they be of Holy Memory.

From a Treatise on Caring for the Dead by Augustine of Hippo (Cap. 2, 3)

Nevertheless, it doth not follow that the bodies of the departed are to be despised, or treated as naught, and specially in the case of just men and faithful; for the bodies of such men were used by their spirits in the life for godly purposes, that is, as organs and vessels of all good works.

…

HENCE, remembrance of the departed, and prayers for them, are tokens of true affection. And since the faithful are moved thereto by filial piety, doubt not that this same remembrance and prayer is profitable unto everyone that so lived in this world, as to attain profit from such things after death.

But even if some necessity permitteth not the body to be buried, or from lack of proper facilities giveth no opportunity for burial in a sacred place, yet should not prayers for the soul of the departed be omitted. The duty of such prayers is taught us by the Church, which hath undertaken, as an obligation, to offer them for all the departed of the Christian and Catholic fellowship in a general commemoration without mention of names.

The Polish American Journal has more information on this subject in Kapliczki: Poland’s Small Treasures.

Christian Witness, Poland - Polish - Polonia

Nativist Bigotry

It still goes on. Reference Guy in Store Is Clearly Polish by Doug McHone at CoffeeSwirls.

He posts this under the category skunkbusters. He explains what a skunkbuster is here.

Uh, sorry, I don’t get it (maybe I’m at a Home Depot rather that at a faith blog). How is laughing at and mocking people a means to spiritual growth?

Mr. McHone, stay away from the ethnic stuff. You just give the secular humanists another target to point to and say – ‘the Christians aren’t very Christian.’

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