"Grip His pierced hand..."

Ole Hallesby was a Norwegian, Lutheran Theologian who lived from 1879-1961. He offers us this encouragement and invitation.

Jesus is moved every time He sees you appreciate what He has done for you. Grip His pierced hand and say to Him, "I thank you, Savior, because you have died for me." Thank Him likewise for all the other blessings He has showered upon you from day to day. It brings joy to Jesus.

Here's a stream of consciousness prayer while on last week's monastery retreat ~ thanking Jesus for the blessings.

Planted along the edge of the monastic cemetery,
   the brilliant maple glowing,
   like hot coals.

Hemlocks through the second-floor window,
   the bluest of skies between the branches.
   The top of the Aspen quivers ~
   the under-leaf is silver.

Ordination retreat here thirty seven years ago.
   Pierre, Bruno, Gabriel and John were monks then.
   Now Michael, Antonio, Justin,
   Francis Michael and Luke have joined.

Pre-dawn Matins
   Later ~
   Lauds in sunlight
   Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart ~
   hymns and psalms,
   silence at breakfast,
   honey and cider.

Morning tea and
   the wild orchard,
   the house full of guests.

Winter-wear sheep,
   hundreds riding green waves,
   the ram with curled horns,
   three donkeys for alarm,

April's lambs
   move with the sun,
   gathering in the dark time,
   like monks at Compline.

Some guests run out with cameras and phones
   to photograph the low,
   full moon
   which lights up the meadows
   as the sheep settle in.

Medieval Mary in the undercroft,
   holding me up these many years.
   For the longings of my heart.
   the strugglers I've met,
   for compassion-ated hearts.

For the animals and plants ~
   consolation when the humans have gone mad.

For the gift-ing of senses:
  Athos incense
  wet yellow leaves
  a tangerine at dinner
  the vesper bell
  taking hold of the chalice with the cloisonne base.

The Philippine monk of the Sunday sermon:
   Our life of prayer was set in motion
   when God blew breath into our clay.

Our Most Holy Lady Cyber Monastery

In the Middle East there is a tradition that says, when Jesus died on the cross and was  put in Mary's arms, she let out such a great cry that it echoed among the surrounding mountains and hills. In remembrance of her lament, a monastery was built nearby called Our Most Holy Lady.

I can find nothing about the monastery today. Like anything else monasteries come and go. Sometimes enemies plunder them, or wars destroy them, or the environment is too inhospitable for the monks to survive. Still, a community of monks established to remember Mary's sorrow seems very fitting in a world of tears. There are many monasteries and convents in that part of the world, some large, others with only a handful of monks. So let's imagine that the Monastery of Our Most Holy Lady still exists or that we are calling it back into existence.


More than 250,000 Yemeni children
suffer from malnutrition

If I were the abbot of Our Most Holy Lady, I would require that to be a monk at this monastery, the applicant would have to commit to pray each day for the people of the world who weep for the losses of their lives. The charism or spiritual quality of the monastery would be that the monks and nuns would have a deep sense of solidarity with the world in its tears: the mother here whose little baby is among the over 250,000 children who suffer malnutrition in Yemen. The father who carries his baby, killed in war, to the cemetery. The three girls in Ohio who were kept in sexual slavery.

As a young man I strongly considered a vocation to the hermit life - a monk living a solitary life of  prayer and work. Exploring the idea I would visit a small community of hermit nuns from time to time, living for a week or so in a hermitage in the woods. In a conversation with one of  the sisters I asked, "What does a hermit do all day?" She answered, "He reads The New York Times and then goes to pray." It made sense to me.

This doesn't mean that the monks and nuns of Our Most Holy Lady Monastery would go around dehydrating in  floods of depressed tears, but it does mean that they would take the world's pain very seriously, acknowledging those tears in their prayer. Perhaps at times they would have to work  hard not to become immune to it all and to remain open-hearted. Why not give a lifetime to this? Human beings give their hearts to many lesser things: cars, wars, stock portfolios, entertainments, novels, success. Why not a monastery whose reason for existing, is to stand with the world in its suffering, to learn the heart of mercy, in prayer before God?

Maybe we could think about the formation of a kind of cyber-monastery where we'd do just that. That as we read a newspaper, we'd never turn a page where suffering is recounted without a prayer. That as we watch the news on any kind of screen, we'd never switch channels or log-off without at least a moment of  silent recognition and solidarity. The point being that we would train ourselves to notice, to ponder, to honor, instead of just racing off to the next event, commitment or distraction.

I've seen Michelangelo's moving pieta in Rome a number of times - Mary holding the dead Christ across her lap after he was taken down from the cross. Each time I've visited  there are large crowds milling about and posing for pictures in front of it. There is a hum of talking as camera-ready folks tell their friends and family where and how to stand and to smile. You don't get the feeling that anyone is reflecting on the image or certainly making any connection to the laments people are making all over the world.

But even if the crowds were respectfully quiet and aware of Michelangelo's masterpiece, honoring Jesus' death and Mary's sorrow, I'm not sure it would mean a great deal if they didn't  then make the planet-connection, honoring the pieta as it exists in so many places around the world everyday.



Water from the side of Christ, wash me

A pieta is an image of Jesus after being taken down from the cross and lying on the lap and in the arms of his grieving Mother, Mary. This pieta, which dates back to the Middle Ages, is found in The Cloisters Museum in New York City.

Immediately we are taken into the image by the wound in Jesus' right side. Saint John's Gospel (19:31-37) tells us:

As it was the day of Preparation for the Passover, in order that the bodies might not be left on the crosses over the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was an especially important one, the Jews asked Pilate to have the men's legs broken and the bodies removed. So the soldiers went and broke the legs of the first man and then of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus they say that he was dead already and they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers thrust a lance into his side, and blood and water immediately flowed out. The man who saw it testifies to it - his testimony is true; he knows that he is telling the truth - to lead you also to believe. For this happened to fulfill what the scripture says:

"Not one of its bones shall be broken." Moreover, it says in another place.

"They will look at the man whom they pierced."

Crucifixion was an ordinary means of executing a criminal in ancient Rome. And when a man was crucified, a large amount of water accumulated around the man's heart, making his breathing increasingly difficult and otherwise stressing him. When the soldier put the lance into the side of Jesus, this bag of water was punctured and the water and blood poured out.

Of course, the image causes us to think of Baptism and Eucharist. But there is more. When we are conceived we spend the first nine months or so in our mother's watery womb. In order to be born, to exit the womb and enter outer life, we have to pass through the gush of water. Indeed, one of the indicators that we are on our way is that mother's water breaks. In the gush of water from Jesus' side, humanity is born again, born again to higher things, heavenly things, and the spiritual realities Christ opens to us. First among these realities is the awareness that in Christ, we now have an access to God's heart as never before - that God's heart has been effectively torn open to receive us and to flood us with his love and life. No other religion makes this kind of claim. How different from the ancient gods and goddesses who came to earth to tease, trick and provoke us.

The Anima Christi prayer now asks: that the water from Christ's side would wash me. Pope Paul VI said, "The sin of our time is that we have lost all sense of sin." Indeed, many people don't think of their own sins. We are quick to excuse ourselves. Watch any court room show and observe how no one accepts any responsibility for crimes or mistakes - each accusing the other of being a liar and even defending himself/herself against the judge's insights or application of the law.The realization of our own sin before God and the minimalizing of our failures in love is perhaps our greatest resistance. "I haven't killed anyone and my shoes are under my own bed," a man might tell the priest.

But truth be told, spiritually speaking, some people need a good scrubbing. The light goes out at night and we are left with our own last thoughts before we fall asleep. We know where the bones are buried, we say. There is the nagging feeling that won't leave us alone until we tell someone. A sorrowful soldier returns home and confesses what he has done in war. He has begun to heal.

No one is exempt. We all need to be washed. A priest friend says, "Where there are many words, sin cannot be avoided." And another saying goes: "When the devil goes to church, he sits in the choir loft."

Pope Pius XII said: "Never ask a man to choose between his church and his country; he will almost always choose his country." That's nationalism: an identification with one's country that precedes his affiliation with God. Yet no matter how closely we live, country first, when it comes to the nation's sin, we distance ourselves: the nation's abortions, wars which call dead children collateral damage, always funding for new armaments while school budgets are cut, the obstruction and self-interest of political parties, the national sins by which the children and the weakest are failed, the sins of our national system which promote vigorous competition rather than solidarity. It's said that if we ever visited a slaughter house we'd never eat meat again. Perhaps if we knew where our tax dollars went we'd be overwhelmed with grief. In truth, we are talking about so many billions or trillions of dollars that our own personal culpability may be very small, but it remains. In my thirty-three years of priesthood I have met only one priest who  understands this. When we walk on the beach - just walk on it - sand inevitably sticks to us. Maybe this is what the Orthodox Church has in mind when the prayer asks to be forgiven sins known and unknown. 

In a Benedictine Monastery, after night prayers, the monks or nuns make a silent procession, coming forward to have Holy Water sprinkled on them. They are thinking of their Baptism. They might also have in mind the gospel accounts in which  Jesus tells us to stay awake  or wake up, but spiritually: that we wake up to what God continues to do for us in each moment, that we wake up to gratitude and goodness, that we wake up to the opportunities presented to us for kindness and mercy,  that we might wake up to see others rightly - as God sees them.

And so, Water from the side of Christ, wash me, doesn't mean a tender washing of the face with a soft cloth - but more, Water from the side of Christ, stun me awake! Perhaps Mel Gibson's depiction in the film The Passion of the Christ shows it more dramatically and actually. When the lance is put in Jesus' side a tremendous gush of bloody water pours down on the soldier, stunning him, even to his losing balance.

Lastly, at the center of the Christian faith is the Incarnation: God has become one of us in Jesus Christ. God has a human body and face like our own. And so all things human take on a new importance. The distinctions between sacred things and secular things is done away with. Saint Benedict makes this very clear when in his rule for monks he says, the garden tools and kitchen utensils are to be shown the same care as the golden chalice on the altar.

And so, as water flows from the side of Christ, to say that the issues surrounding the water of this planet and that so many people don't have water, can't be disregarded or dismissed. "I'm not into justice issues" a church-goer claims. It is said that 1.1 billion people have no access to drinkable water. Many of the world's 24,000 children who die every hour, do so because of waterborne diseases.

There are numerous organizations which place their resources and energies in the service of improving and making more available, especially to children, the potable water we all need. They would be grateful for our support.