Introduction
One of our family was giving a sharing,
and in the course of it quoted Saint Irenaeus, the third century
doctor of the Church. Another member of the family, duly taking
notes, wrote down carefully, "The glory of God is manfully alive".
(Always read the notes to find out afterwards what you really
said)
The note-taker pondered on it; she wondered why the glory of God
had to make such a manful effort to keep going. She tried drawing
it.
It was not
a success.
1
For in truth,
the glory of God is the human person living out to the full, the
total potential given by God! God cannot redeem the persistently
half-dead!
He offers life and he offers it abundantly.
The Glory of God is man fully alive!
2
If the subtitle
of this book had to be rendered in Greek, it would be enchiridion,
a word which means both handbook and pocket knife. A pocket knife
is an extremely useful thing. If you have a good one you can open
letters, sharpen pencils, whittle yourself a reed flute, get inside
a can, uncork a bottle and remove stones from the hooves of moderately
co-operative mules!
If this book is any good it will be similarly useful. It
is nor merely for reading, but for doing.
It is written from the perspective of Catholic Christianity. It
assumes that the reader, if a Catholic, frequents the Sacraments
and offers, at least, lip service to the ten commandments. It does
not therefore touch on the obvious necessity of making full use
of the means of grace.
Christians of other traditions, with upholders of monotheistic religions
and people of good will of any background, could find useful things
in this handbook. But it assumes that the reader knows a few of
the more obvious tenets of Christian belief (such as the Trinity)
on a level with the ordinary cultural knowledge expected of all
people who share a world.
This is hardly
the last word! This small book deals with the vertical aspect of
personal integrity; it barely touches upon the human friendships
into which it may flower; that would be the subject of another book.
The first eight chapters of this book make no distinction with regard
to the gender or the vocation of the reader. It focuses simply on
the total value of life.
For the human person, fully alive, is the glory of God.
3
Chapter 1
Who am
I?
Elementary
deduction
Set out with three blank sheets of paper in front of you.
You are making a journey to find yourself; firstly, by deducting
from yourself the ways by which you are defined from the outside.
Take page one.
Head it Heritage.
List your parents, siblings, teachers and the people who tried to
teach and form you.
Do you identify your short temper, red hair, patience and slight
stammer as coming from your father? List it under your father's
name.
Do you think you acquired an interest in history, a fondness for
James Joyce and a tendency towards malted beverages from your old
English teacher? name your teacher and list these things under his
name.
Compile as accurate a list as you can find of the things inside
you, good, bad and trivial, that came into you as gifts or inflictions
from other people. Do not linger over these things. You are not
unearthing them to brood over them. You are not taking them out
to form moral judgments on yourself or others. You are piling them
up to temporarily remove them.
Take page two.
Head it Relationships.
List those with whom you live, work, and interact. Narrow down what
these relationships draw out of you or force you to take on.
4
5
Your children,
for example, may challenge you to be unselfish in a way that would
not otherwise have come into your life. The conduct of a colleague
at work may involve you in a vindictive vengefulness that you didn't
realize you had. Again, do not sit in moral judgment on yourself
or others. You are not taking these things out to dwell on them,
but to see what you have got left when they are not there.
Take page three.
Head it Gifts.
List your talents; the inward abilities with which you are equipped.
You may be a wonderful listener, a striking amateur artist or a
professional poet. Your talent may be to help others to laugh, you
may be a born friend or an able accountant. But though you may express
and reveal yourself through these gifts, they are gifts,
they are not you.
Lay these pieces
(or piles) of paper in front of you. They represent realities with
which you are deeply involved but they are not you.
Put them now, to one side. Fold them up and place them inside a
book of which you are fond.
Concentrate now
on what you have left.
6
Center your
Life on the Holy Trinity, understanding that it is:
God.
God who creates me.
God who loves me.
God who empowers me with gifts.
Twenty centuries of living in the light of revelation, in the pattern
of the faith received, have shown us that before all "human" endowing
is the Creator,
the Lover
the Life-giver the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
God is before
all things.
The human heritage is a reflection of the divine heritage.
The human loves are a shadow of the divine loves, and the gifts
you have received are indication of the Gift that is waiting for
you.
Hold this a moment
and ponder on it. Immerse yourself in this new reality. Allow yourself
to receive what is being offered to you. It is the beginning of
a new life, a life in which you are uniquely valued for your very
self, a life in which you are being affirmed by the one who knows
everything about you and still loves you, a life in which you are
the object of a passionate, total and unconditional love, body and
soul, mind and heart, spirit and psyche.
7
Chapter 2
Who am
I?
Meeting
me
The working
hands exercise
You have met yourself in God's eyes. You know God is still holding
you and loving you. He is offering you a new gift. God says to you:
"I give you yourself".
You have used yourself all your life - like you use the train to
get to Manchester or Brussels. Now you are going to encounter the
train driver. You are going to meet yourself.
For this exercise choose a simple non-"creative", manual occupation
- peeling potatoes, digging the garden, performing an exercise (if
you are physically handicapped, select any orthopaedic exercise)
.
The first part of yourself
that you encounter in human development is your hands. To see your
face you need an external device. Recognizing your own face is a
sophisticated process and it can be painful. It has its place much
later, in this handbook.
I am fond of digging so I shall follow the process through this
image - apply it to whatever you are doing.
The handle of my spade is polished smooth with use. I put my hands
together on it, place my right heel on the blade which, simply with
my inert weight, sinks into the ground. I press and push with my
hands, the blade rises and the clod of earth slides off to the left.
I take one step to the right and repeat the process. I get into
the rhythm of the movement, co-ordinating hands, feet and spine.
Now I concentrate on my hands; dried earth graining the pattern
of my skin, the flex of knuckles, the movement of the left hand
to the spade-stave to shift the sod, the opposed prehensile grip
of thumb and forefinger that is the epitome of hand motion.
8
These are my
hands. I am able to command them to work - and they obey me. My
fingernails are dirt ingrained; the faint blue of my veins slightly
proud of my skin. This is my body, co-ordinated in action,
warm, perspiring a bit from the effort, pleasantly exercised without
being tired. This is me.
Inside this body, indissolubly wedded to the flesh, is the lone
soul of me, revealed in the light of the Trinity, and the inherited,
relating, gifted me of my ordinary life. There may be concentric
layers of me-ness, but there are no dividing lines.
You have given yourself ten to fifteen minutes at this exercise.
You are going to stop now, just where you are if possible. Stand,
sit, squat, lie flat on your back if you wish.
Concentrate on your heartbeat. Hold the pulse in your wrist, or
behind your ear. Count to ninety and keep in time with your pulse
(do not let your mind wander off into automatic enumeration!) Your
pulse will have slowed a little as you hold it.
By now your breathing will have shallowed. Put your hands across
your lower ribs and feel the slight movement of the ribcage. Place
your hands together in a relaxed position and interlace your fingers.
You can feel the involuntary pressure of your own joints. You encounter
yourself in a gesture of prayer.
Self Offering
After a time,
open your hands. Place them palm to palm with your thumbs crossed
in the traditional gesture of praying hands.
9
Feel the pressure
of your finger tips and the slight tautness in the knuckles.
Look at your hands; they are pointing outward and slightly upwards.
They are like the prow of a ship, like the growth-spear of a sapling.
They form a symbol of your desire to penetrate into God.
In the earlier ages, if you had been a serf you would have extended
your hands just like this and your lord would have clasped them
with his own, accepting your oath of allegiance. This is how the
king would have received your oath as a knight and how a bishop
would have received your loyalty, if you were a priest, and how
the Pope would have received your vow if you were a bishop.
Allow God to place his hands around yours, clasping your two hands
firmly together,
accepting you; offering you a covenant.
This covenant
says:
I will be your God and you shall be my people (Jeremiah 32:38).
I will take out of your body the heart of stone and give you
a heart of flesh instead (Ezekiel 36::27)
and:
This is my body and blood,
the blood of the New Covenant
which is poured out for many,
for the forgiveness of sins.
{Mt 26.26-29)
Unfold your hands
and place one under the other to form them into a cup - as if you
expected a present. In the covenant of his body and blood your hands
have been transformed into the Lord's hands. The blood in your veins
is his blood.
10
You hold your hands now like a child to whom it has been said, "Open
your hands and close your eyes...." It is the position in which
you extend your hands when you go forward to receive communion at
Holy Mass.
Your hands are
still marked with the signs of your work. Go now and change your
clothes (where appropriate) and wash your hands. Let the water flow
over them, and feel its pressure.
Water is another
covenant symbol.
You pass through the Red Sea
in the escape from degradation to freedom,
you pass through the Jordan into the Promised Land;
you pass through the waters of Baptism to become a Christian with
the Holy Trinity in your heart.
11
Chapter 3
Meeting
place
There is space
in every life: whether you are the mother of ten, or the executive
of a million. But accessing it may involve you in making new choices
or, in the (initially) uncomfortable experience of getting up earlier.
Go into your room (or out of your room) and shut the door. Select
an image that is dear to you; a picture or icon, two pieces of wood
nailed in a cross, a candle which you light or incense which you
burn, and (this is not optional) a Bible. Keep this small space
holy and distinct. Let it be a permanent, visible symbol of your
inner availability to God.
Sit, kneel, squat, lie down or prostrate. Let what your body does
express concretely your receptivity. Renew the process of centring
on the Trinity as your Creator, Lover and Giver on page 7 Renew
the process of recognising yourself with the clasped, pointed and
open hands on page 9-10 Allow God's love to reach into you. Now
focus on Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity,
the Word.
The Word became
flesh
and dwelt amongst us (St. John 1.14).
What am I, Lord,
and who are you?
I want to know Christ Jesus.
Take the Bible,
the book of the sacred scriptures, and kiss it. Jesus is present
in the Word.
He is fully and totally present in the
Blessed Sacrament of his Body
and Blood.
12
13
He is present where two or three are gathered together.
He says:
"I am here."
You answer:
"I am here."
You want to know
about him.
Read the Gospel
of John from the beginning to Chapter 11 verse 44, straight off,
in one sitting. It will be new every time you read it. It has
unlimited dimensions.
But today
you are reading it in two dimensions.
You want to meet Jesus.
You want to meet yourself.
In the beginning,
Jesus the Word, describes himself.
Now we see him encounter his messenger, the voice who cries out
in the wilderness, straighten things out. You are the one who
sees the Spirit descend. You gaze at Jesus and say: "I myself
have seen and testified that this is the Son of God".
Follow the
story:
The disciples
meet Jesus. You are a disciple.
He asks you: "What are you looking for?" and invites you
to "Come and see".
Everyone who encounters Christ in John's Gospel is you.
14
You are Nathaniel,
the Israelite in whom there is no guile, and you answer: "You
are the Son of God, the King of Israel".
You are Mary, the mother of God, who intercedes for the needs of
others.
You are the servants at Cana and you do whatever he tells you.
Do not be afraid to acknowledge that you have been a moneychanger
in the temple. Allow yourself to hear his command, "Stop making
my Father's house a market place".
You are Nicodemus, you are the woman of Samaria at the well, you
are the sick people whom Jesus heals, the blind who are given sight,
the hungry who are fed, the dead who are raised to life.
You are the person for whom Jesus did all these things. You are
the one whom, in his discourses, he is teaching. In each scenario
in St John you are offered a response that is an act of faith:
Give me this water so that I may never be thirsty again.
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life.
Yes, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God
who is coming into the world.
All the while Jesus is telling you about himself:
Do not be afraid, it is I.
I am the light of the world.
I know my own and my own know me.
Let anyone who is thirsty come to
me.
The words I have spoken to you are
spirit and life.
Before Abraham was, I am.
15
As you reach these self-definitions in the text, stop and make them
your own.
I am not afraid! It is you, Lord.
You are the light of the world.
You know your own - you know me
and I know you.
I am thirsty; I come to you.
Your words are spirit and life!
Before Abraham was, before you called
anyone of us to know you - you are!
16
Chapter 4
The hands
of God
You have come
out to meet yourself; to know yourself in the first total primal
relationship with God, creator, lover and giver, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. You have deducted yourself from the human paradigms
which shape you. You have encountered yourself in the work of your
own hands. In Chapter Three you entered into your knowledge
of Jesus as a person; now you are going to encounter him in the
work of his own hands.
Centre yourself in the Trinity as you did on page 7, but now do
it simply by saying: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, Amen", whilst tracing the sign of the cross
with your hand, from forehead to breast; from left shoulder to right.
The Lord holds his hands out to you palms downward. In your mind
take his hands and hold them. Though their touch is very light,
they are very strong. Turn them over so that they are palms upward
and allow the consciousness of the wounds in the palms to fill you.
These very vulnerable hands are the hands of God.
If you feel the inner freedom to do so, you can kiss those hands.
Set your heart in contented silence and allow the Lord to touch
you. In the Gospels his hands touch and hold and heal and free.
Let him and touch and hold and heal and free you.
He touched
her hand and the fever left her. (St. Matthew 8,15)
He touched their eyes and said: "According to your faith,
let it be done to you". (St. Matthew 9.29)
Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying
to him: "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"
(St. Matthew14.31)
17
They brought
all who were sick to him and begged him that they might touch
even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touched were healed.
(St. Matthew 14.36)
Jesus came and touched them saying: "Get up and do not be afraid".
And when they looked up they saw no one but Jesus himself, alone.
(St. Matthew17. 7-8)
Then little children were brought to him in order that he might
lay his hands on them and pray. "Let the little children come
to me and do not stop them, for to such belongs the kingdom
of heaven". And he laid his hands on them. (Mt 19. 13-15)
Moved
with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. (St. Matthew
20.34)
He took her by the hand. (St. Luke 8.54)
And he touched his ear and healed him. (St. Luke 22.51)
Touch me and see. (St. Luke 24.39)
He showed them his hands and his side. (St. John 20.20)
Put your finger here; and see my hands. Reach out your hand
and put it in my side. Doubt no longer but believe. (Jn
20.27)
What we have looked at and touched with our hands - the Word
of life. (1 John 1.1)
18
Chapter 5
Look into
this mirror
The Way of the Cross for Beginners
To most of us
a mirror is a sheet of glass, with silver backing, into which we
gaze to see if our hair is straight and our cosmetics and front
view are suitably adjusted. We do not look to see what is right,
we look to see what is wrong. And there generally is something wrong.
I cannot answer for the other half of humanity, but women generally
look in a mirror in order to depress themselves with the unloveliness
of their faces. Personally, I live in a convent; it has no mirrors.
But that doesn't stop even the holy from craving for that ultimate
accolade: to see yourself reflected in the admiring eyes of someone
else. Our negative view of ourselves is usually converted quite
rapidly by a positive external reaction.
You are invited at this stage of your journey, to make two experiments.
The first may give you courage for the second.
Sit quietly in a room that is not brightly lit, and place before
yourself any picture or icon of the face of Jesus which attracts
you(2).
Look at this
face
This is the mirror in which you see yourself reflected. He is
the fairest of the children of men (Ps:45.2). He is the master
craftsman at his Father's side (Prov 8:30). You are made in
his image and in his likeness.
(2) The face
of Jesus is reflected within you; you may not actually need a picture
at all. DO what helps you
19
Behold his
face
When you
"look" at a thing or remember an event you have a subtle tendency
not to see the picture, but what you feel about the picture.
Begin now by looking simply, and without analysis: behold his
face.
Hold this
face
Who are you,
Lord?
What do I know of you?
What does your face tell me?
We are before each other.
You, Lord, hold your hands out to me, and again, I take them.
There is something in me like a gentle fountain, a quiet but
insistent pressure; an uninvasive voice drawing me to you.
Enfold this
face
I hold out
my hands to you, Lord and you take them.
I love you.
You take my hands and let me touch your face.
I am afraid, but my longing for you is greater than my fear.
I love you.
I stay here as long as I wish.
When you Lord, want me to move on I will sense the change.
20
For the second
exercise you will need a mirror, with sufficient space in front
of it for you to take a few steps back, and a felt pen which will
draw a mark on the mirror that can be easily be wiped off (and a
cloth).
This is actually a technical exercise in art to demonstrate the
theory of proportion. Place yourself before the mirror (again, preferably
in a relatively subdued light). Look at your reflection and draw
a line on the mirror roughly round the ovalish space occupied by
your face.
Now get up and take a step back. Reposition yourself so that your
face fits into the drawn line. You will find that your face and
the space inside the lines are still the same size. Step further
back. Do it again. The result is just the same. Get as far as you
can from the mirror, reposition your face and you will find that
it still fits the frame you drew. Even if you could get twenty feet
away your face would still fit into the frame. The "place" for you
in the mirror does not change. If your reflection grows smaller
it is because you yourself have moved away.
Also - and this is the real point of this exercise - you have probably
for the first time, used the mirror objectively without overly thinking
about yourself!
Now sit down in front of the mirror and wipe off the outline and
take a look. Look at this face. It is made in the image and likeness
of God.
This face truly and objectively reflects the face of God. The face
of God is beautiful beyond description. This face truly and objectively
reflects the perfect beauty of Jesus.
It is not the case of whether you like the shape of the nose or
the line of the chin.
God-alikeness goes beyond that.
21
The Way of
the Cross for Beginners
Recall to your
mind the face of Jesus. The Father in heaven has no difficulty in
recognizing the resemblance.
Where do
you find the mirror that makes your focus clearer?
It is nailed to the wood of the cross.
Journey towards it(3).
(3) You have
a choice. You can continue to make the exercise in front of a mirror.
But you may simply wish to go somewhere else. Let the Lord guide
you.
I. You
are condemned to death
The only purpose of life is death. Everything that happens to
you is designed as a preparation for death. Death is the one
thing you cannot evade. Do not let it become a negative nuisance.
Live for it. Work for it. Keep it as a constant objective in
front of you. Live each day as a preparation for the final,
glorious encounter with God.
II. You
take up your Cross
You carry your remedy within you: your pain and temptation;
your hope and duty; your joy and your grief. These are the tools
to get you to heaven.
III. You
fall under your Cross
Do not make a tragedy of it. Get up again and dust yourself
down and get on with it.
You are a beginner and the hardest and most important thing
to learn is the equilibrium of listening. Pray your choices
and give the Lord the opportunity to say yes or no. With practise
you can recognize the answer. Embrace the obedience of the Gospels.
22
IV. You
meet your Mother
You will have many wonderful and unexpected companions on the
journey; none more wonderful than this one.
Behold the handmaid of the Lord who says to you: "Do whatever
he tells you" (John:2.5). Mary is a friend - you can always
meet her after a fall. She is good at comforting the bruised
and showing the road.
V. You
meet your Simon of Cyrene
God will give you friends who will cheerfully get under your
burdened and sinful personality and help you carry it.
God may, for your growth, give you a soul-friend who stays with
you on your journey - a fellow pilgrim. You, too, will help
your fellow pilgrims to carry their burdens more easily.
VI. You
meet your Veronica
In Greek, Veronica - veron icon - means true image. You
will meet true images of Jesus on the road. The quality they
give to your life is usually quite disproportionate to the brevity
of your encounter with them. Their goodness becomes for you,
another mirror in which you see your own face reflected in the
face of Jesus.
VII. You
fall
The second fall - the less obvious stumbling stone - is the
desire amidst the good things and beautiful loves on your journey,
to pitch your tent and settle down into ownership. This is the
subtle desire to invest part of yourself in material, spiritual,
and emotional "possessions". Forget it. It is a temptation.
Embrace the poverty of the Gospels.
23
VIII.
You meet other sorrowing women and men
Soberly beware of adulation and admiration. You are only a servant
doing what you are obliged to do. You are no hero. Help those
who might admire you, or pity you, focus themselves on God and
their own journey. Show them, not yourself, but Jesus who carries
their cross for them. Tell them what Jesus is doing.
IX. You
fall again
There is such a thing as objective evil; it lives in the same
world as the world in which you live. In the end you will 'kill'
it or it will kill you. The Evil One (sorry to be explicit)
wishes to penetrate your personal integrity.
To focus neurotically on this is to go halfway to giving evil
the victory. God is infinitely more powerful than evil,
but you are infinitely weaker than evil. Focus on Jesus
who liberates us from death. Focus on Jesus who is love, and
place him between you and the evil one. He said: I have given
you power over demons and serpents to crush the enemy. But do
not rejoice that the demons submit to you. Rejoice that your
names are written in heaven. Whatever you ask for in my name,
believing, you will receive.
This fall is a surrender to the diabolic temptation of exploiting
other human beings. True love is expressed in serving others;
false love is revealed in forcing them to serve you. All manipulation
is unchaste. Embrace the chastity of the Gospels.
24
X. You
are stripped
If you are responsive and eager, standing naked in the Lord's
presence will be a form of divine love play. Let the Lord strip
off your dragon skins, and surrender to his invitation of love.
Then his nakedness will cover your nakedness.
But if you are resentful and untrusting, you will inevitably
reduce a private exaltation to a public humiliation. You cannot
draw near to God, or be a real person for others, with your
full armour of crocodile hide. If you refuse to let God peel
it off, others will in the end, tear it off. Make your choice
for love.
XI. You
are nailed to the Cross
Become what you receive.
Receive what you are.
You have joyfully accepted the means of growth in your life.
Now allow yourself to be identified by them. You have carried
your cross; now let yourself be nailed to it, as a witness.
According to ancient tradition there are three nails. One is
to stop your right hand grabbing for possessions, one is to
stop your left hand groping to exploit others, and one is rammed
through both feet, to stop you running off the course.
XII. You
are crucified
Do not be afraid.
You are a witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus. That
is the whole meaning of the word Christian. Your big witness
is not what, given the opportunity, you might say; it is who
you are. You are transfixed in love, showing in your life, the
open and glorious wounds of Jesus.
25
XIII.
You are taken from the Cross
Do not tear yourself off the cross. Allow yourself to be lifted
from it. Today was a day of growth. Mary, the Mother of Jesus,
and the blessed ones in heaven - the angels and the saints -
are still with you. Your Simon of Cyrene and all those who have
helped you carry your cross, your Joseph of Arimathaea and your
Nicodemus, are still with you, and your liberation will be part
of their service to Jesus. Accept God's love through others,
as a gift. It will free you of your burden.
XIV. You
are laid in the tomb
Each time you follow these stations of the cross, something
will die. Either by the steady chipping away of grace on heartstone
or by the sudden illumination of the meaning of just one of
these steps on the way. Let what has died be laid in the tomb.
Do not disinter it.
There are things which die forever. But all the real things
in your life will be raised up on Godšs third day, and transfigured
in a new life.
If you
have got through the exercises in chapter five, take a break.
Treat yourself to a cup of strong coffee, go for a walk and/or go
to sleep - you have earned it.
26
....Take a break
27
Chapter 6
Returning to the second page.
Who
am I?
In the Way
of the Cross for Beginners, you have begun to turn your view
outwards, to relate your inner world to your outer world. Before
travelling on this road, focus clearly on what you have learned.
You are created in the image and likeness of God.
You relate, in the first place, to him, not merely by choice, but
by nature.
Before God you are completely yourself; free, unique; able to choose
not only the good, but the better, and the very best person he made
you to be.
God affirms you beyond anything human affirmation approaches - if
you allow him to.
God loves you beyond anything human love can get near to - if you
allow him.
God offers you a fulfilment, a passion and an unstinting tenderness
compared with which human sexuality and love is an unsustainable
triviality.
You are unique.
You do not have
to demonstrate your self worth by having a human lover, a partner,
or a poor human appendage to show off to other poor humans.
You do not have to exhibit your desirability by being sexually active.
You do not have to raise up and fortify your own ego by manipulating
and exploiting other human beings.
Review these
three statements:
You do not
have to have a lover but you may have real friends.
28
You do not
have to be sexually active, but God may give you a vocation
to celebrate his love for you by sharing it with a spouse. His love
will still be greater than your love for your spouse or your spouse's
love for you. You will still be a follower of chastity, but your
chastity will be a dual chastity. You will leave your father and
mother and become one flesh with your spouse, and you will preserve
your covenant with each other in the same way that consecrated men
and women preserve their covenant with the Lord. It will not take
away your first love for God, though it will to some extent, diffuse
it. Marriage is for this earth. Marriages are not made in
heaven, they are only made on earth (St. Matthew 2:30, St.
Mark 12:25, t. Lk 20:35) But your covenant love for each other will
help you to love God more deeply in the end, in heaven.
You do not
have to exploit or manipulate others. All power and authority
is vested in God and all abuse of power is unchaste.
If you take a person's freedom away; if you exploit their weakness
and even their sin, you will become a murderer and you will have
the reward prepared for murderers. You do not need to batter the
integrity or exploit the sexuality of another human being. You have
been offered God's heart as a plaything.
Pleasure is not
in possessing, it is in surrendering.
If you live by possessing others you will obtain quick satiation,
leaving you with a sick taste in the mouth which you can only wipe
out by an increase in the violence of your pleasures.
29
This has so obvious
a spiraling effect that you start by craving power for pleasure
and end by craving evil for evil.
THIS IS
A WARNING
There is no way, ever, of standing still; if you do not keep
moving forward on your pilgrimage, the landscape will eventually
overtake you. You will not be required to read this text again.
Now go back to
the opening exercise of this handbook in chapter one and take the
sheet marked page two out of the book in which you placed
it.
You have listed
the people to whom you relate in your daily life. You have listed
the ways in which they shape your life by their demands on you.
Go over the list again, and in a second column, name the demands
you make on them. Do not condemn yourself - and do not justify
yourself. Simply stick to fact. If there are destructive elements
in your relations with others, the first essential step to healing
them is identifying them.
Look at each relationship (in both its columns) objectively. Place
it before the Lord.
In the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, thank
him for the good and constructive areas of interaction.
Accept his help to release you from the illicit demands you make
on others, and from the illicit demands they make on you.
Let the Spirit
help you discern those areas that are unclear.
Let the Son share with you the power of his redeeming cross in those
demands made on you that are just, but hard and challenging.
30
Let the Father
recreate all your relationships in the image of the primal relationship:
The Trinity.
Loving God; opening
yourself to him, makes you able to love others more deeply. But
there is a new way of living with others that will make them and
you very happy. However, it may involve you in a very fundamental
change of attitude. Jesus said it himself, and it is implicit in
everything that the Gospels teach:
"I have come among you as one who serves".
The leaders
of the nations play the Lord,
and those in whom civil authority is vested
act as if the world was theirs to hand out.
It must not be like this with you.
Rather, the greatest amongst you
must become like the youngest,
and the leader, like one who serves.
For who is greater; the one sitting at the table, dining out
or the one who serves him?
Isn't it the one sitting at the table?
But I have come among you as one who serves. (St. Luke 22.
25-27)
Have in your
mind the image of yourself holding a bowl of warm water with a towel
over your arm.
When you look into a person's eyes it is usually because you want
something. Try looking at their feet. Unshod feet are pathetic and
vulnerable - even the beautiful feet of babies and athletes. But
the majority of human feet - always being stood on as they are,
are tired, bent, rough, and neglected round the toe nails.
31
The leaders of the nations play the Lord,
and act as if the world was theirs to hand out...
If there is someone in your life with whom you could share this
beautiful Christian gesture of the washing of the feet, you might
like to do so.
Catholics of the western rite, and some other Christians, see the
washing of the feet enacted dramatically during the liturgy of Holy
Thursday, but in the liturgy of the eastern rites it is performed
more frequently, as a sacramental. It stands as a sign of what Christianity
is all about.
Make this symbol your way of life; choose to become a servant. Stop
looking to see what other people can do for you and what they owe
you. Recognize now and forever that no one owes you anything, and
you will have a wonderful life because everything will come to you
as a wonderful surprise.
To choose freely to be a servant is the ultimate human dignity.
It must be; Jesus himself did it.
And keep your eyes down on what you are doing. Do not be constantly
taking the temperature of others to see how you are going down.
God respects your dignity. Respect the dignity of others. Do not
be trying to probe them to poke a reaction. Keep your eyes on the
feet - that is, on the service you are performing - and leave it
to God to show you when witnessing as a Christian requires
more than living as a Christian.
33
Chapter 7
Symbols
of myself
Who Am I?
You already carry
the symbols of Christian servitude: the bowl of water and the towel.
It is the heraldry of all real Christians.
You are becoming
yourself, formed in God's likeness and image, living in the pattern
of the Gospel, having something other than the necessity of not
starving to get up for in the morning.
You are precious
to God.
You live in the heart of the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You have refused to live by preying on others.
You have chosen to live as a disciple of Jesus, and you can
say with his mother Mary: "Behold the servant of the Lord."
(St. Luke 1:38)
Now this is fine.
But how will you sustain these choices in a world that is not on
your side? How will you remain yourself, in integrity and faithfulness
to Christ?
My choice
has drawn you from the world (St. John 15:9)
How are you going to interpret this with your life?
It may have something to say about geography - but the evidence
of the New Testament seems to indicate that the Corinthians mostly
went on living in Corinth and the Romans mostly went on living in
Rome. Their withdrawal from the world, was mainly (but not entirely)
a choice of lifestyle, not a change of address. They threw out their
old gods, their substance addictions, their slavery to ritual sex,
and their subjection to sin and evil. Then they tried to form covenant
communities around a home that became a church. It had its ups and
downs; but that surprised nobody since they were not seeking perfection
on earth, as they had here no abiding city. Yet they managed,
even in the face of violent persecution, to preserve their integrity
as Christians and to hand on the faith to us two millennia later.
22
How did they
cope with a culture that was going in the opposite direction and
battering them as it passed?
Well, they put on the full armour of Christ: that is why you must
rely on God's armour or you will not be able to put up any resistance
when the worst happens, or have enough resources to hold your ground.
So stand your
ground, with truth buckled round your waist, and integrity for a
breastplate, wearing for shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread
the Gospel of peace, and always carry the shield of faith so that
you can use it to put out the burning arrows of the evil one. And
then you must accept salvation from God to be your helmet and receive
the Word of God from the Spirit to use as a sword (Ephesians
6. 13-17).
Their hardware
was invisible but of a singularly durable nature. They put on Christ.
When you meet a person or a situation do you use yourself
to deal with it or do you put on Christ? That is, do you literally
place the Lord between you?
If someone throws a criticism at you about your faith, (or anything
else) do not leap in, on your own puny strength, and try to knock
them down. Put Jesus between you and the questioner and ask for
the answer in prayer. Let them see the Light of the World, not your
own shadow.
35
When you are
confronted with a friend or stranger who is suffering and in need,
ask the Lord to give you the words. And when you are confronted
with hate and violence, ask the Lord to protect you: hešs been scourged
and crucified before. Place Christ between you and everything you
encounter, and become a living message.
Saint Paul's living message - his symbol, if you like - was:
"It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me" (Gal
2.20).
Asked who he was, John the Baptist answered: "I am the voice
crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord." (Is
40.3)
Saint Peter made an act of faith in his way of life: "You are
the Christ, the Son of the Living God." And the Lord answered:
"You are Peter and on this rock I shall build my Church."
(St. Matthew 16. 16-18)
Symbolum is the Latin title for an act of faith such as the
Nicene Creed.
Saint Francis of Assisi put on Christ to such a degree that people
saw, not the little Poor Man, but the wounds of the Crucified.
Saint Colette's motto was "As God pleases - as God wills".
And she was a woman who could walk on a battlefield and stop a war.
I walk through the world myself, with a single line from the Jesus
Psalter: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus have mercy. I am trying to be
conscious that Jesus, who is the living water, pours that water
of life and mercy and love into my cupped hands for others to drink.
And the more public the place I find myself in, the more consciously
I try to smile. Have you noticed how few people smile?
Become what you believe; believe what you are. You are formed in
the image and likeness of God.
36
He is with you
and within you.
In the words of the Deer's Cry - the Lorica
of Saint Patrick, which was his symbol:
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my
left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when
I am seated,
Christ in the heart of every one
who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one
who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
Now make the
Sign of the Cross and invoke the Trinity.
Renew the process of centring yourself in the Trinity on page 7
and renew the process of self offering with the gestures of clasped,
pointed and open hands page 9-10.
Ask the Lord to show you your symbol. Ask him to teach you a prayer
that will always carry you.
37
Chapter 8
The
River Path
So far this small
book has made no distinction between the married and the unmarried,
or the consecrated and the single. It has not alluded to gender.
In fact it has only used the word chastity once and you might just
have missed it. This lone appearance was at the third fall of Christ
in the Stations of the Cross. The reflections on the falls of Christ
took as their theme the three evangelical counsels: obedience, poverty
and chastity. These counsels are not merely the prerogative of those
who follow the consecrated life, they are central to Christianity.
Christianity is a religion that ceases to exist if you do not obey
God, witness to your dependance on him and know, with secure joy,
that you belong firstly and finally to him.
To allow God to love you and to want to love him and to work to
share this love with all humankind, is basic Christianity. It is
what you are, over and above what you do or the life you
follow.
Jesus said: If you love me keep my commandments. (St. John
14.15).
And my commandments are easy (St. Matthew 11.30) .
This book is
not going to tell you that ladies should wear long skirts or less
plunging necklines, or that gentlemen should avoid masculine display
and going around without tee-shirts.
A sensitivity to others - particularly to the weakness and suffering
of others - is the first sign that the heart that has drawn near
to the Lord. To want to get through life without being a drag on
others is seminal charity.
38
This book is NOT going to tell you
that ladies should wear long skirts or less plunging necklines...
39
It is also common
sense. That people do not display common sense and that they behave
to others, provocatively and cruelly, on this and far more profound
issues, is a sign that the heart is out of joint.
It is obvious that if you avoid knowing God (and you can avoid it
if you work strenuously at it) and avoid encountering yourself,
there will, inevitable as the rising of the sun, appear in your
life patterns of unreasonable, compulsive and destructive behaviour
in regard to other men, women and children.
Life is full of objective duties, but those who in forming others,
place duty first, before sharing the heart where love is
to be found, are not just wrong headed and impractical, they are
sowing a whirlwind they will certainly reap.
God's revealed love is our faith. God loved the world so much that
he sent his only Son so that we could become people who live forever.
For God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but
so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes
in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned
already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God's
only Son. On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the
light has come into the world men have shown they prefer darkness
to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody
who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions
should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth comes out
into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does
is done in God. (St. John 3. 17-21)
The light is love.
Being Married
Considering the space that the partnering-up of humans occupies
amongst the majority of the living, the Gospels have very little
to say about it.
40
Even such events
as the marriage of Cana are there primarily for other purposes.
And asked directly about who belongs to who (St. Matthew 22. 24-31)
Jesus says simply and straightforwardly, in a way not admitting
of interpretation, that marriage is for this earth and does not
pertain in the kingdom of heaven. Indeed the Good News - which is
the perfect human formation - concentrates solidly, on building
a relationship in which the human individual becomes the Father's
beloved Son.
So the Gospels have the same non-distinguishment of state and gender
as followed by this small book. However, if the Gospels have little
to say about marriage (and a lot to say about chastity and God-centred
living) and if Saint Paul's intimations can sometimes be difficult
to unravel, the Church, especially in the last one hundred and twenty
years, has had much to say on the married state. If you are
married, find it and read it.
How can you, as a married person, use this book?
Well, as the Church teaches, your covenant with each other, though
it is of this world only, makes you one flesh, and your chastity
is lived by making that one flesh you have become, consecrated.
Your chastity, as it were, faces outward, your love and mutual self-endowment
is sacred, and you are invited to preserve it from other invasive
demands, passions and temptations. So genuine is this form of chastity
that there are now Secular Institutes within the Church for married
people.
Assuming that you have worked through the exercises of this book
as individuals, you might elect to use these patterns in praying
together; particularly the exercises in chapter one and two.
41
But now your
original three lists are of those who formed you both in
your way of life, of those whose relationships impinge on you
both, and of those gifts and talents which you have received
springing from your life together. And by rights, the act
of physical self-knowing in chapter two should become for you the
act of mutual self giving that is the essential sacrament of marriage;
that is, the act of love celebrated as an act of prayer and happy,
reverent, mutual appreciation.
Unmarriedness
as a preparatory state
Many cultures and most religions have favoured the chastity of those
who are not yet married, in some cases preferring the virginity
of women over the virginity of men, or at least, giving it more
conscious emphasis. For the act of mutual self surrender of marriage
to be a reality, there must be a self to surrender; a real person
who can really give himself or herself to the other. To be a real
adult one must have been allowed to be a real child. To grow, one
must be given emotional, spiritual, physical and intellectual space
in which to grow. The production in our culture, and at this time,
of destructive, sexual experimentation in teenagers, and even in
pre-pubertal teenagers is an assault on the dignity and sacredness
of the human person. Its results are self-evident. If one barters
one's self worth for sexual recognition in the eyes of others, one
has made a bad bargain. One is simply setting out in reverse with
the scars already showing across the back.
But it is useless to talk of moral values to a fellow human being
who has never been allowed to meet either God or himself, and who
is moreover, being "managed" by parents, teachers and peers whose
thresholds are not those of lived Christian faith.
42
To grow into
authentic freedom, the developing human needs (and has always needed)
a measure of enclosure to protect him from secular, cultural manipulation.
The least effective way to arrive at strong and mature adulthood
is by ripping off the protective coat of childhood and discussing
fully and frankly every sexual possibility at the earliest possible
age. Expose the victim to repeated dramatisation of sexual tragedy
at home and on the media, depopulate your world of God, and if you
start early enough you will produce a neurotic by fourteen, and
a one parent family by seventeen. By their fruits you shall know
your selves!
These principles of child formation proceed from a generation of
parents who, if morality came their way outsisde the media, were
exposed to it before they encountered God and a generation of grandparents
who were exposed to God before they had learned that he was love.
The answer to this is, to a great degree, to provide a secure environment
built on faith to give a child the security to grow as a chaste
human who is able to celebrate his or her life and the Creator
of that life.
Singleness
as a secular choice
For a person to be neither married, consecrated or living in some
style of sexually active relationship, it is relatively rare. Only
recently has the Church acknowledged such a state as consonant with
human dignity and God's plan.
Some avocations; teaching for example, have in the past sometimes
led to people becoming so committed to those they served that they
never got round to marrying.
43
A doctor (who
was married!) once told us that in his opinion, no doctor should
ever marry and that he was tormented by the conviction that every
time he took the family to Tenerife, a patient died! An Anglican
vicar once told me that whenever he got the kids into the car to
go for a drive in the country, one of his parishioners always seemed
to be about to have a nervous breakdown. He wondered (in the presence
of his wife) why he had married. She was a good woman and a loyal
wife, but she replied with the bitterest imaginable sarcasm, "Because
Saint Paul says it is better to marry than to burn. Presumably Saint
Paul failed to consider the human dignity of the non-burner!"
God is still in this choice of secular singleness. It is possible
for you to be wedded to the truth and for your children to be those
you have taught or healed, or succoured - or for your "children"
to be the work of your hands, mind and heart.
It is obvious from the statistics of divorce and of serial relationships
that far too many people try marriage who have not the shadow of
a vocation to live with other people, nor the maturity and objective
commitment to sustain a family. Acquiring a "partner" has become
in our society, the minimum basic for success and acceptability.
And being sexually active is how you demonstrate that you are an
adult in touch with reality and worth having.
This is simply not true! You have value in yourself, in your
dignity as a human person; not because you are owned by another
human person!
Consecrated
Chastity
Consecrated chastity is the public profession of the three Gospel
counsels of obedience, poverty and chastity that is accepted - consecrated
- by the Church.
44
It is a somewhat
well kept secret, but the abilities and qualifications needed for
a life of consecrated chastity are the same as those required for
a successful marriage. The chaste man or woman needs a greater capacity
to surrender in love to God than two humans in a consecrated marriage
will need to surrender to each other.
The chaste man or woman needs to be a nurturer: one who cares for
others; one who puts others first; one prepared to waste his or
her life for love with more assiduity than a mother and father with
newborn triplets who scream all night.
The chaste man or woman needs to be one who accepts others, who
bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things: one who
is truly present to those with whom he lives, who out of the love
of the heart is open, available and willing to share.
If you have met a truly chaste person you will feel that:
they have made you someone special,
that they have listened to you with the ears of Jesus,
looked at you with the eyes of the Father,
touched you with the hands of the Spirit,
and accepted you with the heart of the Trinity.
Neither in consecrated chastity nor in consecrated matrimony is
there any lasting place for people who are cold, hard, embittered,
frigid, rigidly disobedient to the prompting of the Spirit, self-righteous
or destructively critical. And if you are still prepared to call
your neighbour stupid, you will be punished for it in eternity (St.
Matthew 5.22).
In both of these expressions of God's life there are only places
for people willing to change.
45
Consecrated life is
like having triplets who yelp all night - only it's worse!
46
The standard
is the same. Place yourself before God and he will transform you
into his image and likeness.
The distinction between marriage and celibacy is just possibly one
of outreach and duration. The celibate is, in principle,
there for the many, and marriage seems to last longer. There
are no other differences from the real perspective of those who
live them. The distinction made between them is not in our hands,
it is in God's hands. Many are called. Some may want one
or other form of life. But it is God who chooses. God's hand cannot
be forced. He has marked us all for our vocations, his directing
hand has prepared us for his choice; and our evasion of it is always
a tragedy.
If you meet a person who cannot settle, who moves like a hunter
from relationship to relationship, or one who lives a profligate
life of compulsive sexuality, it is most often, in truth, the appalling
shadow of a lost religious vocation. And if, in the disguise of
religious dress, you meet someone who is both conceited and frightened,
one for whom nothing is right, one who basically is always at odds
with those who manifest the authority of Christ in their life, one
who, above all, tells you that prayer is torture and their soul
has never been anything but dry (though they will probably try to
tell you that to suffer this is their special gift and superior
privilege) you may have seen the terrible shadow of a self-deluded
candidate for the humble sanctities of marriage.
There are no vocations that are more holy in the terrestrial
sense. There is only the choice of God. Let him be free to choose.
You do not buy a vacuum cleaner to wash your car with. You do not
light a lamp to put it under a basket. No. You wash your car with
a hose and you get your lamp out to light up the dark.
47
God works in
the same way. He made the grain of the wood and he works with it.
If you have worked through this book and you still do not know what
God wants you to do with your life, go back to page one and start
again. This is the never ending story. It will never end
until you say yes or no. It is possible to say no to God.
It is just very sad. It also has extensive consequences in eternity
and is hell on earth.
Say yes to what God, who is truth, may speak in your heart, and
you will shed more tears of true sorrow and laugh with more unalloyed
joy than the heart can imagine, on earth as it is in heaven.
I am free,
Lord,
because you have made me free
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I
am free to love you, Lord.
I am free to let you touch me.
You have ascended to your Father
and I am allowed to touch you.
I
am not barren,
I am allowed to be with you;
to be close to you.
I
am allowed to be free.
I
am free to love you,
I am free to belong to you,
I can let you kiss me
and touch me and hold me.
I do not have to be afraid.
|
48
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I
am free to adore you.
I
am allowed to let you love me.
There
is nothing I may not ask
in your name that you would refuse me.
You
want me.
You want me to be yours.
I
am free to give myself to you.
I am free to let you take me.
Heaven
is not tomorrow and somewhere else,
Heaven is now.
Heaven is where you are
and you are with me.
I love you -
that is trivial.
You love me.
You love me.
I belong to you.
Take me.
I am free to let you take me,
I am free to let you love me,
I am open to your love.
I
worship you,
and you my Lord,
my king and my God,
you worship me.
You penetrate my mind,
my spirit, my heart,
my flesh.
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49
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I
want you.
Your love will fill me
and I will go on wanting you.
I will grow weary of
everything on earth
but I will never tire of your love.
I am yours.
I surrender.
Touch, penetrate, possess
every cell of my being.
This is love.
Not that I love you
(though I do)
but that you love me.
You
are free, Lord.
I make you free
to choose me.
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