Through the stiff back and the sore knees and itchy nose, did there come a point--a moment--when you were "there"? When you felt, like the Blessed Virgin, that you were open to God's love? When you were, perhaps for the first time this December, in an Advent frame of mind? It didn't last long--and your conscious mind could not reclaim it-- but you had it--fleetingly. Again as the Book of Common Prayer puts it-- you had, for a moment, the peace of God that is beyond all understanding.
Beyond all understanding. Beyond words, Beyond images. A peace that transcends theology, Scripture even. It is the peace of--pardon the fancy word here--kenosis--that is, the peace of radical self emptying,
This Advent season is all about kenosis-- about letting go of ourselves and our desires for our lives, our plans and yes, our hopes for our future. It is about letting God direct our paths.
After all that is what Mary is all about. Imagine, if you will: a 13-15 year old Jewish woman from a poor but "frum" family. She is engaged a fellow with not only a good income-- he is a carpenter in a farming community and such tradesmen are often the more prominent members of the community and what is more, in a society where blood lines matter-- he is a direct descendent of David-- the greatest king in Israel's long history. It is a story worthy of a Hugh Grant -Julia Roberts movie. She has the star quarterback. Her life, if not one of leisure, will be one without hunger, and with some social standing.
Then because she was open, open to God's profound will for her life, she puts it all at risk. She accepts a pregnancy--She knows how will her fiancé react. She had no reason to believe that he wouldn't anything but reject her-- cast her out as a wanton woman. In her small community, such a charge did not mean merely the loss of a good husband, the end of a relationship. For such a woman was literally a non-person. Without a husband and disowned by parents she would be consigned to a life of begging for herself and for the child she willingly accepted. She would have no legal status and her child, a bastard, a mamzer in Hebrew, was also a legal outcast.
Yet she doesn't give a second thought to this-- what to her must have seemed inevitable--outcome. She was without regard to her sense of self. Radically kenotic, she was open to God's plan, despite what must have seemed to her, the equivalent of suicide. Indeed, such kenosis is a sort of suicide-- a death to the world, and all that the world represents.
There is a reason why monks and nuns just before they take their perpetual vows don't just legally dispose of all of the worldly goods-- they write a will-- they recognize that in some sense who they were-- and their sense of self--dies. The discalced Carmelites, of whom Teresa the Little Flower and Teresa of Avilia were members, have a moving ceremony during profession of vows. The nun lies prostrate, face down and is covered with a shroud, her shroud, as the Psalms, the funeral Psalms, are chanted around her. In the old rite of ordination for both Anglicans and Romans-- which is presently little used, alas, but not forbidden--the priest candidates also lie prostrate before their bishop.
But just dying to ourselves, just being kenotic, as necessary as that may be for contemplative prayer, is ultimately insufficient. The kenosis must be coupled with receptivity. The emptiness of ourselves, must be filled, as was Mary, with God.
Just as the new Carmelite, or new priest, arises from the ground afresh--with a new life, so too do we seek to rise from our mediation pillow or pew alive with possibilities that come from Christ Jesus.
Listen to the Blessed Mother as she commands the workers at the wedding feast at Cana: "Do whatever He tells you." Hear as Mary listens as Christ rearranges familial relations while hanging from cross "man, this is your mother" "mother, this is your son." Such exhortations were meant to change selves, to change behavior.
In the poem, "The Angel" the poet Rilke makes it clear that inviting God's love into our lives is not something that is done without cost-- personal, social and financial. In the poem the Angel of the Lord, allowed to come into a house overturns the furniture, hides in distant corners and exposes the dust mites and, in essence, totally takes over the place. The idea of firm and set boundaries to this relationship is folly-- the sense of control is silly. All that one can do it throw up one's hands and surrender.
I told you earlier today that silence wasn't easy and we would be doing nothing--and everything, right?
Silence calls us deeply to a existential understanding of our relationship with the Lord-- we have no defenses which modern humanity likes to throw at such challenges-- no logical syllogisms to posit, no witty banter to hide behind.
All we are is, as the medieval mystic put it,
Nudus, nudum Christum sequereNaked, to follow the naked ChristThis, for us, is too awful-- in all senses, both wonderful and horrible--of that word-- to take in. We cannot merely sit and be still and have the desire to let go of self and take in the will of the Almighty. We need some way to cover our psyche, at least initially, some way to approach the mysteries that allow the kenosis and receptivity to transform us, create a conversion of life. If these ways are tricks, or crutches, so they are. If the transformative power of God's love is what our lives are pointing toward, we ,like a down on his luck bettor at the horse track, will take whatever tips we can, to get make in the game.
Fortunately once again, Mother Church has recognized our need and provided us a way--a path-- that will lead us toward the same kenosis that Mary had inherently.
All religious traditions have relied upon the manipulation of physical objects as methods of prayer. Such actions are enzymes of prayer-- catalysts of taking we poor befuddled humans one stp closer to an encounter with the Divine.
The spinning of prayer wheels by Tibetan Buddhist, rice wine offerings of the Shinto priests, the practice of calligraphy of the Koran by a devote Moslem,the wrapping of teflillin by orthodox Jews and the swinging of a thurible by the nosebleed high Anglo-catholic are all avenues to engage our bodies in the pursuit of the holy. And all of them peculiar to their particular tradition.
There is, however, a technique, a practice, that seems to be present in most religious traditions. It is a practice that is simultaneously both so simple and so profound that it, ilike Rilke's Angel, breaks down the many barriers and set constraints that our mind and will may wish to set.
The use of a prayer rope, a piece of string with knots or beads, to count the number of repetitive prayers has part of a Buddhists, Hindu, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican's spiritual armamentarium. Ours is called a Rosary and in our next talk we will discuss its particular use within our Western Christian tradition. For now, let's use it the same way the Orthodox and the others use their versions of the prayer rope--as a tactile accompaniment to a single repetitive prayer.
The beads make tangible our prayers-- they are prayed not merely with our voices, whispered, mumbled words,with our breath, they are also prayed with our hands, our arms too. The importance of involving the body in prayer is something that many folks within the Western Christian tradition tend to forget--but thankfully the Catholic tradition has not--we bow in reverence when the cross or priest passes us as we recognize the "altus Christi" nature of the priesthood. We deeply bend in a profound bow as the Trinity is enumerated. We genuflect in the Creed when we recite our belief in God took the extraordinary step of taking on our nature along with his divine nature--when we acknowledge the amazing gift that Mary provided the world by being receptive to God's will. We kneel for the Canon of the Mass, stand to sing hymns. We make three small crosses on our head, lips and heart before the Gospel is proclaimed. We cross ourselves all manner of times. Such movements may appear silly, or contrived but they are not. They also make prayer immanent, make our worship a bodily phenomenon.
But the use of the prayer rope is more than movement. It is movement coupled with the recitation of a set of words--The words themselves are a sort of mantra--a powerful tool to focus one's attention but from which the real, interior work of praying can take place. As I mentioned, in our next talk we will discuss the particular form which the Rosary has taken, now choose your own exclamation. It can have any form which is a cry from the heart--the more direct and simple, the better. The Eastern Orthodox use the Jesus prayer--which has one recite "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me," on an inhalation and "a sinner" upon exhaling ones breath. Each time one completes this phrase the hand moves to the next bead. Saint Francis' prayer was even shorter: "My God and my all!"--how kenotic!!!
The circle of the Rosary has five groups of ten beads with five other beads set apart. For now just use the five decades. say the prayer twice around-- or a hundred times. Take a break, refocus on the mantra--the prayer. Let it act as a sort of "busy work" for the conscious mind. Bring yourself back to the images that we discussed before, our discussion of kenosis. Invest your person, your soul, in the prayer. Listen, as you say the words, not to your voice but to what lies under the voice and deeper--listen to what come from without.
Be receptive, as Mary was, and is, receptive, to the call that God provides when we let Him in by making room for Him in our soul all too crowded by ego.
Have a good journey.