The Knitting Theologian

I used to have a recurring nightmare in which I was driving through the mountains on a foggy day. I was enjoying myself: the car was fun to drive, and I could see enough of the road ahead to feel comfortable with the speed at which I was travelling. The nightmare started when I suddenly came out of the mountains, into the sun, only to see that the ocean was on the wrong side of the road.

It’s difficult to describe the awful shock of this. Obviously the ocean wasn’t really on the wrong side; only my mental map was wrong. The problem was, though, that I now had no idea where I was or where I was going, and the map I had been using was clearly worthless.

The shock of this dream always woke me, so I never figured out what to do next. I haven’t thought of the dream in years, but I remembered it recently when I realized what a struggle these last days of this novena have become.

I thought the spiritual struggle of the novena would be like climbing a mountain. I would work hard but climb steadily, the way I have often done in real hiking. At the halfway point I would be at the summit of the mountain, take some time to enjoy the view, and then descend, keeping in mind that I must work on the way down, too, instead of relaxing and coasting back to the trailhead.

My map is wrong. This particular spiritual struggle is shaped like a valley instead. The first part was a descent down to the floor of the valley, which looked nice enough from the where I was. The descent itself, though difficult—I have never really liked descending while hiking—was certainly doable.

When I reached the valley floor, not knowing it was a valley, of course, I took time to enjoy the fact that I was halfway through. I remembered the graces I’d received so far. I kept going.

Soon after that halfway point, though, I began to tire. It was harder than I thought it would be to keep going. I had expected to work, but not like this. Doubts and fears began to assail me. They tested me on the way down, but were fairly easy to brush off then. Not anymore.

Sometime in the last week, I looked behind me and realized it seemed I hadn’t made any progress at all, and that’s when I realized that my map is wrong. I am going uphill, not downhill. The valley floor I am struggling to leave is still close by. The temptation to give up is very strong.

I only have nine more days of this. And what I’m doing is a small thing. I want to keep my promise to God, but the temptation to doubt that He even cares whether I do is constantly nagging in the background.

So I’m asking for prayers. If you could pray for courage and fortitude and perseverance for me, I’d appreciate it.

I am halfway through the Irresistible Novena. Yeah, I know: what’s a novena? It’s nine days of prayer. In a row. In the case of the Irresistible Novena, the prayer is the Rosary. Other novenas have other prayers associated with them.

So the Irresistible Novena, which is said to never fail (hence the name), is actually fifty-four days: six nine-day novenas in a row, for those of you following along doing the math. The way the Irresistible Novena works is you spend 27 days (three nine-day novenas) praying a rosary for your intention, and another 27 days praying a rosary in thanksgiving, whether or not your intention has been answered.

Like that little kicker? I can hear my non-Catholic friends right now; heck, I can hear my Catholic friends, and the voices are coalescing into just a few words: are you crazy? How can you give thanks if you don’t even know whether your prayers are answered? I wondered that myself.

The answer to that question is pretty simple: welcome to the Classroom of Faith, my friends. And actually I know that my prayers will be answered. I’m not sure entirely of the form in which they will be answered, but I’ve had enough experience praying to know that God always answers.

And why would I do such a thing? Because I have a couple of intentions I wanted to pray for, and the Irresistible Novena, about which I read a couple of years ago, came to mind immediately in a way that I’ve come to recognize as a nudge from the Holy Spirit. And because I recently resolved to take my fingers out of my ears and stop singing la-la-la when I sense those nudges, I went ahead and started the novena.

And so, halfway through, here I am, and I do have things for which I am grateful:

• An increased sense of God’s presence, not only during prayer but throughout the day.
• An increased recognition of the presence of God in others.
• An increased sensitivity to the graces present in the Eucharist. (I could write a whole other post on this last one, but I’ll just say here that there are many graces present in the Eucharist, and I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface of them. Trust me, they are there, and it’s the biggest reason I go to daily Mass so often. Gets me through the day like nothing else.)

I knew when I started that there was no way I could do this alone, no matter how stubborn I am. I have had to say to Jesus as well as to Mary and Joseph and practically the whole communion of saints, often, “Help! I can’t do this anymore.” They have come through, with help and support, every single time. It feels like being showered with “every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” (Ephesians 1:3) For all that, how could I not be grateful?

Yes, I know it’s already 2010 and I ought to have done this post a couple of days ago. I say better late than never. Technically I’m more than a month behind, anyway, since the church year begins with the season of Advent. I was even on retreat at the beginning of December, which offered a great opportunity, but other things happened on that retreat and somehow I never got to a review of spiritual commitments.

I have daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly spiritual commitments. Here’s what they are and how I did.

Daily

1. Liturgy of the Hours: review the readings from Office of Readings and say Morning Prayer. Not 100%, but probably darn close. I doubt I missed more than 10 days.
2. Lectionary: review the readings for Mass, and take some time to reflect on the Gospel. Again, not 100%. I’m very good about reviewing the readings, less so about reflecting on the Gospel, because I don’t always read slowly enough to allow God to get my attention.
3. Mental prayer: 20 minutes. Not 100% but very very close. Mental prayer has become so necessary for me I can feel the difference when I don’t do it.
4. Rosary: maybe about 60%. I do pretty well saying the Rosary during the week but less so on the weekends because I haven’t found a good time for it.
5. Nightly Examination of Conscience: maybe 10% if I’m being generous. I just haven’t been doing it, and I know the reasons I don’t are just excuses.

Weekly

1. Liturgy of the Hours: say Evening Prayer at least once a week. I’d say about 50%. It’s easy to do when I meet with the prayer group, less easy to do when I’m on my own. I added this commitment in Lent and have kept it going. As the year went on I was up to about 3 times a week pretty regularly.
2. Daily Mass: I’d say about 40% here. I cannot attend Daily Mass every single day because of work commitments, but I tried to make a point of going when I could. It got easier after my dog died.
3. Holy Hour: ooh. Not very well here at all. I had trouble finding a time I could work into my schedule. I maybe made about a dozen Holy Hours, but recent experiences have shown me the tremendous healing power possible.

Monthly

1. Confession: maybe 75% here, because this particular sacrament is becoming  more and more important.

Yearly

1. Retreat: check. And it was a good one.
2. Review of spiritual commitments: well, I’m doing it now.

Next time I’ll post on the fruits of my reflection on this list of commitments and what I plan to add/change/delete for 2010.

I do hear things in prayer sometimes, if I can shut up my brain long enough to let God talk. I don’t think I’m really that much of a chatterbox but apparently during mental prayer I am.

I was on retreat this weekend. There were sign up sheets for lectors, Eucharistic ministers, and so on for Mass on Saturday and Sunday. On Friday night my friend pointed to the empty spaces by “music minister” but I said No.

I don’t know, I figured there was somebody else who could do it better than I could. Yeah, I’m a cantor, and people sometimes tell me I have touched them when i sing, but I worry a lot about getting a swelled head. Besides, I was an English major! I’m not a real musician!

Later Friday night, I dropped into one of the tunnels I’ve become so well acquainted with over the past year, and spent time in the chapel praying over Psalm 38, especially verse 5:

My iniquities overwhelm me,
a burden beyond my strength.

Nothing happened right away, which is not unusual for me. But early Saturday morning in prayer I heard this:

You cannot let the weight of your iniquities keep you from using the gifts I gave you.

I signed up.

Thanks to the Catholic Key blog, which is from the Diocese of Kansas City, here is a video of the Gregorian chant Mass setting Missa Orbis Factor. It’s one of the sort of videos that shows close ups of the score so you can see how the square notes and the text line up.

I would be happy to get to the point at my parish where we regularly sang even the simplest chant Mass settings year around.

In a search for information about how much greenery to use for my Advent wreath—information sadly not forthcoming, by the way—I found a delightful video of a boys choir singing an Advent hymn I had never heard before.

It’s highlighted on the Diocese of Washington’s blog—go read the reflection and watch the video, and see if that music doesn’t make you want to rejoice.

You can tell when my quarter is nearly over because I start blogging again. I suppose a better blogger would set up auto-posts or some such thing so that people who stopped by wouldn’t give up if there were three months between entries. If I could ever decide on the real direction of this blog I might do that.

Two quick things to share with you on this last day of Ordinary Time:

A quote from a 14th-century Muslim mystic:

Pulling out the chair
Beneath your mind
And watching you fall upon God–
There is nothing else for Hafiz to do
That is more fun in this world!

Shams-Ud-Din Mohammed Hafiz, Muslim mystic (1320 – 1389)

And this, from a sermon by my friend St. Augustine, who I encountered in this morning’s Office of Readings:

Even here amidst trials and temptations let us, let all men, sing alleluia. God is faithful, says holy Scripture, and he will not allow you to be tried beyond your strength. So let us sing alleluia, even here on earth. Man is still a debtor, but God is faithful. Scripture does not say that he will not allow you to be tried, but that he will not allow you to be tried beyond your strength. Whatever the trial, he will see you through it safely, and so enable you to endure. You have entered upon a time of trial but you will come to no harm—God’s help will bring you through it safely. You are like a piece of pottery, shaped by instruction, fired by tribulation. When you are put into the oven therefore, keep your thoughts on the time when you will be taken out again; for God is faithful, and he will guard both your going in and your coming out.

I’ve had a rough couple of days. Everyone knows that the holidays are hard for single people. Let’s just say I’ve decided on a different meaning for Black Friday: it doesn’t mark the shopping season, it marks the lonely season. And I am no different from anyone else in having to struggle through it. I can’t test out of it, or get a hall pass, or accrue anywhere near enough spiritual brownie points to make it easier.

I was arrogant enough to think that I wouldn’t have a hard time this year. These two passages help me to know that 1) my time of trial is not over but God will give me the strength to get through it; and 2) God has indeed caught my fall and all I need to do is surrender to Him.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
       It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
       It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
       And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
       And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
       There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
       Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs–
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
       World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

I apologize for the awkward spacing; some of the lines are not quite right. Windows Live Writer, which I otherwise find exceedingly useful for writing blog posts, has its limitations.

Anyway. I had quite an experience this morning.

People have asked me, “how do you know what God wants?” I’ve asked that question myself. It’s not always easy to know. However much I might sometimes appreciate a well-modulated bass voice booming from the heavens, God is usually more subtle than that.

But there is a way, which has to do with paying attention to how you feel when you reach a conclusion or make a decision. You pay attention to feelings of consolation, feelings of rightness. That’s what happened to me this morning.

It’s my habit to pray and meditate first, then go for a walk. I often reflect further on my prayer as I go. This morning, reflecting on my prayer and on some advice I had received from a friend, I suddenly realized what it is I really want to do with my life.

Holding that realization, I walked headlong into the arms of God. There He was, in a patch of dappled early morning sunshine on the path. I felt His presence all around me, palpably. Joy rose deep within me and spilled over. I felt a holy Yes, and I remembered the first line of that poem, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Yesterday morning, just as I was getting ready to step outside to say Morning Prayer on the patio, my four-year old niece, Sophie, came into my room and climbed up on my bed.

“Can I look at that God book?” she inquired.

Somewhat surprised, because I didn’t think she knew how to read, I passed over In Conversation with God, and watched as she leafed carefully through the pages.

“How can you read this book?” she demanded. “It doesn’t have any pictures! I better look at another one.” She put ICWG carefully aside and picked up the Liturgy of the Hours.

Figuring that I was going to have company for prayer time, I sat down and began the series of vocal prayers that I say each morning. When I finished, Sophie looked up at me.

“You better keep praying,” she advised. “I have a lot of books to go through.”

She reviewed each one of my prayer books. When she finished she shook her head, almost in disgust.

“Don’t any of these books have pictures?”

“Well, no,” I said. “I just read the words.”

Sophie shook her head, climbed off the bed, and wandered out. Prayer must look a lot different to a four-year old.

My current “theme” Scripture:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

That’s what I’m doing. Step by step. Bit by bit. Slipping back and gradually moving forward. Continuing on this spiritual journey because, really, it’s too late to turn back and I have no other options. Making a daily act of will to put my trust in God. Trying to accept the fact that I don’t have the big picture of where I’m going to end up; only the daily task list:

1. Love others
2. Worship God
3. Obey His word
4. Practice virtue

I attribute it all to mental prayer. One of these days I’ll get up a post on how mental prayer changed (well, is still changing) my life.