Beyond Our Hopes

"...our works never attain the scope of our desires."

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

When I ran across this quotation again the other day, I began to reflect upon how vastly differently I understood it in light of all the experiences that have come after that discovery of a frustrated college student studying theatre and failing to achieve desired perfection.  For then I understood it only as poetic expression of another failed perfectionist.  There was a certain encouragement in these words of dissatisfaction coming from one who has become a noted figure in Spanish theatre and certainly a significant playwright.

Now, however, although I still see that meaning I originally understood, I see another one as well.  Perhaps there may even be more meanings I have yet to comprehend.

My new understanding arises from an experience with my latest theatrical venture.  It was meant to be simple: I would get together a group of artists of various sorts and see what I could help them put together as a meditation on beauty for Advent.

At our first meeting I said I wouldn't write a script.  There were other things later I said I wouldn't do: act and direct, for instance, or dance.  When working for the Lord one must be careful about saying one won't do something it seems, for as the weeks progressed, I gradually took on more and more until I was doing everything I had said I wouldn't do, as if He intended to prove me wrong on every score....

The joy of it was that the reason I had intended not to do all of these things was partly humility.  Those who humble themselves will be exalted....

I certainly had a taste of that.  I felt as if the Holy Spirit were guiding the entire way: He was directing and I merely following.  I found myself doing things I never would have imagined I could.  Together with the wonderful talent and dedication of my fellow artists and musicians (and the support of our tech crew of one), I created a work of art that did not attain the scope of my desires simply because it surpassed it.  Give something to God and He will do amazing things with it: that is what I learned once more.  I also learned that I can set my expectations smaller than what He intends.

That is a beautiful thought to ponder in this season of Advent.  For do we not often set the scope of our desires too low in our spiritual journey?

Advent is a time of sacrifice, of preparation, and of waiting.  It is a time for growth.  We are to prepare our hearts to receive the King of Kings and Lord of Lords in the coming celebration of Christmas.

What better way than to humble ourselves before Him and give everything to Him?  Weak creatures that we are, we find a greater joy and confidence in our surrender when we know that good fruit will come from it.  And it will.  Because He has the power to transform even the smallest action into a salvific work.  For He is God and we are not, He is all-powerful and we merely mortals stumbling along in this dark vale of tears....

The Liturgy: Boredom or Wellspring?

Sometimes the liturgy can seem boring or empty.  Maybe the music is dreadful, the people about us talking, the church architecture modern and ugly and meaningless, the words repetitive, or our minds merely distracted.

In response, many have tried to update it—to make it more exciting.  They shortened it, demanded our verbal participation, and cut out repetition.  Now they add drums and rock music.  Sometimes they diverge from the rubrics laid down for the liturgy, trying to make it more relaxed and inclusive, trying to make it more welcoming.

Yet do they succeed?

I think of theatre.  My professor often repeated this phrase: "If something is boring, slow it down."  It seems counter-intuitive, as he explained, but actually something is not necessarily boring because it is too slow.  It might be boring because it was shabbily done or because the important moments were skipped over.  Good acting requires slowing down in rehearsal to go back over each moment's transition and each moment's experience of crisis or choice.  The performance then will contain those crucial details even at a regular pace.  The audience may not catch each moment, but will certainly judge the performance by it, even though only at a subconscious level.

Theatre springs in some fashion from liturgy, so why should liturgy be any different?

If the priest leads us in the worship of God, taking into his hands God Himself, then how could it possibly be boring?  If we recognize that we are in the presence of God and we worship Him in each moment of our presence at the Mass, how could we be bored?  Is it because we have rushed over each moment of importance?

Before I leave you only with these questions to ponder, I would like to add one more thing: a beautiful paragraph on the living water that is the liturgy:

"The coming of the Word of life into our flesh and into the very abyss of our death alone deserves to be called an event, because due to it all the walls of death have collapsed, and life has sprung up in their place. The hour in which the Word with a loud cry handed over his Breath of love so that men might live is no longer in the past; it is, it abides, it lives on through history and sustains it. This unprecedented power that the river of life exercises in the humanity of the risen Christ - that is the liturgy! In it all the promises of the Father find their fulfillment. Since that moment the communion of the Blessed Trinity has ceaselessly been spreading throughout our world and flooding our time with its fullness. In the living Christ who 'is not here' but is risen and who fills all things and holds the keys of death, the heart of God and the heart of man are as it were the two heartbeats of the heart of history. There the wellspring flows." ~Father Jean Corbon, The Wellspring of Worship

Faith is Easy When You Don't Need It

FAITH IS EASY WHEN YOU DON'T NEED IT

I passed this sign as I biked to Mass this morning.  It seemed particularly relevant in light of my recent experience.  Also its message is uncomfortably true.

When we see the winding paths of our lives wending into a straight course toward the heavens, we do not need faith, for we can see and recognize that God is at work.  We need faith in the darkness when we seem to have lost the path.

Yet sometimes in that darkness faith does not seem enough.  We can have faith certainly—indeed we must have faith—but we must also know how to act.

For example, I recently held auditions for a play to be performed in honor of the feastday of Saint Philomena.  I had been praying that Saint Philomena would bring the actors necessary and trusting that if she wanted it to happen she would indeed bring them.  So as I prepared to audition the fifteen or so people I needed along with my stage manager and designer there to support me, I found my expected cast reduced in the face of only one auditionee.

How would faith have me respond?  It seemed entirely unreasonable to have faith that the rest of the cast would miraculously appear.  Why would God make happen in extraordinary ways what He had chosen not to bring to fruition in the ordinary offered way?

Yet would faith have me turn back?  Certainly faith must be tested and tried and not give up when it meets the very first obstacle, no matter how great an obstacle it may seem.

Often through our lives we face this dilemma: faith gives no answer.  God's will seems muddied beneath our own efforts and desires.  We do not know whether to go on or to turn back.  Is it a roadblock that means we should take the detour or is it only a decoy put there by the enemy to make us lose hope?

So we stumble on in faith as best we can, step by step....

Deceit of Pride

THOMAS
But what is there to do? What is left to be done?
Is there no enduring crown to be won?

TEMPTER
Yes, Thomas, yes; you have thought of that too.
What can compare with glory of Saints
Dwelling forever in presence of God?
What earthly glory, of king or emperor,
What earthly pride, that is not poverty
Compared with richness of heavenly grandeur?
Seek the way of martyrdom, make yourself the lowest
On earth, to be high in heaven.
And see far off below you, where the gulf is fixed,
Your persecutors, in timeless torment,
Parched passion, beyond expiation.

THOMAS
No!
Who are you, tempting with my own desires?
Others have come, temporal tempters,
With pleasure and power at palpable price.
What do you offer?  What do you ask?

TEMPTER
I offer what you desire.  I ask
What you have to give.  Is it too much
For such a vision of eternal grandeur?

THOMAS
Others offered real goods, worthless
But real.  You only offer
Dreams to damnation.

TEMPTER
You have often dreamt them.

THOMAS
Is there no way, in my soul's sickness,
Does not lead to damnation in pride?
I well know that these temptations
Mean present vanity and future torment.
Can sinful pride be driven out
Only by more sinful?  Can I neither act nor suffer
Without perdition?

---

So it is that growth in virtue often leads to spiritual pride, as demonstrated so powerfully in these words from T.S. Eliot's play, Murder in the Cathedral.  We begin to think we have done well and then that subtle temptation begins to undermine whatever good we have done, whatever virtue we have achieved.

Sometimes it seems hopeless to escape.  Yet that also is but a snare of the enemy who wants to use all for our destruction.

There is a way to counter it, a way that seems to wend its way into every aspect of my life and words these days: abandonment to Divine Providence.  For what is pride but a securing for ourselves control?  And what is spiritual pride but a confidence in our own abilities to achieve salvation and become holy?  The counter then is to let go, to seek humility by surrendering all, even the desire for holiness, to the One who is all-powerful.

Life is Pain

"Life is pain, Highness; anyone who says differently is selling something."

-Westley in The Princess Bride

These days nearly everyone is selling something.  Whether it is engagement jewelry or cheap soda, vacation home timeshares or the latest technological gadget, our society centers around consumerism.  Our economy improves primarily based upon how many unnecessary bits of paraphernalia you, the consumer, will purchase, even if you must rack up thousands of dollars in debt to do so.

Clearly—if you will believe the advertisements thrust upon you from every quarter—you must own a desktop computer, laptop computer, mp3 player, iPad, iPod, iPhone, new car, new house, stereo system, barbeque grill, printer, scanner, Ninja blender, ride-on lawn mower, golf cart, 4-wheeler, motorcycle, moped, DVD player, CD player, 62GB USB stick, digital camera, telescope, binoculars, electronic keyboard, LED lights, water skis, etc., etc.  You need caffeine, alcohol, drugs, and fifteen different kinds of painkillers.  In short, you need anything that increases your pleasure and decreases your pain.

Consequently, we ought to be the happiest people in all history.  Yet are we?

Depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses continue to increase dramatically.  Current statistics state that one in five adults in the U.S. suffer from a mental illness each year.  Yes, a fifth of our adult population is struggling, not to mention the prevalence of mental issues among children and teens.  And the number of suicides only continues to rise.

Why is this?

When we listen to the voices of the world and believe that we are not smart enough, strong enough, or beautiful enough, we shrink in our own estimation.  When we are told we have the wrong hair color, skin color, body type, or gender, how are we supposed to be happy?

By changing our exteriors?  Then we only build up layer upon layer of mask behind which to hide.  And we know very well how to hide.

Yet there is another course.  Theatre teaches us how great is the value of vulnerability: in laying bare our very selves and refusing to flee the pain, we find a deep inner strength.  By coming to know ourselves and accepting who we are, we discover the unique perspective we alone can offer the world.

How do we find the strength to face that pain?

Leaving aside the facts, let me speak personally for a moment: I find it daily in the love I receive from my family and my friends who love me because of who I am with all of my eccentricities.  I have found the greatest happiness in my life not by trying to change myself to fit the pressures of the world and become someone else, but by learning to love myself as I am and to become daily more myself.

Sometimes the pain returns when relationships fail.  Caught up as others are in their own pain and hectic lives, they do not see our need for love and support.  Nor do they understand how much their love bridges the chasm of loneliness.

Yet even there we can stand strong in the face of agony, for there is One who never fails.  Looking back upon my life, I see that my Lord has always been there for me.  Even when all around me may seem to fail me, He is there, carrying me along my way, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad....

Beato Jacopone da Todi, prega per noi!

Todi, Italy

Today I celebrate—I say I for the mere fact that most people remain unaware of today's significance other than as Christmas Eve Eve Eve and therefore nigh to Christmas—the feast of Blessed Jacopone da Todi who has become my dear patron.  I first discovered him quite by accident in a way.  Of course all earthly accidents—coincidences one might say—are merely manifestations of the hidden power of God at work, but from an earthly standpoint it was an accident, as I was searching for a Saint Jack whom I expected did not exist.  That search led me to Blessed Jacopone.

Street in Todi

When I discovered that Blessed Jacopone was credited with writing the Stabat Mater everything began to come together in my mind.  I realized how long ago my Lord had prepared me for this discovery of his existence, for one of my earliest memories of being at church is of praying the Stations of the Cross and singing the Stabat Mater whose haunting melody and words have ever tugged at my heart.  How could I help but rejoice in friendship with the author of that hymn?

By the tomb of Blessed Jacopone

An amazing poet, Blessed Jacopone captures the struggle at the heart of our lives in much of his poetry: he writes of the burning desire for God and yet the pain of that encounter and even the rebellion that rises in our hearts against the Sea of Love.  He reminds me of Jacob who wrestled with God.  (And indeed the name Jacopone is derived also from the name Jacob.)

In memory of Blessed Jacopone

I was blessed to be able to visit Todi and the Church of San Fortunato where the tomb of Blessed Jacopone resides in the crypt.  The curator must have thought me odd as I sat or knelt on the cold stone in prayer or the writing of poetry.  There was such peace in being there, however, beside the final resting place of my dear patron.

San Fortunato in Todi

In honor of his feast today (sometimes alternately listed on Christmas Day), I would like to share with you one of his poems that speaks so powerfully of love:

The Soul's Over-Ardent Love

Love, that art Charity,

Why has Thou hurt me so?

My heart is smote in two,

And burns with ardent love,

Glowing and flaming; refuge finding none,

My heart is fettered fast, it cannot flee;

It is consumed, like wax set in the sun;

Living, yet dying, swooning passionately,

It prays for strength a little way to run,

Yet in this furnace must it bide and be:

Where am I led, ah me!

I once could speak, but now my lips are dumb;

My eyes are blind, although I once could see:

In this abyss my soul is stark and numb,

Silent I speak; cling, yet am held by Thee:

Falling, I rise; I go, and yet I come;

Pursue, and am pursued; I am bound yet free;

O Love that whelmeth me!

Maddened I cry:

'Why must I die,

They fiery strength to prove?'

Love, Love, of naught but Love my tongue can sing,

Thy wounded Hand hath pierced my heart so deep:

Love, Love, with Thee made one, to Thee I cling,

Upon Thy breast, let me sleep;

Love, Love, with Love my heart is perishing;

Love, like an Eagle snatching me Thy sleep,

For Thee I swoon, I weep,

Love, let me be,

By courtesy,

Thine own in death. . .

Also, I have only just now discovered one more amazing fact about Blessed Jacopone that makes him even more fitting as my patron (if Wikipedia may be believed, as I have not time to do further research at present): "He was an early pioneer in Italian theatre, being one of the earliest scholars who dramatised Gospel subjects."

Oh Jacopone, I look forward to meeting you in heaven one day!