Mary Mirror of Perfection
Now, consider that Mary loved her Divine Son with an unutterable love; and consider too she had Him all to herself for thirty years. Do we not see that, as she was full of grace before she conceived Him in her womb, she must have had a vast incomprehensible sanctity when she had lived close to God for thirty years?-a sanctity of an angelical order, reflecting back the attributes of God with a fulness and exactness of which no saint upon earth, or hermit, or holy virgin, can even remind us. Truly then she is the Speculum Justitiæ, the Mirror of Divine Perfection
Blessed John Henry Newman
Is Mary, the mother of Jesus, truly a mirror which reflects in the most perfect way possible to humans the Divine attributes or is it more true to say that she is a mirror which reflects mostly the work of the Catholic imagination? I would argue that to some degree that she is both and that moreover the two things are really one thing approaching the same object from different angles. Critics of the Church often assert that the Mary of the Gospels and Catholic Mary are two very different figures with little in common. The person whom the Church venerates under that name is based less upon the Bible than it is upon fantasies, legends, speculation and liberal borrowings from pagan cultures. Most arguments which have the power to persuade large numbers of people usually contain an element of truth and that is so here. I propose to demonstrate briefly what is false in the allegation and then to suggest that what is true in it does not contain the meaning that the critics suppose that it contains.
First then, the references to our Lady in the New Testament. No woman has more references made to her in the Gospels than Mary although that still means that the total number is quite small. As I demonstrated in my earlier series The Bible and The Virgin however the Evangelists had the ability to compress masses of information into very few words. Close consideration of the verses will enable a person to learn explicitly and deduce implicitly much that the Church holds to be true regarding the Mother of our Lord. The same applies to the appearance of Mary in the Acts of the Apostles and the figure of the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation (Apocalypse 12) whom it is not unreasonable to identify with the Theotokos. The Church also holds it to be axiomatic for Christians that they should always read the Old Testament through the lens of the New. This means that we see in the OT much which prefigures or foreshadows the new dispensation in archetypal form. Included in this are any number of figures, like the bush that burns without being consumed or the Ark of the Covenant or Rachel the mother of Israel, which refer to Mary. Perhaps above all there is the figure of Eve and the Protoevangelium in Genesis 3 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. (Gen 3:15) Taken together all the references in Scripture which can be readily understood to refer to our Lady fill up in great measure the figure of Catholic Mary and identify her with the historical Mary of Nazareth.
It remains true nonetheless that the image of Mary which Catholics hold in their hearts and minds with such devotion is in part based upon extra-biblical sources but that is hardly the devastating critique that its opponents suppose it to be. The Church has never held it to be a truth that the Bible is the only resource which gives us accurate information about the revelation of God to Man and the Bible indeed makes no such claim for itself. The Sacred Traditions passed on by the Apostles to the faithful are of at least equal value and the two things balance each other, nothing in Tradition can contradict Scripture and nothing in Scripture can contradict Tradition. We can see, then, from the very ancient liturgies and prayers of the Church and the writings of Early Church Fathers much material which is now incorporated into the Marian cult of the Church. A third pillar to the understanding of revelation which we possess is the use of reason. By applying reason to Scripture and Tradition we can that deduce certain things must be true or can be accepted as being true without contradicting either of the other two. Hence speculative theology adds another element to the picture that we can form of our Lady. Where these things, Scripture, Tradition and Reason are in harmony with each other we can have some confidence that their collective wisdom forms a truth and so what they tell us about Mary means that the figure whom the Church honours is the same as the young woman who first heard the words of the Archangel Gabriel some two thousand years ago.
There is a fourth source to our picture of the Mother of God which proceeds from the reports that over the centuries many visionaries have given of their encounters with her in visible form. These constitute what are called 'private revelations' to distinguish them from the age of public revelation which ended with the death of the last Apostle. At that point all that was necessary for a saving faith had been made known to Man and nothing could be added to or taken away from it. What private revelations, insofar as they are authentic, do is recall to mind this or that aspect of revelation which it is particularly necessary for a particular epoch or society to remember. Some supposed revelations are spurious and consequently are rejected by the Church. Others which are consonant with Scripture, Tradition and reason are considered worthy of belief although the Church does not insist that they be actually believed in any case. From this deposit of private revelations many Catholics draw their image of Mary as a person among us with whom they can and do form a strong personal attachment and devotion. And this is the figure who can be described in a sense as the mirror of the Catholic imagination.
If a mirror reflects what is before it then Mary does not reflect most actual Catholics. She reflects them as they desire to be, as they should be. In many ways the apparitions of our Lady of Lourdes is typical of much that we can learn about our Lady from visions. If we focus on her for a while then we can see where the lines of Mary as the mirror of Catholic imagination and Mary as the mirror of perfection intersect and merge. For the 2008 Jubilee celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of St Bernadette's encounter with our Lady of Lourdes the Church issued a special prayer which contained in summary form the essential elements to be learnt from this Marian apparition. It concludes thus-
Because you are the smile of God,
the reflection of the light of Christ,
the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit,
because you chose Bernadette in her misery,
because you are the star of the morning, the gate of Heaven,
and the first resurrected creature
we praise you,
we acclaim you
and with you we sing the wonders of God
The word 'smile' here is a central part of the whole encounter. Bernadette later recalled the first apparition in these words She smiled and smiled at me, beckoning me to come closer as though she were my mother, and she gave me to understand in my soul that I was not mistaken. One of the factors which began to convince the people of Lourdes about the apparitions was the sudden transformation that would come over Bernadette's face when she saw the Lady. The visionary was transfigured and a smile transformed her appearance in a remarkable way. This was a reflection of the one which she saw before her proceeding from Mary. What does this simple thing tell us about the Mary of Catholic imagination?
The smile reassured Bernadette who was frightened. It proceeded from the kindness of the Lady. The perfection which Catholics seek in their lives begins with kindness, the kindness they receive from Jesus who died for them and calls them to Salvation, the kindness which should overflow from them casting its light upon all who surround them. In Mary they see that quality, it has flowed from Jesus to her and she mirrors it, it flows from the faithful to her in earnest desire and she reflects that also and it is not two types of kindness but one. The smile is a product too of happiness. Who can be happier than the one who is closest of all to Jesus, who loves Him with a perfect love and is sure that she is loved in return? Mary's life had more than its share of sorrow, the exile in Egypt, losing her Son in the Temple, seeing the hatred and envy His mission provoked, sharing in the agony of His Passion and Death yet that underlying solid happiness never vanished and never could vanish, founded as it was in the strongest of loves. The faithful too know sorrow and loss and they too love Jesus. Mary reflects the love she has received from above and she reflects also the earnest desire of the faithful to share in that love and they are not two loves but one which intersect in her slender graceful figure. A smile shared is more than a smile doubled. Our Lady of Lourdes shared her smile with Bernadette who smiled in return, it was an act of companionship, of friendship of sharing it established a unity. The smile of Mary is a reflection of her union with Jesus her Son and it is a reflection too of the earnest desire of the faithful to be united through Mary with Jesus. And union always means one.
The Jubilee prayer reminds us that our Lady chose Bernadette. This is no small thing. When the Saint was asked why she thought she had been singled out she replied "if she could have found some one poorer and more ignorant, then she would have chosen them instead." The history of Marian visionaries shows that our Lady has a predilection for the poor, the humble, the discarded and despised. In Bernadette she found possibly the least regarded girl in Lourdes and gave her a gift that the Empress of France would have envied. This is what you would expect from the woman who sang the Magnificat
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent away empty.
Here there is no doubt that the Mary of the Gospels and the Mary of the Church are one and the same. Here too we see that, as the prayer says she is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit the same Spirit which inspired the Canticle of Mary inspires her choice of little Bernadette Soubirous. In this preferential option for the poor our Lady is a reflection of the Divine preference and she is a mirror of the desire of the faithful poor to be included in the Kingdom and these two are one, the desire to save and the desire to be saved which intersect in the person of Mary.
It is of significance that not only did Mary choose the poor despised one but that she treated her with a tender courtesy. At their third encounter Bernadette reported that our Lady said Would you have the graciousness to come here for fifteen days? This is the august Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God speaking to a girl that lived in a disused prison cell considered unfit for prisoners but suitable for the Soubirous family. Mary spoke as to an equal for in the young Saint she recognised one for whom her Son had willingly become incarnated and suffered the ignominy of the Cross. More than that in making a request and not issuing a command our Lady reflected perfectly the respect that God has for human freedom. And in coming to Lourdes she reflected also what the response of the faithful to the requests of God looks like. The Mary of the Gospels who said Behold the handmaid of the Lord is the same as the Mary of the faithful who comes to do the work of the Lord in the midst of His people.
In saying you are the star of the morning, the gate of Heaven the prayer recalls to our minds that the name that the Lady of Lourdes called herself by was this- 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' The first light that hinted at the coming of the Son who would dispel all darkness was that moment when Mary was conceived in the womb of Saint Ann. For the first time since Eve a human person entered into life who was not under the dominion of sin. When the faithful look upon Mary they see reflected their own earnest desire for liberation because in Mary they see a mirror which shows that freedom from darkness which our Lady shared with Jesus because of Jesus. And the freedom desired is not a different freedom from the freedom achieved they are the same thing viewed from different angles.
In describing Mary as the first resurrected creature the prayer recalls that our Lady is the pioneer that shows us the destiny of all the faithful, to follow Jesus body souls and spirit into the joy of the new heaven and the new earth. She is the mirror in which we see the gifts that God showers abundantly upon His beloved ones and she is the mirror in which the faithful see that life which they so earnestly desire to enter in upon and the two things are one.
I could go on, the Apparitions reveal so much more about prayer, sorrow for sin, love of the Church and many other things besides. But I have wearied you enough and, I hope, made my point too. The Mirror of Divine Perfections and the Mirror of the Catholic imagination reflects the same things because they come from the same source. It is the work of the Holy Spirit who creates in the faithful what I have been calling imagination and what you might equally call the Catholic faith. There are those who think that the word 'imagination' means 'making stuff up' or 'fantasising' but that does not exhaust the possibilities of the word. The active imagination may do these things but there is a passive imagination also. This receives impressions and works them into forms which are understandable to the mind by blending different elements each of which is real. We see an example of this in the parables of our Lord who took truths and wove out of them striking images which inhabit the mind and heart and make those truths live in a way that bare sermonising never would.
The Mary of the Gospels is real and identical with the Mary of the Church and with the Mary of the authentic visionaries. The Catholic imagination is no more than the act by which the faithful blends these different impressions as they come to them and form them into a unified picture. It does not create a new Mary it makes the one Mary present to us in a vivid way. Speculative theologians take concepts derived from revelation and distil them down to ideas which the combine to create dogmatic statements or doctrinal propositions. Speculative theology is the imagination of the intellect, devotion to Mary is the theology of the heart. Theologians and popular sentiment can sometimes err by making over extravagant claims or by failing to give all that is due to the Mother of God. In both cases the error can be corrected through submitting to the judgement of the Church which has been granted the authority and given the guidance to be wise with a spiritual wisdom in such matters.
A final word about the apparent contrast between the Catholic Mary and the Mary of the Gospels. Critics constantly make the error of confusing the titles with the person. They see our Lady referred to as Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels, Refuge of Sinners, Mediatrix of All Graces, Help of Christians, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, our hope and so on. They actively imagine that we attribute to the person who holds such titles all that they would imply upon earth of pride and inaccessible splendour. But Catholics see no contrast between the most glorious creature in God's creation being at the same time the humble young Nazarene maiden and also the kindly figure who smiled so sympathetically and encouragingly at little Bernadette. Mary is not her titles, they do not alter her but she, because she is in truth the Mirror of Perfection alters instead our understanding of what it means to be queenly, to be honoured, to have power. It is not imagination but truth which tells us that it is only humility and love which enables a person to fulfil their purpose as a person and Mary as Queen and as the young mother in flight to Egypt is never anything other than the perfect image of love and humility.
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Bride of Heaven
A Love Song
Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear.
Forget your own people, and also your father's house.
11 So the king will desire your beauty
Psalm 45(44):10-11
Many of the psalms have Superscriptions or Headers at their beginning before getting into the actual psalm itself. Most of these are technical or musical notations referring to types of instruments or tunes. Some refer to particular episodes in biblical history to which the psalm supposedly relates; the most famous of these being Psalm 50(51) A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba which explains why David is so repentant in that song. Psalm 45 (confusingly numbered 44 in some Bibles) is unusual in that in addition to the technical part the superscription adds "a love song" or as one version beguilingly puts it A canticle for the Beloved. It is also unusual in that most Christians agree that its literal meaning is of secondary importance to its spiritual one. Naturally, Christians being what they, there is a bit of a falling out as to what that meaning actually is but we shall come to that by and by.
On the face of it the psalmist seems to be primarily concerned with celebrating a Royal Wedding. Specifically the marriage in Jerusalem of one of the kings descended from David and Solomon to a foreign wife. Perhaps, indeed, that was all that the author consciously intended to do. There is though a constant motif that runs all the way through the Old Testament in which the relationship between the Almighty and His People Israel is compared to that between husband and wife. It was natural enough then in light of that to incorporate this psalm into that motif. Christianity took that theme up and saw in the bridegroom the figure of Christ and in the bride an image of the Church. And as in the larger so in the lesser it could also be seen as a portrayal of the relationship between the individual believer as lover and Jesus as the Beloved. A further, more controversial, layer of meaning will be referred to later.
What is interesting in the verses I have highlighted here is that they contain a fairly detailed programme of action condensed into a very few words. Poetry has the ability to do this and the psalmist in this case was no mean poet. The Bride is advised to-
Listen
Consider
Turn towards
Forget i.e. turn away from.
When she has done this and as a result of having done this she will become beautiful (or more beautiful) in the eyes of the King and, therefore, He will desire her. In the context of a Jewish wedding what follows from that will have been in the minds of those who first heard the psalm Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh (Genesis2:24) Where the bride is a human and the groom is God incarnate then what we have here is a prescription for achieving Divine Union where the bride enters by participation into the very being of the Blessed Trinity.
A prescription is only of use if it is possible to fulfil its requirements. So, can we, could the bride, do what the psalmist proposed? The first injunction is 'Listen.' We live in an age where people walk around the streets or sit on public transport listening to personal stereos or mobile phones. When not doing this they listen to TV's, radios, DVD's, movies and even, occasionally, each other. When not listening they are usually talking. People even sleep with TV's turned on. The problem you might think is not that there is too much listening but that there is too little silence. In fact, from a spiritual point of view, there is too little listening because there is too little silence. God speaks to us it is true but in a still small voice (1 Kings 19:12) To hear Him we must listen attentively for Him alone, be still, and know that I am God as another psalm puts it. (Psalm 46:10) To listen to Him requires an effort on our part, a desire to hear Him.
Specifically there are several ways that Christian tradition recommends to us as methods through which we might hear the voice of the Bridegroom. Reading the Scriptures is one, or actually two at least since there is more than one way to read them. We can take a passage or a chapter or a book in the Bible, begin at the beginning and work our way right through to the end. Then we can think about what it means and, if we are wise, we can consult the opinion of others by reading commentaries on the text and see what better minds than ours have made of it. That is one method and the Gospels in particular are well suited to be used in this fashion. Another approach would be the practice known as lectio divina where after prayer we take a very short passage of Scripture read it slowly and/or repeatedly and then let it slowly sink into us. Not so much thinking analytically about it as holding it in our minds and waiting to see what fruits will spring from the seed within us. As I have already hinted there is the practice of prayer to help our listening too. In this context it cannot consist of a list of demands that we want God to action but rather of an upward motion of our heart inviting a downward motion of His Spirit into us. In my series about Christian Meditation I outline a number of ways to do this.
God also acts at times through human agents. We can hear Him if we pay close attention to the lives of the Saints. The Christians of the Reformation traditions (often called Protestants) tend to restrict themselves to the examples given us by outstanding biblical characters, and indeed there is a rich treasury of such to be found within the pages of the Bible. Catholic and Orthodox Christians look additionally to the many examples of Christian living which the past two thousand years have given us. Throughout the world and throughout the ages Saints of widely varied characters in all sorts of settings have shone like good deeds in a naughty world (Merchant of Venice Act 5 Scene 1) Whatever our own personality type or circumstances might be we will be sure to find a Saint whose life, words or deeds will speak the voice of God to our own condition whether that be the wisdom of a St Therese, the gentle patience of a St Bernadette or the outspoken counsel and visionary insights of a St Catherine of Siena. Nor indeed need we confine ourselves to the past. It is well known in the West that the spiritual traditions of the East call for spiritual seekers to look for wisdom at the feet of gurus. What seems to be a well kept secret is that the West too has a long tradition of Spiritual Directors, male and female, who are steeped in the various contemplative and prayerful spiritualities of Christianity and have the wisdom and experience to guide others.
So, we the Brides can, if we wish, listen to our Lord speaking to us through all these channels and others besides. Then what does the psalmist counsel? 'Consider.' This seems fairly straightforward. Reflect on what we have heard, consider it from various aspects, impact our options. Except that we are not considering a business transaction or a career change neither has our listening been of a conventional kind. With Jesus 'to listen' means 'to encounter.' He is our potential bridegroom, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health. It is not enough just to weigh up with our minds the pros and cons of His proposal to us, though we could certainly do that on the Pascal's Wager principal. We need to respond to Him with our whole selves, body, mind and spirit, because we will be living with Him with our whole selves both in time and in eternity if we accept His offer of marriage. If His call awakens something within us then we need to consider what it is we shall lose if we accept Him as well as what it is we shall have to gain. He may call upon us to sacrifice material things or established relationships upon which we have so far relied and depend instead entirely upon Him and upon Him alone.
Having considered we must turn to Him decisively. We turned aside from our way to listen to Him. We paused to consider what we had heard. Now He becomes our way, He is the route we travel and the destination at which we arrive. He nourishes us, He sustains us, He loves us and unites Himself to us and we allow ourselves to be united. The foreign bride of the psalm is urged to forget her own people, meaning her nation, and her fathers house, meaning I suppose both her family and her national religion. At a literal level this is a sacrifice which Jesus later put in these terms Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26) It is a radical gamble, to cast yourself into His arms and let everything else slip away from you. And indeed this forgetting of what lies behind is partly a conscious effort of casting aside all impediments. More than that though it is a becoming absorbed in new interests. Very often the close friends of a new bride expect their friendship to continues much as before, the bride herself may expect so too. But gradually as time passes, perhaps as children arrive, the things which concern her, which she cares about, which she is willing to sacrifice for become more and more different from those things which a single girl about town has on her mind. The forgetting then is less a casting of of the old and more a putting on of the new.
There is a more than literal meaning though to this command to forget. God does not hate families or expect us to do so either. Except for those few people called to live out their Divine Matrimony in monasteries or hermitages most Christians will experience the companionship of the Bridegroom in the context of their own domestic setting, their earthly spouses, children, parents, siblings, friends, communities, Churches. There Jesus is to be an inseparable companion, His friendship and example enriching the way that we give of ourselves to those dear to us, the way that we love and are loved. The turning to Him, the forgetting of earthly chains becomes not a negation of these relationship but a raising up of them to a higher level, a spiritualisation of them. If the Saints have acted as agents of God to us then we must act as agents of God to our neighbours for if we are one flesh with Him how could we do otherwise? There is one important proviso in all that we do however, Every Christian must be a potential martyr. The commitment we have made is one that overrides all others. Given a choice between suffering or even death on the one hand or repudiating our faith, by word or deed, on the other then we must be willing to suffer and dies if needs be. Not because we desire a reward in heaven but because we are faithful spouses. At this point, given many events in recent world history, I feel the need to stress that for Christians the concept of martyrdom consists of a willingness to endure suffering but never, never, never a willingness to inflict it.
The Bride who has done these things, listened, considered and turned towards the Bridegroom, becomes in His eyes beautiful precisely because she has done those things. In the whole history of humankind it sometimes happens, rarely I'm sure but sometimes, that a bride becomes a little vain. She is proud of her beauty and congratulates herself if only within herself about it. In his letter to the Ephesians St Paul lets us into a secret about the bride of Christ. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind-yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27) Any beauty we may have comes to us as pure gift from the Bridegroom. What Christians call Grace, the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, is the very thing that prompts us to listen, that helps us to consider wisely and which sustains that act of will by which we turn towards Him and keep turned towards Him. And it is the sacrifice of the Son on the Cross at Calvary that washes us clean from all the acts by which we have disfigured our beauty from the very moment that we first set our heart on anything other than Him. So if we are radiant brides He is our radiance, if we have a beautiful dress He has supplied it. Another motif which runs through the Old Testament is that of adultery, the sin by which Israel turns from the Almighty and runs after other husbands. If we too fall in that way then our Groom stands ready to make us anew if we once again turn back to Him. We have no cause for vanity or pride but many causes for gratefulness and, it maybe, for repentance too.
Not the least cause for our gratitude lies in the fact that He, Creator of all that is seen and unseen, desires us. He loves us. He died for us. We are not instruments to be used we are made by Him in His image and likeness. Despite all that we have done to mar that image, to distort that likeness He will patiently help us to reconfigure ourselves to our Divinely crafted original. He desires us, if we remember this continually then we will as continually strive to make ourselves worthy of that love by allowing His hands to mould us into that which we should always have been had not our blindness and folly led us astray down dark paths where He is not to be found.
And so to the controversy. What I have said so far is I think common ground among most Christian traditions. Catholics see in the figure of the bride all that Protestants see. In addition, however, they discern Mary the Mother of Jesus. In part this is because, in a sense, Mary is the Church. For a time, certainly, the Church consisted of her alone, she was the first to hear of Jesus, the first to have faith in Him, the first to give Him to the world, the first to follow Him. In part also it is because she most assuredly is the spouse of the Holy Spirit for by His power it was that she became fruitful and contained within her womb Him whom the heavens could not contain, the Logos of God, her Son Jesus. But I think even if we lay aside all these claims for Mary which Protestants for reasons of their own baulk at we should all be able to agree that our Lady represents to a superlative degree all those qualities which the psalmist outlines.
Mary listened to the Archangel Gabriel attentively, she considered their meaning she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be (Luke 1:29) And not just once did she listen, not just once did she consider but repeatedly Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19) His mother treasured all these things in her heart. (Luke 2:51) And she turned towards Him and forgot all else at the beginning Then Mary said, 'Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.' (Luke 1:38) and at what appeared to be the disastrous end Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister (John 19:25) And, quite literally she was given a new family When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, 'Woman, here is your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 26-27) A family which she was at the centre of and family ties which strengthened not weakened their mutual faithfulness to the Bridegroom When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus (Acts 1:13-14)
And we for our part can do nothing better than to imitate Mary. As she chose so can we Those who look to Him are radiant with joy; their faces will never be ashamed. (Psalm 34:5)
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Typical Woman
The Reluctant Seductress
[29] Then Achior seeing the head of Holofernes, being seized with a great fear he fell on his face upon the earth, and his soul swooned away. [30] But after he had recovered his spirits he fell down at her feet, and reverenced her and said:
[31] Blessed art thou by thy God in every tabernacle of Jacob, for in every nation which shall hear thy name, the God of Israel shall be magnified on occasion of thee.
Judith Chapter 13
[6] Then Achior seeing the power that the God of Israel had wrought, leaving the religion of the gentiles, he believed God, and circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and was joined to the people of Israel, with all the succession of his kindred until this present day
Judith Chapter 14
The story of Judith is one of those which can always be found in the Bibles of the Catholic and Orthodox but very rarely in those of the Reformed tradition. There are complex historical and theological reasons for this which it would exceed my knowledge base to go into. What I can say is that although the early Reformers had doubts about the canonical status of the Deuterocanonical books, as they are called, including Judith they nonetheless continued to make use of them. The classic King James Version of the Bible, for example, included her story in full. And the Church of England Book of Homilies issued in the 16th Century to expound the Reformed doctrines contained in the 39 Articles made frequent reference to these 7 books to reinforce their arguments. It is only later generations of Protestants that began, more or less without debate, to edit Judith and her companions out of the picture.
I often feel when reading her story that if I had encountered it as a teenager then my interest in religion would have started a whole lot earlier than it did. It has so many great elements. It is mercifully short. It features war, battle, siege, seduction and drunkenness and in Judith a feisty heroine who is glamorous, willing to wield a sword with the boys and no mean military strategist. Absolutely none of which interested the theologians and commentators who have written about Judith over the centuries. In keeping with Catholic tradition the chief thing sought when reading the Old Testament is the ways in which it foreshadows the New Covenant. Events and persons are considered as being types or allegorical symbols of events and persons that reached their full significance in Gospel times. Men like King David or the Prophet Jonah are seen as types of Jesus and women like Rachel and Esther as types of Mary. In that sense Judith is a typical woman since in her, the theologians argue, we can see a type or figure of Mary.
You might wonder in what sense the gentle Nazarene Virgin can be compared to the scimitar wielding beheading widow. The key is found in the so called proto-evangelium I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. Genesis 3:15 Mary is the one who crushes the head of Satan through her son Jesus and the sword of the Gospel, Judith beheads Holofernes, a type of Satan,
However that might be, my interest here is to consider, via the figure of Achior the Ammonite, how Judith exemplifies the manner in which devotion to a handmaid of the Lord is not a diversion from worship owed to God but a super-highway towards it. Achior belonged to those who were traditional enemies of Israel. He was aware of their religion but did not share it. Holofernes, to whom he was a reluctant ally, banished Achior to the Israelite town of Bethulia for daring to suggest that the God of Israel might, in certain narrowly defined circumstances, prove stronger than the King of Assyria whom the Assyrian hosts considered to be the only God upon earth and with power over it. Achior was doomed to share the fate of the Israelites, when the earthly God crushed the heavenly one then he would die alongside those who had vainly put their faith in the God of Jacob.
When therefore Achior saw the severed head of Holofernes and learned that he had died by the hand of Judith he realised that he had escaped from death because the God of Israel had acted through the agency of this heroic and virtuous woman. He fell down and showed her reverence and because of her he converted to Judaism. Here then we have a perfect illustration in type of the value of Marian devotion. Many people, and especially from those Christian traditions which have edited out the Book of Judith, think that by giving praise and honour to Mary we lead people away from Jesus yet Achior perceived instinctively that by praising with due praise one who perfectly fulfilled the role God had chosen for her he was thereby giving honour to God.
All the reasons that Catholics have for honouring Mary stem from her relationship with the Blessed Trinity and above all her Son, the Logos of God, Jesus Christ. We cannot contemplate her without contemplating Him and we cannot honour her without honouring Him. Yet there is this difference, Mary is one of us, the human and only human daughter of a human mother and father. She is Our tainted nature's solitary boast as Wordsworth put it. She is not divine nor is she charged with the task of being our Judge. A great many people have no fear of Jesus and no sense of distance from Him and can pass in and out freely through His gate finding pasture (John 10:9) Yet we are not all the same, some, and it may be the more humble among us, do see the great distance between themselves and Jesus or they see deeply inside themselves just how much they deserve the judgement and ought to fear the judge. For these the Church offers Mary as the ladder which will lift us up gently and lovingly to Him. After all, the Jews did not need Judith to convince them to believe in Almighty God but Achior did. It is the task of the Church to save the Achiors of this world every bit as much as it is to save Jews (metaphorically speaking). And Mary is that Blessed Woman who leads many to salvation by being the most sweet mirror of her Son.
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The Case of the Forgetful Saint
And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Moreover upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour forth my spirit.
Joel 2:28-29
About 20 years or so ago when I was a new Catholic I was more than slightly sceptical about the various stories or legends surrounding many Saints. In particular the miracles and visions which were directly or indirectly associated with them seemed to me for the most part far fetched. This week I have been reading Blessed John Henry Newman's Essays On Miracles and it recalls to my mind how and why my attitude began to change. I haven't yet finished the essays but Newman has made one salient point about the different attitudes towards miracles associated with the Church (Ecclesiastical miracles) which have been expressed on the one hand by Christians of the Reformation traditions (often called Protestants) and on the other by Catholic Christians. Protestants accept the miracles which are recorded in the Scriptures but for the most part deny those associated with the Church in subsequent eras. Catholics not only accept the miracles in the Bible but also believe that in some way the miraculous will always be associated with the Church without denying that in many cases reported miracles are merely legendary or susceptible to non-miraculous explanations. Newman makes the point that the determining factor for belief in this or that miracle is not the evidence adduced for it but the attitude towards the Church which one takes as a starting point.
Protestants do not deny that God may well have worked miracles in this world since the age of the Apostles. What they deny is that He associates the Church in any special way with this work of His. Indeed, insofar as miracles tend to confirm Catholic doctrines which Protestants reject, such as the invocation of Saints or the special honour accorded to the Blessed Virgin Mary, they must either be spurious or the work of the devil. Miracles are, they suppose, no more common among Catholics than they are among pagans or idolaters. Catholics, on the other hand, would argue that Jesus promised that special powers, particularly healing of the sick and exorcism would always be present with the Church, and that we would anticipate from prophecies like that of Joel that visionaries also would ever be associated with Catholicism. Each person then will evaluate the evidence presented to them in each particular case through the lens of their a priori expectations. Still more of course does this apply to those who deny any Divine agency at all who will simply decline to examine the evidence on the basis that their assumption tells them it must always and everywhere be false or misleading.
Thus far Newman. I think in one way, which I shall come back to, his argument is ultimately decisive but, as it happens, my path towards accepting the reality of a good many reported Ecclesiastical miracles and visions proceeded less from my attitude towards the Church as such and more from the forgetfulness of St Bernadette of Lourdes. Her story is well known to many Catholics but for the benefit of those who are not familiar with it I shall speed-narrate my way through the most important points. In 1858 a poor, sickly and largely uneducated teenage girl, Bernadette Soubirous, reported seeing visions of a beautiful young woman in a small cave (grotto) near her home in Lourdes, a town in the French Pyrenees. On one occasion following the directions of the apparition Bernadette uncovered a spring which was previously unknown to her. On another when asked her name the young woman replied in the local dialect "que soy era Immaculada Councepciou" meaning "I am the Immaculate Conception" a title which the Church had only a few years previously definitively ascribed to Mary the mother of Jesus although, again, it was previously unknown to Bernadette. From within a few hours of its discovery the spring had become associated with inexplicable cures of diseases, taking this together with the honour in which the Catholic world held and holds the Virgin Mary Lourdes very quickly became a major pilgrimage centre. Today, indeed, it receives about seven million pilgrims a year. In the meantime Bernadette ceased having visions after a few short months and subsequently she became a nun in Nevers a French town some hundreds of miles from Lourdes where she died aged 35 in 1879.
I first became interested in our Saint in about 2000 when I heard the book Lourdes. Body and Spirit in the Secular Age by Ruth Harris being read. One of the threads running through it is the way that Bernadette moves from her brief role centre-stage ever more into the shadows symbolised by her departure to distant Nevers and her early death. There is an air of sadness about this, somewhat reminiscent of John the Baptist's comment about Jesus He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30) This admittedly is a sentimental response which perhaps deserves the rebuke which our Lord gave to St Peter thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men (Matthew 16:23) since there is no indication that either the Baptist or our Saint were ever less than joyful at the attention paid, respectively to our Lord or our Lady of Lourdes. Sentimental or not I became interested in Bernadette and subsequently read the scholarly biography by Therese Taylor Bernadette of Lourdes: her life, death and visions It is important, I think, to emphasise that this was an academic exercise and not a hagiography because it has some bearing on what follows.
Apart from my sympathy for the young visionary I approached her story with a number of other pre-conceptions. Firstly, as a Christian I accepted in principle that it was possible that from time to time God does intervene in human history via, among other means, miracles and visions sent by Him. Secondly, I did not feel at all obliged to accept that He actually had done on any particular occasion since the heroic age of the Church. I had, moreover, a frankly elitist approach approach to Lourdes specifically; thinking that the pilgrims and believers in our Lady of Lourdes tended to be either poorly educated or especially credulous or both. As I became immersed in the life of the young visionary I was very forcibly struck by the girl's character. Bernadette was a transparently honest and straightforward person. She was possessed of a lively sense of humour but not of an equally lively imagination. It is important to note that time and again after she had started encountering the apparition she refused, often indignantly, offers of money or other material benefits for herself or her family which poured in to her. At one point her brother ran a stall selling holy memorabilia, a lucrative occupation shared then and now by many Lourdais, and Bernadette absolutely forbade him to operate on a Sunday thus significantly reducing the profitability of the operation. Thus, there could be no reason to suppose that she invented the story in order to profit from it.
Sister Marie Bernard, as she became in the convent, was one of the most examined and prodded about women in France at one point. The unanimous conclusion of all who examined her was that she was of sound mind. no symptoms of mental illness or a propensity to hallucination was ever discovered in her. So there could be no reason to suppose that mental unbalance had led to her to report her visions which were confined to a few weeks of one year of her life. Both in Lourdes and at Nevers she was frequently sought out as the seer of the Mother of God, a distinction which plainly irritated her and which she developed considerable skills in avoiding. So there could be no reason to suppose that a desire for notoriety had prompted her to report her experiences. On the basis of all the evidence about her character the only reasonable conclusion to which a person could come, in my opinion, is that she saw something which nobody else could see and then she reported as honestly as possible what she had seen. The question which remains is did she report accurately or did she cast into a form acceptable to her culture and religion a phenomenon which was not exactly as she described it? Therese Taylor makes the point that in the Pyrenean region there are a number of shrines to our Lady and stories circulating about her appearances which contains many similar elements to those described by Bernadette, a grotto, a spring, miraculous healings and so on. Our Saint's subconsciousness may have processed this material and combined it with whatever phenomenon it was that she saw to produce the story which so electrified Catholic France and scandalised secular France.
This naturalistic explanation is not only plausible but, I suspect, for atheists and hard core anti-Catholics the only possible narrative account if you discount the possibility of Bernadette being a liar or in some way mentally ill. Against it though stands the collateral evidence independent of Bernadette herself, by which I mean the inexplicable cures associated with the spring and the shrine of the grotto. From the beginning doctors, including robust sceptics were all over these claims like a rash and some of them can be discounted as of doubtful veracity or purely psychosomatic. there remains though a definite residuum of purely physical diseases which have been cured immediately. These the rationalists account for by saying either that science cannot explain them yet but one day it will be able to, which is a faith statement if ever I heard one, or that they exhibit a syndrome known as 'spontaneous remission' which is a fancy way of saying 'miraculous.' The combination of Bernadette's testimony and the related emergence of inexplicable cures mutually reinforce each other and lend weight to the likelihood that the Mother of God really did appear to that little girl in Lourdes.
The datum which finally convinced me, however, was the drama of the last few weeks and months of the life of Sister Marie Bernard. From her youth Bernadette had a very poor memory, she had been delayed in her progress through school and catechism classes as a result of this. As it became apparent that her life was soon to end she was constantly badgered by those who planned to write histories of the events and were desperate to get a full account of the story of the apparitions. Again and again she was questioned about them. This was not only a trial to her, as we can well imagine, but they added another dimension to her suffering. "My God", she said to her fellow nuns "what if I should forget?" With most people when they tell a story about their lives find that with each repetition the story grows longer and longer and more details, accurate or not, are added in. This is rarely an outright process of lying usually it is the simple effect of a normal human imagination dwelling upon a sequence of events which we place in the past. Elements that we think should be in it find their way in, things that we ought to have said it turns out that we did say and so on. With Bernadette though her story got shorter and shorter as she just forgot details and was unwilling to fill in the gaps in her memory with any old thing. The concessions she made to her forgetfulness by simply saying "I don't remember" seem to me to be the hallmarks of an honest person trying as hard as possible to recall an actual event and preferring to be thought of as stupid rather than say anything about it which she could not remember.
So, taken together accepting the possibility of a Divine Agency at work in the world, the character (and memory) of the witness or witnesses, and the existence of collateral evidence could serve to act as persuasive arguments in favour of any claim to the miraculous or the visionary. However, they may be a necessary basis but they are an insufficient one. Which brings us back to Newman's suggestion that our prior attitude to the Church plays a decisive role in the decision we come to about a claim. It is certain that if we look across the history of the world we will see a number of cases where witnesses are unimpeachable and collateral evidence of some kind exists but yet the visionaries or miracle workers say things which are mutually incompatible. For example Baha'u'llah a contemporary of Bernadette's and the founder of the Baha'i faith was clearly an honourable and noble man who reported seeing visions and of whom it was reported that he performed miracles. Yet, despite Baha'i claims to the contrary, his religion is radically incompatible with the Catholic faith. We need therefore a standard by which to judge such things. The Scriptures say believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God (1 John 4:1) And the highest possible standard by which to judge anything is Jesus, His person and His revelation. Any purported vision or miracle which is compatible with that standard may be worthy of belief (though the Church compels no one to accept any post-Apostolic revelation) and any which is not so compatible cannot be accepted. This implies no dishonesty on the part of visionaries nor even necessarily denies the presence of Divine agency, it merely supposes that at the least they have misunderstood the significance of what they have seen and heard. And the only sure custodian of that revelation is that body to which it was made, the Apostles and their successors, that is to say the Bishops of the Catholic Church united around the See of St Peter the Prince of Apostles and his successor the Bishop of Rome.
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Conceited Hearts and an Immaculate One
51 He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
Luke 1:51
The concept of 'heart' plays a prominent role in the opening chapters of St Luke's Gospel account. Most Catholic attention is focussed on those references which show our Lady as a contemplative-
But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. (Lk 2:19)
And his mother kept all these words in her heart. (Lk 2:51)
Its first appearance though is in the mouth of the Archangel Gabriel
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people. (Lk 1:17)
It is also applied to those Judeans who heard the events surrounding the birth of St John the Baptist
And all they that had heard them laid them up in their heart
(Lk 1:66)
Indeed, the only time that the concept is used negatively is by our Lady in the quote that begins this reflection from her Magnificat. In this, as you might expect, Mary has a sound basis in Jewish scripture and tradition-
16 Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief,
19 A deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren.
Proverbs 6
What is meant by heart is something like what we might mean by 'mind' but incorporating within it feelings and emotions. That is, reason plays a prominent part in it but not an exclusive one. These words of the Blessed Virgin have been translated in various ways each giving a slightly different take on the same thing-
Arrogant thoughts (Common English Bible)
Scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts (English Standard Version)
the imagination of their hearts. (Authorised Version)
those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. (New International Version)
The proud in mind and heart (The Voice)
And so on and so forth.
So, we have arrogance, pride, conceit and imagination each of which is deemed apt to describe the inner workings of those whom our Lady contrasts with the humble ones whom God delights to honour. This has a resonance with the Messianic Psalm 2
Why do the heathen rage,
and the people imagine a vain thing? (Psalms 2:1 AV
The point here, which Mary above all others is qualified to make, is that in some sense 'humility' means the same thing as 'truth'. In understanding herself as being fragile and vulnerable and dependant upon the mercy of God, subject to an innumerable number of hazards of nature and man's design, any one of which could strike her down in an instant, the Virgin recognises the absolute truth about her status as a human. By contrast those who believe themselves capable of making the will of God and the inescapable facts about our limitations subject to their own will and power are making false assumptions about themselves. And these assumptions proceed from an arrogance, a pride, that imagines things about themselves which are entirely untrue.
One of the delusions of our own age is the notion of autonomy. Each person is considered to be a wholly independent unit who should only concede to limitations on that independence, if they concede them at all, entirely by their own free and unconstrained choice. And if these limitations become irksome then they should be equally free to revoke the concession whenever they want. In many ways it is an attractive image. It is also, as it happens, a conceit of the heart. From the moment of conception onward we are not independent or autonomous nor is there any reason why we should be. We are dependant upon others and other become dependant upon us. Even the language of 'rights' where we demand this or that right as a freedom that necessarily flows from our position as a citizen tacitly acknowledges that the achievement of each right for each individual always flows from other individuals fulfilling a duty or discharging an obligation.
To exercise a wise human freedom we must always begin, as the Mother of God began, by acknowledging the basic truth about ourselves. Here humility is not an affectation nor a conscious attempt to be virtuous, though it is the virtue above all other virtues, it is a simple recognition that we are limited and dependant. This is not to advocate timidity it is to say that we should do all that we can do but to accept that in order to achieve all that we can achieve we must act on the realistic acceptance that all true success depends more upon others than upon self. And all true rejoicing must be in the benefits that all our successes confer upon others.
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Girl Power
(This is an historical curiosity since it is one of the few posts on the blog which I actually wrote while in the monastery)
When I was in the monastery I wrote a number of reflections on passages from the Gospels. This is what I wrote about Luke 20:1-8
1One day, as he was teaching the people in the temple and telling the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came with the elders
2and said to him, "Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who gave you this authority?"
3He answered them, "I will also ask you a question, and you tell me:
4Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?"
5They discussed it with one another, saying, "If we say, "From heaven,' he will say, "Why did you not believe him?'
6But if we say, "Of human origin,' all the people will stone us; for they are convinced that John was a prophet."
7So they answered that they did not know where it came from.
8Then Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."
Back in the Middle Ages the inhabitants of Italian city-state Siena coined a brand new word to describe a strange phenomena that was happening in their town. Many talented, highly educated and extremely intelligent men; priests, friars, hospital administrators and others were putting promising careers on hold. Instead they were sitting at the feet of a frail illiterate young woman called Catherine Benincasa, a dyers daughter, and being taught by her. It wasn't only locals either. Many came from much further afield. Some professors and doctors of theology visited the city for the sole purpose of exposing the girl as some sort of hysterical fraud. Having heard young Ms Benincasa, or St Catherine of Siena as she is now known, they instead abandoned all their property and possessions in order to follow the poor Christ. In the local parlance they had been becatherined.
The new word had more than a hint of an old word, bewitched, about it but there could not be two more widely different phenomena. One has had been bewitched finds themselves unwillingly under the influence and power of another, through the manipulation of the lower spirits of the air. One is becatherined when one joyfully recognises the Holy Spirit of God himself at work in the person one is encountering. Then one willingly and gladly hears such a charismatic (i.e. a gifted person) because through such a person one can discern Gods will for us is today.
In the following century there was an even more spectacular example of becatherining to be seen in the life life and career of the teenage charismatic Joan of Arc. First of all she becatherined the French heah of state into putting her in charge of his army. Next she becatherined the officers and soldiers into obeying her orders, often against their own better judgement. The result was a series of victories which set in motion a process that led to the liberation of France from her wicked foreign oppressors (the English). Even in this modern world of gender equality it is rare to find seventeen year old girl generals, in Medieval Europe it was unique. The epoch is also known as "the Age of Belief" and here at least we can see why. Medieval Europeans knew that Gad still acted directly in the lives of his children and they were often willing to stake everything they had in the belief that they had discerned his presence among them.
The subsequent career path of Joan, she was burnt at the stake for witchcraft (there's that W word again), shows some of the limits of becatherining. Many people, often the most outwardly 'religious', will fiercely resist being becatherined because it forces them to change their own definition of what 'religious' means. Which may explain why it was priests who brought about the condemnation and execution of St Joan. All of which brings us, rather neatly, on to the figure of John the Baptist whose becatherining actions Jesus asked the chief priests and scribes about.
John had been very successful in his mission to becatherine the ordinary folk of Judea, Jerusalem and beyond but the official religious establishment had been, on the whole, much less impressed. The counter question that Jesus posed in the Temple was not some random piece of repartee plucked out of the air to confuse his opponents. It went to the very heart of his own mission. Merely by hesitating at all the scribes implicitly conceded that there was, after all, a legitimate source of authority independent of Temple, priest and scribe. The history of Israel and their sacred scriptures, beginning with the Law of Moses all testified to the authority of the inpired prophets of God. They could not then deny the possibility that prophets had again risen in Israel without also denying the very religion they professed to be guardians of. The problem is that in every age religious authorities are focussed, quite properly, in running a tight ship while prophets aim at rocking the boat. The two do not always get on well together.
Just before leaving the Baptist behind we should note another variant on a theme, the semi-becatherine. John was a prisoner of Herod who "feared John knowing that he was a righteous and holy man" (Mark 6:20). "When he heard him he was greatly perplexed and yet he liked to listen to him". The semi-becatherined are those who know that God is speaking to them but are afraid to act on what they know to be true. It is an unstable condition, faced with pressure from his wife Herodias and the bewitching charms of her daughter Salome, Herod had the Baptist beheaded.
The reason why the opponents of Jesus were bound to accept the arguments in favour of heeding charismatic voices was because they took their stand on the Law of Moses, itself named after the most influential charismatic leader in Jewish history. And he had received a mission statement from the Almighty which all subsequent becatheriners could lay claim to. "I have made thee a God to Pharaoh" (Exodus 7:1 KJV). Which sounds quite extreme but Jesus himself confirmed and made explicit this becatherining charter "it is not you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Mark 10:19). So once it is granted that the person who is speaking is a genuine charismatic then it is also granted that it is not them that is being heard but the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen.
The Law itself foretold that one day a prophet would arise in Israel who would be as great as Moses himself (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). If therefore the chief priests and scribes had said "only if you have authority vested in you by ourselves or some other recognised human institution like the Rabbinic schools can you legitimately act in this manner" then they would have been explicitly denying the very scriptures they claimed to be defending. A similar kind of situation involving yet another girl charismatic occurred in the nineteenth century. The girl, a poor frail teenager, reported seeing visions of an extraordinarily beautiful woman near her home town. Although many common folk received her story gladly the authorities and the priests called her a "little liar" and tried to stop her reporting these things. What the priests, unlike the state police, could not do was deny the possibility the the girl might just possibly be telling the truth. Like those in the Temple nearly two thousand years earlier they also believed that God spoke the truth when he said "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy.Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit"(Joel 2:28,29). The way the rest of the situation subsequently played out showed that, perhaps, they were premature to accuse St Bernadette of Lourdes of lying.
It is a fact, common to both the old religion of the Jews and the new one of the Christians, that God has, as it were, built in with the bricks of his revelation the concept of his Spirit at being at work-teaching, commanding, consoling. And so if a teacher or visionary arises in any generation of the People of God, becatherining here and becatherining there then the religious authorities of the day are unable to say outright "it is against our Law to do such things" because plainly it is not. Becatherining is a divinely instituted factor in the life of Gods people and always has been. All that the establishment can do is "test the spirits to see that they are from God" (1 John 4:1). By that test, in the time of the Gospels Jesus could not be faulted which is why his opponents could only produce false witnesses against him at his trial (Matthew 26:60).
There are a couple of features about charismatic authority worth highlighting at this point. One is that it can be exercised in ways apart from the spoken word. Our Lord hinted at this by asking his question about John's baptism rather than about John's preaching. It is quite common, in fact, to becatherine by actions, deeds, instead of, or as a companion to, words. St Francis of Assisi, who single handedly becatherined thousands of young men into becoming vagrants for Christ, is reputed to have said "preach the Gospel at all times, if absolutely necessary use words as well." Books are another becatherining tool. Many people have decided to change their lives after reading classics like "Pilgrims Progress", St Augustine's "Confessions" or "The Cross and the Switchblade". Little did they realise that they had been becatherined. Ms Benincasa herself wrote, or rather dictated, a book now known as "The Dialogues of St Catherine of Siena" and still today, seven hundred years later, people reading it find themselves like their medieval predecessors literally and metaphorically becatherined.
Another characteristic feature of charismatics is that they often precede their mission with a period, long or short, of of withdrawal from the world, fasting and prayer. John the Baptist lived long years in the wilderness until he appeared before Israel (Luke 1:80). Jesus spent 40 days in the desert without food (Mark 1:12,13). The compulsive becatheriner by letter St Paul was three years in Arabia before setting of on his travels. St Catherine herself also took three years although in her bedroom rather than in a desert. Many other teenagers have spent similar amounts of time in their bedrooms thus demonstrating that this conduct does not inevitably lead to sainthood. The very first Israelite, Jacob, did it all in a single night. He sent everybody he loved and everything he possessed away and then, as it were, naked spent the night wrestling with an angel. After it was done he received a new name, Israel, and was told "you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed" (Genesis 32:22-28). Then he went of to becatherine his warlike brother Esau.
Possibly the most dramatic of becatherining episodes in scripture is that involving the normally shy girl charismatic Esther. The Book of Esther has come down to us in two forms, one originally Greek and one originally Hebrew. It is the Greek version that has the drama and the beauty of Esther's exploits most clearly displayed. Unfortunately because of an argument between Christian hundreds of years ago some Bibles only contain the Hebrew version. The classic King James Version (KJV) of the Bible contains the Greek parts under the title "the rest of the chapters of the Book of Esther" and uses vivid language of great power in translating them into English. One can only feel sad that despite the intentions of the original translators and indeed the wise King James himself so few modern editions of the KJV contain these chapters. Still they are there to be found if you search diligently enough.
Briefly the becatherining build-up is as follows. Esther, the favourite wife of the very bad tempered (and sexist) King Artaxerxes, is Jewish but prudently keeps quiet about it in the huge royal palace. The King's chief adviser Haman (or Aman) hates Jews and persuades Artaxerxes to put his name to an edict which will bring about a general massacre of Jewish people in his kingdom on a particular date. Esthers uncle Mordecai (or Mardocheus) urges her to visit the King in order to change his mind and save the Jews from destruction. The plan would be straightforward but for the fact that it is against the law to appear before the King without first being summoned. To do so usually leads to a swift but unpleasant execution, yes, he really was that bad tempered,
Queen Esther then went into pre-becatherine mode. A period of fasting and prayer was now begun, She "laid away her glorious apparel, and put on the garments of anguish and mourning: and instead of precious ointments, she covered her head with ashes and dung" (Esther 14:2) Not a girl who did things by halves obviously. While praying Esther specifically asked for the becatherining charism "Give me eloquent speech in my mouth before the lion: turn his heart to hate him that fighteth against us" (Esther 14:13)
Following those days of agony, alone before God, the Queen then spruced herself up being "gloriously adorned" as befits a beautiful talented young lady of Royal status. Looking cheerful but feeling absolutely dreadful she set of for her encounter with Artaxerxes. Very briefly scripture records "having passed through all the doors, she stood before the king" (Esther 15:6). It is worth pausing and putting yourself in Esthers, no doubt glamorous, shoes for a moment. Artaxerxes ruled over a mighty empire and had a palace to match. It was a very, very long walk from the woman's quarters to the audience chamber. As befitting a Queen Esther had two servants with her and still other servants would be required to open each door as she came to it. Door after door after door. Esther, remember, believed that she was going to meet almsot certain death and yet all along that terrible journey she maintained a cheerful countenance and a queenly manner to suit her "glorious apparel". What she did that day displayed greater courage than many a soldier advancing under enemy fire has been required to show.
The moment of truth "Then lifting up his countenance that shone with majesty, he looked very fiercely upon her"(Esther 15:7a). Providence decreed then that Esther was to work her becatherining by deed rather than word; and by the very deed that came most naturally to her under the circumstances "the queen fell down, and was pale, and fainted"(Esther 15:7b). "Then God changed the spirit of the king into mildness" (Esther 15:8). "The king said to her, "What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom."" (Esther 5:3). And, as the Jewish feast of Purim still to this day records, Esther saved the day for the Jews.
Words do not appear in scripture by accident. Many centuries after Artaxerxes another monarch promised the dancing girl Salome "Whatever you ask me I will give you, even half my kingdom". Herod's promise to a sensuous woman led to the execution of a charismatic man of prayer. Artaxerxes promise to a virtuous charismatic woman led to a whole people escaping from execution. There is a meaning and purpose behind these not quite parallel situations which repays meditating upon.
The question asked of Jesus was "by what authority"? Those asking it believed that as custodians of established religion they had God for their authority. Nor were they entirely wrong as the Lord said on another occasion. "the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat therefore do whatever they teach and follow it"(Matthew 23:2,3). On the other hand Jesus by his divine Sonship and the power of the Holy Spirit certainly had the authority of the living God for his words and actions. Then as now there was a constant tension in the People of God between being stewards of his historical self-revelation recorded in scriptures and his dynamic intervention into the affairs of today through charismatic agents. A prominent Italian Christian recently put it like this "There can, then, be no real opposition or conflict between the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit and the juridical commission of Ruler and Teacher received from Christ, since they mutually complement and perfect each other -- as do the body and soul in man -- and proceed from our one Redeemer "(Mystici Corporis Christi 65)
One of the signs of a genuine charismatic is that she (or sometime he) never contradicts the the revealed truth although they often force us to focus on those elements of it that make us feel most uncomfortable. The reason why they rock the boat is that it is the most potent way of getting Gods people to re-balance the cargo in the hold. Wise religious leaders recognise this. In her day Catherine of Siena wrote a stream of letters to the reigning Popes. In those letters she frankly bullied and hectored them demanding that they should act in particular ways. Whatever their other failings, and they had many, the Popes in question meekly accepted her letters and often sought to comply with her instructions. They, after all, were only Popes and Ms Benincasa was a becatheriner.