Once again, I requested permission to use an Unlikely Wanderer photo. Here is the request.
I would like to ask permission to use Jirisan photo, giving credit and pointing to this post. You and Contemplative in the Mud are important to me. Actually only two other blogs I annoy. The idea motivating the photo request is the omnipresence of God, active yet subtle, allowing freedom while omnipotent. I felt your photo profoundly expressed matters. As well as another topic I plan to go more into depth on that being the appreciation of authentic beauty. To appreciate the beauty of creation is to glorify the creator. To move away from that, inflicting complexity, alterations in presentation, impressionism, are to impede into the area of becoming a creator–in truth placing accountability onto our backs. Your photo splendidly covers current topic, while foreshadowing a future. Thanks.
And reply: You are welcome to use the photo and thank you for your thoughts. I look forward to your forthcoming posts.
I have not put together the implied post. Following the blog, I was swept away by a recent composition, ‘A New Song’, causing me to move forward with this post. I dare to post the last two lines by an Unlikely Wanderer. They are beautifully profound. True beauty.
From where does this inward burning come, O Lord?
I give chase as though chasing a breath…
Here is the photo. I believe all Unlikely Wanderer’s photos possess an intuitive perceptive eye seeing deeply into creation. The circular white light of the sun, the singular tree seemingly arising in praise, I find amazing.
If a statue which the sculptor had niched in the gallery of some great prince were endowed with understanding, and could reason and talk; and if it were asked: O fair statue, tell me now, why art thou in that niche?—It would answer,—Because my master placed me there. And if one should reply,—But why stayest thou there without doing anything?—Because, would it say, my master did not place me here to do anything, but simply that I should be here motionless. But if one should urge it further, saying: But, poor statue, what art thou the better for remaining there in that sort? Well! would it say, I am not here for my own interest and service, but to obey and accomplish the will of my master and maker; and this suffices me. And if one should yet insist thus: Tell me then, statue, I pray, not seeing thy master how dost thou find contentment in contenting him? No, verily, would it confess; I see him not, for I have not eyes for seeing, as I have not feet for walking; but I am too contented to know that my dear master sees me here, and takes pleasure in seeing me here. But if one should continue the dispute with the statue, and say unto it: But wouldst thou not at least wish to have power to move that thou mightest approach near thy maker, to afford him some better service? Doubtless it would answer, No, and would protest that it desired to do nothing but what its master wished. Is it possible then, would one say at last, that thou desirest nothing but to be an immovable statue there, within that hollow niche? Yes, truly, would that wise statue answer in conclusion; I desire to be nothing but a statue and ever in this niche, so long as my master pleases, contenting myself to be here, and thus, since such is the contentment of him whose I am, and by whom I am what I am.
O true God! how good a way it is of remaining in God’s presence to be, and to will to be, ever and forever, at his good-pleasure! For so, I consider, in all occurrences, yea, in our deepest sleep, we are still more deeply in the most holy presence of God.
–St Francis de Sales ‘Treatise on the Love of God’.
St Joseph, father and guardian of virgins, to whose faithful keeping Christ Jesus, innocence itself, and Mary, virgin of virgins, were entrusted. I pray and beseech thee by that two-fold and most precious charge, Jesus and Mary to save me from all uncleanliness. Keep my mind untainted, my heart pure, and my body chaste. Help me always to serve Jesus and Mary in perfect chastity.
Close in proximity to a chaste protectee of St Joseph, the responsibility of purity amasses toward awesomeness, an awareness of love individualized, God’s ways personified through a companion. I know who she is, where her heart reposes, the totality of her desired innocence. The vision is so sharp its acuteness is cutting. Profound accountability, possibilities demand a tender, intelligent touch, grave submission to the needs of establishing protectiveness. To guard, shelter, allowing tranquility within the holy for one incorruptibly defensive, one quartering an accretion of armory throughout years of distancing from pain, unable to encounter one capable of melting away inhibitions through sanctified love. Bountiful in spirituality, beauty, passion, intelligence, interest and intrigue, she moves about in her private world purely pristine, sheltering a home, calling with a silent heart. Brokenness amending, strengthening a rendering, I know not how to utilize my manhood in order to appease. Stumbling, bumbling, within the concretization of emotion realized on into the consecrated, my heart shudders. Through, with, and in, Jesus I ground myself upon unpolluted attraction, unadulterated captivation, focused, locked onto the eternal.
Recognizing difficulty, a chore of immense proportion, Greek mythological stories crop up in mind, fertilized through fascination. The state of innocence, beauty, virginity pursued within vested interest. Daphne fleeing. Actaeon, a stag a making.
Daphne, youthful beauty a splendor, innocent of vulgarity, physically free from desire, the God Apollo longs lustfully for encounter, transformation through physicality. Fearing the foe, Daphne flees, running and hiding from the mighty God of abundance. Clinging to virtue, purity, the state of negative metamorphosis, she refuses to acquiesce to that which will defile, rejecting surrender to the brutish nature of one stronger and wiser. Without love, without the profound, with the heart a moving into realms unperceived, a calling, a yearning on into depths unknown, a strong attraction obsessed, ignited, thorough the call of the Divine. Unknown, blissfully ignorant, Daphne comprehends negation as a path. She will not experience, memorize, attach through experience to that which detracts, that which untracks. Chastity sheltered, she calls out to her father, praying for protection. Altering states, metamorphoses, her conviction is answered. A tree she becomes, never knowing the lust of the beauty induced madness overcoming the god of Gods Apollo.
The other Greek beautifully charming rendition of the sanctity of loveliness unsullied, the difficulty of fulfilling the charismas of such a wholesome state is the ill-begotten termination of the hunter Actaeon. A proud hunter trained none the less by the wiles and ways of the centaur Chiron, the master of Achilles, Actaeon prowls the forest, solitarily hunting with only his powerful pack of dogs abreast. Exploring, he ventures into a cave of sweet smelling address. Astound by his finding, a bathing a plenty of sweet virgins tending to the needs of cleanliness demandingly requested by their sweet highness, the sister to Apollo, the goddess Artemis, the healer of young children, a virgin eternal , the easer of burdens afflicting women giving birth. Naked, radiating, purity astonishing, Artemis is witnessed by Actaeon, the bewildered hunter adoring the goddess of the hunt. The hunter becomes victim as the protection of Artemis’ immaculate status mandates redemption. A stag, a male deer, metamorphoses complete, Actaeon knows the being of a wild beast. Fear overwhelming, fear a natural state of creatures of the forest, the animal Actaeon flees from the cave, the well-spring of washing for the lovely goddess Artemis. Actaeon’s pack of dogs, being the beings they are, know only one thing. The hunt a way of life, the dogs take offensive, attacking, striking down their former master. Overwhelmed, rushing insanely into the forest, Actaeon is eaten by his own dogs. His intrusion upon beauty and innocence exposed his undoing.
Greek mythology, unpossessing the fullness of truth, entertaingly, intelligently, with charm and appeal, insightfully touches upon the mastery of life. The wonderful fullness of truth, lovingly reposed within the completeness of the body of Christ, the Catholic Church, presents the highest esteem for the sanctity of virginity, the beauty of the unsullied, through the most blessed of all women our sweet Virgin Mary, without whose fiat would never be known salvation. Pope Benedict XVI during the 2011 solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praising the Angelus, defines the sacred status of the loveliest of all women and the sanctity of the fullness of truth existing within the Church.
We are also given the “fullness of grace” which we must make shine in our life, for, as St Paul writes: the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, … has blessed us … with every spiritual blessing … even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless …. to be his sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3-5). We receive this sonship through the Church on the day of Baptism. In this regard St Hildegarde of Bingen wrote: “The Church is, therefore, the virgin mother of all Christians. In the secret power of the Holy Spirit she conceives them and brings them to the light, offering them to God in such a way that they too might be called sons of God” (Scivias, visio III, 12: CCL Continuatio Mediævalis XLIII, 1978, 142). And, finally, among the many who have sung of the spiritual beauty of the Mother of God, St Bernard of Clairvaux stands out. He declares that the invocation “Hail, Mary full of grace” is “pleasing to God, to angels and to men. To men, thanks to her motherhood, to the angels, thanks to her virginity, to God, thanks to her humility” (Sermo XLVII, De Annuntiatione Dominica: SBO VI,1, Rome 1970, 266).
St Bernard of Clairvaux declares a soul’s ability to attain beauty through the imitation of the humility behaved by the Holiest of Mothers.
Let us see what is meant by the soul’s twofold beauty, for that is what seems to be intimated here. Humility is the soul’s loveliness. This is not my opinion merely, the Prophet has already said: “Sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed,” symbolizing in this lowly herb the humility that purifies the heart. He who was once both king and prophet trusts that this will wash him clean from his grave offence, and give him back the snowy brightness of his innocence. But though we are attracted by the humility of one who has gravely sinned, we may not admire it. If, however, a man retains an innocence now graced with humility, do you not think that his soul is endowed with loveliness? Mary never lost her holiness, yet she did not lack humility; and so the king desired her loveliness, because she joined humility to innocence. As she said: “He looked graciously upon the lowliness of his handmaid.” Happy then are those who keep their garments clean, who guard their simplicity and innocence, but on condition that they strive for the loveliness of humility. One so endowed will hear words like these: “Behold, how beautiful you are my dearest, O how beautiful.”
1. Ecce Panis Angelorum, 1. Behold the Bread of Angels
Factus cibus viatorum made the Food of wayfarers,
Vere panis filiorum, Truly the bread of children,
Non mittendus canibus. not to be given to the dogs.
2. In figuris praesignatur, 2. Presignified by figure,
Cum Isaac immolatur, When Isaac was immolated,
Agnus Paschae deputatur, the Paschal Lamb was commanded,
Datur manna patribus. Manna was given to the fathers.
3. Bone pastor, panis vere, 3. Good shepherd, true Bread,
Jesu, nostri miserere: Jesus, have mercy on us:
Tu nos pasce, nos tuere, Feed us, protect us,
Tu nos bona fac videre Make us to see good things
In terra viventium. in the land of the living.
4. Tu qui cuncta scis et vales, 4. Thou who knowest and willest all things,
Qui nos pascis hic mortales: Who feeds us mortals by This:
Tuos ibi commensales, Make thine own to be partakers of,
Coheredes et sodales coheirs and citizens in
Fac sanctorum civium. that holy City of Saints.
Amen. Amen.
“Behold the Bread of Angels” – this is often used as a Benediction hymn, for obvious reasons. It recalls how the mystery of the Eucharist was signified by many events in the Old Testament – the immolation of Isaac, the Paschal Lamb, the manna given to the fathers in the desert. It then proceeds to ask Jesus for the grace to save our souls, so that we can join the citizens of Heaven, seeing Him forever in “the land of the living”.
This is only the last 4 stanzas of the famous hymn, “Lauda Sion”, written by St. Thomas Aquinas before the year 1274. It is the sequence for Corpus Christi, the great feast of the Body of Christ when the Church turns our attention to the great Gift of the Eucharist. Jesus gave us this precious Gift of Himself so that He might always be with us.
“Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in excelsis
“Behold, this child is set for the fall[d] and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”
I saw an angel beside me toward the left side, in bodily form. He was not very large, but small, very beautiful, his face so blazing with light that he seemed to be one of the very highest angels, who appear all on fire. They must be those they call Cherubim. I saw in his hands a long dart of gold, and at the end of the iron there seemed to me to be a little fire. This I thought he thrust through my heart several times, and that it reached my very entrails. As he withdrew it, I thought it brought them with it, and left me all burning with a great love of God. So great was the pain, that it made me give those moans; and so utter the sweetness that this sharpest of pains gave me, that there was no wanting it to stop, nor is there any contenting of the soul with less than God. –St. Teresa, ‘Life’
Adrift in a nebulous void, an abyss undefined by darkness, sensing the quality of light beyond, I am aroused by a sensation below. Slothfully, I identify myself in a lucid dream. Looking downward, viewing my naked body, I notice a chord emanating from my chest. A winding twining thing, comprised of two distinct strands bursting forward.
Exiting, originating from my heart, the chord is constantly drawn from my body. The force pulling the chord is consistent and firm. It does not move my body—the chord sliding forth while not pulling my body. Gliding outward, the distinct chord is apart from my body. It is something connected, yet detached; similar to a magician pulling a seemingly endless napkin from his pocket.
Visually, I follow the chord to its source, discovering two beings pulling forth. Their form is that of humans, however, their appearance is shrouded by a mysterious cloud of illusion. I notice wings, tiny bodies: cherubs a playing, filled with joy, laughing and singing. I can not clearly focus upon the sweet tiny angels. They swim in and out of focus. I am able to distinguish both cherubs are absorbed in the effort of pulling at the chord, or rather pulling at individual ends. The twining strands couple to form the single chord passing from my heart.
At the point of contact with my flesh, the mystical chord creates friction, igniting a burning sensation throughout my body. Energy exchanged. Fear erupts. I panic, fighting against the heavenly exterior efforts. Opposition ingrained, I reach out to grasp the chord in order to strengthen my resistance. As I grab the chord, my perspective suddenly changes, my consciousness exiting my body. I am now able to perceive, simultaneously, from the opposite originating points. I am looking back at myself, the pulling cherubs now my two eyes, two eyes seeing as one. I watch my body struggle as I sustain the effort of drawing the chord outward, from my current perspective inward.
Incredibly, my emotional state achieves an abnormally peaceful state with my change of perception. The tension of my physical body assuaged. I acknowledged the serene state of being as a hand holding a dagger extends outward from my current position. The singular hand is huge in perception. Unemotionally, I realize the intention of the dagger. A driving force plunges the dagger directly into my heart. The moment the dagger penetrates my flesh, my perspective snaps back to my body.
An emotional upheaval erupts. I am pierced, overwhelmed, finding it difficult due to the flooding of thoughts. Anxiety forces the desire to move. Deluged with fear, hysterical with the thought of death, I cry out to the surrounding emptiness.
Remarkably, I am stunned by an incredible lack of sensation within the overwhelming. The dagger does not pierce inflicting pain, rather it soothes, gratifies, burning with an extreme coldness, cauterizing. My chest is an infected, seriously abscessed wound now being relieved of its painful pressure. The supernatural relaxing sensation comforts, causing a complete inner collapse, or is it possibly a return to a natural unknown state? All my muscles release. Miraculously, physical tension is eliminated. I am shocked by the feeling of complete release. I never realized there was so much tension existing within my body.
As the dagger settles deeper, blood begins to pour out and over my body. Striking the center of my heart, the dagger produces a thick stream of dark red, almost black blood. Bathing my body, the blood stimulates a primordial warmth, blanketing innate fear and ignorance. The profoundness of the act advances into a practical awareness. This must be done. The subtle thought of a womb never completely develops as it is overwhelmed by the image of a red orchid blossoming upon my open chest.
Slowly awakening, slothful and groggy, I emerge from the dream. Whispering. “Should have dug the dagger deeper.”
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Doing research for Unlikely Wanderer, ideas were presented paralleling my thoughts on head, heart, and hand. The Jewish tradition of adorning oneself with the Shema powerfully connects the head, heart, and hand with the greatest commandment of God, Deuteronomy 6:4-9. In my fiction piece on Bogdan, the Dacian youth, the Old Israelite utilizes the tefillin. I thoroughly enjoy when my Catholic faith connects with the Jewish faith.
You have a brain. It is in one world. Your heart is in another. And your hands often end up involved in something completely foreign to both of them. Three diverse machines.
So you put on tefillin. First thing in the day, you connect your head, your heart and your hand with these leather cables—all to work as one, with one intent. And then, when you go out to meet the world, all your actions find harmony in a single coordinated purpose…
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