The Mighty Oak

the Mighty Oak

Now mighty can mean big, tall, broad and strong. But, mighty can also mean tenacious. What you see here is a White Oak tree in all its mature splendor, a mighty Oak.

I contrast these two meanings of mighty because I’m excited to announce that the reports of the death of my baby oak tree, started from an acorn, have been premature. The tree was viciously attacked last spring by a savage chipmunk, squirrel, rabbit or some such other wild beast. All of the tender shoots and leaves were eaten in this attempted arborcide (I just made that word up). In the throes of grief I refused to remove it from the ground, hoping against hope that it would miraculously recover from this devastating blow.

This spring the little shaver was not showing any signs of life. I became resolved to finally remove it. A little warm weather lured me to the back yard again. I was resolved to remove the beautiful ornate fence I had place around my tree (which had very large openings that allowed the savage attack to begin with). But, my heart leapt (or leaped, maybe both) for joy when to my great and grateful surprise tender shoots were once again springing to life.

Here you can see this tenacious little life springing from the ground. The mighty Oakus lives on!

C. S. Lewis and the Real Presence

Leanne Payne was founder of Pastoral Care Ministries. She was a noted scholar of the writings of C. S. Lewis and participated in cataloging the letters of C. S. Lewis for the Wade Collection at Wheaton College. The following is from her book "Real Presence: The Christian Worldview of C.S. Lewis as Incarnational Reality"

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The Scriptures teach that Christ listened to the father; trusting the Holy Spirit, (Jn 14:16-17, Lk: 4:1, 4:14, 5:17, Acts 1:1-2) He taught and healed through the power of the Spirit. The apostles learned this from Him. This capacity to collaborate with the Holy Spirit is also given to us. Herein we see the artist and the Christian brought together. The artist to free the work, must get self out of the way; he must die to self. So it is with the Christian. To do the works that Christ commanded, he must first get self out of the way; he must die to the "old man." And, just as the Spirit gave form and beauty back to the earth which "was without form, and void" when "darkness was upon the face of the deep," so the Christian, listening to God and collaborating with the Holy Spirit, frees the souls of men. Chaotic, fallen, like the earth after the angelic fall, without form and void, the soul cries out to be delivered from chaos, to be given back its form and beauty. The Christian, proclaiming liberty to the soul held captive, calls forth the real person; he frees the prisoner as Michelangelo freed the “Moses”. The true artist and the true Christian collaborate with the spirit: "The spirit comes into us and does it.

This is Lewis’s mysticism.

Intro to Frank Lake

Frank Lake (6 June 1914 – 10 May 1982) was one of the pioneers of pastoral counselling in the United Kingdom. In 1962, he founded the Clinical Theology Association with the primary aim to make clergy more effective in understanding and accepting the psychological origins of their parishioners’ personal difficulties. However, the training seminars in pastoral counselling, which he began in 1958, eventually enlisted professional and lay people in various fields from various denominations. Many thousands of people attended the seminars.

In spite of our attempts to cure our ills we come to the realization that after all, we are merely human, we cannot address all the ills which afflict us, we come to the conclusion which is so succinctly expressed in the following quote from Frank Lane’s text on clinical theology.

‘The nature of the help God gives through His Church is to make what cannot be removed, creatively bearable. Paul's thorn of weakness in the flesh remained. Resting in the power of God, he could glory in his infirmity. It is natural, and it is, I think, spiritually desirable, that we should at first strive and pray, as Paul did, to have our weakness and negativities removed. But the utmost of personal effort and of professional skill may disappoint our hopes in this direction. What then? There are no lectures in medical course to inform the doctor of that paradoxical movement of the Spirit which can turn decisively away from the evidently vain hope of a cure, to a courageous bearing, and more, to a creative using of the pain and loss that cannot be cured. There is a strength which is made perfect in weakness. Without the prior weakness this particular endowment of strength could never be experienced. Pastoral practice, recognizing a certain inevitability of failure in this entirely laudable object, extends itself to ensure that the inward man is concurrently renewed from day to day.

The natural man in us tends to reject the paradox that mental pain and spiritual joy can exist together in us, without diminishing either the agony of the one or the glory of the other. The whole personality may be afflicted by a sense of weakness, emptiness, and pointlessness, without diminishing in the least our spiritual power and effectiveness. This is possible because Christ is alive to reenact the mystery of his suffering and glory in us. So far as our own subjective feelings are concerned, any inner directed questioning of our basic human state may produce the same dismal answer as before; the cupboard is bare. While we regard our humanity as a container which ought to have something good in it when we look inside, we miss the whole point of the paradox. We are not meant to be self-contained, but channels of the life and energies of God Himself. From this point of view our wisdom is to let the bottom be knocked out of our humanity, which will ruin it as a container at the same time as it turns it into a satisfactory channel.” Clinical Theology, Vol. 1, p. xxv.

Pray to God that he cure all those weaknesses that we are aware of and those that we fail to see, through his grace, we become capable of overcoming.

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More from the Little Flower

Therese presents for me a new way to understand what Jesus meant in the story of the rich young man and his instruction to give all he has away. She along with Balthasar provides much to meditate on in two passages from Romans. Mining the thought of the Little Flower provides an inexhaustible source of golden wisdom. The text below in quotes, except for the Scripture quotes, is from the writings of St.Therese and the rest from Balthasar's Two Sisters in the Spirit (pp. 257- 259).

The mentality that confronts Therese so frequently in the Catholic asceticism of her day … is the Old Testament mentality of justification by works ….

This attitude assumes that man’s relations with God are based entirely upon justice, and this limited conception of justice … can only imagine one ideal – to step up one’s own achievements so as to produce a corresponding increase in God’s favors. But this ideal overlooks … the very basis and raison d’etre of God’s testament with the chosen people: Abraham’s faith, which implicitly includes hope and love as well.

God first revealed himself as the God of justice, not as the God of love. And besides wishing  to prepare humanity for love by means of the law, God also wished the failure of the law and its works to demonstrate what happens when men rely upon their own achievements apart from the Cross of Christ. (Rom 5:20)

Therese inserts her New Testament theology and asceticism at the exact point where the transition takes place. Her “little way” to “little sanctity” at first appears … as one way among many others and she contrasts it particularly with the “great ways” of the “great saints” …. These great saints have done mighty deeds for God, but they are so superior as to discourage Therese …. But the more she gets to know the little way, the more she realizes … that it is the only way.

… as time goes on and she assumes the role of David, armed with a sling and venturing into the open to attack the Goliath of “great sanctity”. “The great saints have gained heaven by their works; myself I wish to imitate the thieves, I wish to take it by a trick, a trick of love that will give me entry, me and other poor sinners.”

And what is this trick? “It is quite simple. Hold nothing back. Distribute your goods as soon as you get them …. If at the moment of death, I were to present my little coins to have them estimated at their true worth, our Lord would not fail to discover dross in them that I should certainly go and deposit in Purgatory.” And now she transfers  … her amused gaze … toward God, teasing the God of justice: “When I think of the good God’s statement: ‘I shall come soon and bring my reward with me, repaying everyone according to his works’, then I say to myself that he will find himself very much embarrassed with me, because I have no works! So he will not be able to repay me according to my works. Very well, then, I trust he will repay me according to his works.”

Therese is here preaching a lesson straight from the gospel of Paul: “Now to him that works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt. But to him that works not, yet believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reputed to justice, according to the purpose of the grace of God” (Rom 4:4-5).

And: “ since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God they are justified by his grace as a gift , through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus …. (Rom 3:23-24)

Little Doctrines from the Little Flower

I am awed when I see the gift the "good God" had given St.Therese. What has taken me seventy-five years merely to appreciate, St.Therese so readily understood and practiced.
The following is from Two Sisters in the Spirit, by Hans Urs von Balthasar. The text below within quotation marks is taken from St.Therese's writings; all else is Balthasar's.

“Jesus does not demand great deeds but only gratitude and self-surrender. ‘I will not’ he says, ‘take the goats from out of your flocks, for all the beasts of the field are mine …. Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks, or shall I drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.’ See, then , all that Jesus lays claim to from us; he has no need of our works but only  of our love.”

It is generally recognized that “cosmetics for the soul”, “that overwrought, incessant measuring, counting, calculating, touching and examining one’s own ‘perfection’, that most dangerous distraction of attention from God to the ego under the pretext of tender conscience, and even humility”, constitute a special danger for those living the monastic life and, particularly for contemplatives, constitute the universal “temptation to perfection”

As a child Therese was trained to “collect” merit; Marie taught her to do so: “I can still hear you saying to me, ‘Look at the shopkeepers, how much trouble they give themselves to make money, whereas we can amass treasure for heaven without giving ourselves so much trouble; all we have to do is to gather diamonds with a rake’. And off I went, my heart filled with joy, overflowing with good resolutions.” And in her early letters, we see the child busy at this work of collecting: “every day I try to do all the ‘practices’ I can, and do my best not to let any opportunity pass. From the bottom of my heart, and as often as possible , I say the little prayers: they are sweet-scented like roses …, my thanks to Sister Therese of St. Augustine for her dear little rosary of practices….”

But gradually, without it being noticed, the meaning of the word changes and surrenders its kernel of Christian truth; the treasure is love, but love is the prodigality that knows neither to count nor reckon. “it’s very simple. Hold nothing back; distribute your goods as soon as you get them. As for myself. If I live to be eighty years old, I shall still be as poor. I do not know how to make economies; everything I have I give away immediately to buy souls.”

Progress does not come through acquisitions but through losing everything; it does not mean climbing, it means descending. A novice sighs: “When I think of everything I still have to acquire!” [Therese] “You mean, to lose! Jesus takes it upon himself to fill your soul in the measure that you rid it of your imperfections. I see that you have taken the wrong road; you will never arrive at the end of your journey. You are wanting to climb a great mountain, and the good God is trying to make you descend it; he is waiting for you at the fertile valley of humility.”

St. Therese on Saints

In his study of St. Therese in Two Sisters in the Spirit, Balthasar offers this characterization of St. Therese’s view of the vocation of the saints.

“The true saints are those whose ardor in their earthly mission is fed solely by the eternal, heavenly life that they have tasted but has been so painfully withdrawn. They do not turn their backs on the world in order to enjoy the rest of heaven in advance. Rather they live a life of intense longing and move the world by the strength of that heaven that has first been granted to them and then closed to them. They hang crucified between this world and the beyond; exiles from earth but not yet in their heavenly home, their position serves as a kind of pulpit, and their whole life is a sermon. It does not matter whether the preaching takes the form of action or contemplation – this decision is left to God; in both cases, their position is the same, stretched between earth and heaven. And the longer they hang there, the more intimate the presence of heaven within them, for nothing brings a person nearer to God than hanging there.” p. 212

Paean to Motherhood

             A Daughter's Reflection

Ryan is a sweet boy, but he’s not a big cuddler. Certain conditions have to be met. He’ll sit on grandpas lap if there’s food involved (which there usually is). He’ll sit with Auntie Juli no matter what. And he’ll sit with me if I’m singing to him. I taught him that mama only sings if he’s resting his head on my shoulder. (Manipulative? Maybe, but a mamas gotta do what she can for some snuggles.) So each night we sit in his chair and I ask do you want mama to sing to you? He looks at me expectantly, and I start listing songs. When I get to the one he wants, he puts his head down. Usually after a few choruses he will sit up and gesture toward his crib and I put him down and off he goes into slumber.

But tonight he’s not feeling well and instead of gesturing toward his crib he’s signing more. Who am I to refuse this sweet boy a few extra cuddles? Soon he will be vying for some mama time with a little brother. And before long he won’t want to sit in his chair with his mama and be sung to. So we sang more verses of his current favorite, old Macdonald. Eventually we ran out of animals that you find on a farm and we resorted to other things that make noise, like buses, monkeys, and Ellie.

It’s such a bittersweet thing watching your children grow. I’m so amazed by him and how hard he works, and I rejoice in every milestone, or inchstone as some of

my fellow mamas who have kids with delays will say. But there’s a sadness in knowing that one day these moments will stop and be replaced with different, but amazing-in-their-own-way moments.

I want to always remember how he selects his bedtime songs at night. The weight of his little body on my lap, and his head on my shoulder. What his favorite songs are and how he giggles when I change the lyrics or sing parts of the song super fast. I want to remember how he sucks his thumb to the point of developing a little circle callous on his knuckle, and how he likes to wrap his blankie in his hand just so. These are just a few of the little things that make Ryan so adorably Ryan. It’s been such a joy and honor to watch these little quirks develop and I know it will be sad to watch them fade, but incredible to watch as he continues to grow and become even more his own person. 💙

Advancements of Science?

 Georg Joachim de Porris, also known as Rheticus narrates the third part of John Banville's 1975 novel Doctor Copernicus, relating how he convinced Copernicus to publish his book, De revolutionibus. The novel itself is less about Copernicus's work than about his life and the 16th century world in which he lived. In May 1539, Rheticus arrived in Frombork (Frauenburg), where he spent two years with Copernicus.

The author, Banville, in the following excerpt from the novel, presents a picture of Copernicus as a man conflicted in what his life and studies have accomplished. He is a scientist working to find the truths of the physical world in conflict with the Canon whose duty it is to promulgate the Catholic faith. His theory of heliocentric planetary motion will disrupt the prevailing geocentric theory set out by Ptolemy which was the basis of thinking at the time.

Banville’s portrayal of Copernicus presents a man deeply concerned about the effect his radical research will have on the Church and people’s view of the cosmos.

Rheticus here is the narrator:

"Well then, you say, if it was so terrible, why did remain there, why

did I not flee, and leave Copernicus, wrapped in his caution and his bit-

terness, to sink into oblivion? Listen: have said that I was a greater

astronomer than he, and I am, but he possessed one precious thing that

I lacked—I mean a reputation. O, he was cautious, yes, and he genu-

inely feared and loathed the world, but he was cunning also, and knew

that curiosity is a rash which men will scratch and scratch until it

drives them frantic for the cure. For years now he had eked out, at

carefully chosen intervals, small portions of his theory, each one of

which—the Commentariolus, the Letter contra Werner, my Narra-

tzb—was a grain of salt rubbed into the rash with which he had

inflicted his fellow astronomers. And they had scratched, and the rash

had developed into a sore that spread, until all Europe was infected,

and screaming for the one thing alone that would end the plague,

                                                          205

which was De revolutionibus orbium mundi, by Doctor Nicolas

Copernicus, of Torun on the Vistula. And he would give them their

physic; he had decided, he had decided to publish, I knew it, and he

knew I knew it, but what he did not know was that, by doing so, by

publishing, he would not be crowning his own reputation, but making

mine. You do not understand? Only wait, and I shall explain.

But first I must recount some few other small matters, such as, to

begin with, how in the end he came to give me his consent to publish.

However, in order to illuminate that scene, as it were, I wish to record

a conversation I had with him which, later, I came to realise was a

summation of his attitude to science and the world, the aridity, the

barrenness of that attitude. He had been speaking, I remember, of the

seven spheres of Hermes Trismegistus through which the soul ascends

toward redemption in the eighth sphere of the fixed stars. I grew im-

patient listening to this rigmarole, and said something like:

"But your work, Meister, is of this world, of the here and now; it

speaks to men of what they may know, and not of mysteries that they

can only believe in blindly or not at all. "

He shook his head impatiently.

"No no no no. You imagine that my book is a kind of mirror in

which the real world is reflected; but you are mistaken, you must rea-

lise that. In order to build such a mirror, I should need to be able to per-

ceive the world whole, in its entirety and in its essence. But our lives

are lived in such a tiny, confined space, and in such disorder, that this

perception is not possible, There is no contact, none worth mentioning,

between the universe and the place in which we live."

I was puzzled and upset; this nihilism was inimical to all held to be

true and useful. I said:

"But if what you say is so, then how is it that we are aware of the

existence of the universe, the real world? How, without perception, do

"Ach, Rheticus!" It was the first time he had called me by that

name. "You do not understand me! You do not understand yourself.

You think that to see is to perceive, but listen, listen: seeing is not per-

ception! Why will no one realise that? I lift my head and look at the

stars, as did the ancients, and I say: what are those lights? Some call

                                                       206

them torches borne by angels, others, pinpricks in the shroud of

Heaven; others still, scientists such as ourselves, call them stars and

planets that make a manner of machine whose workings we strive to

comprehend. But do you not understand that, without perception, all

these theories are equal in value. Stars or torches, it is all one, all

merely an exalted naming; those lights shine on, indifferent to what we

call them. My book is not science—it is a dream. I am not even sure if

science is possible." He paused a while to brood, and then went on.

"We think only those thoughts that we have the words to express, but

we acknowledge that limitation only by our wiifully foolish contention

that the words mean more than they say; it is a pretty piece of sleight of

hand, that: it sustains our illusions wonderfully, until, that is, the time

arrives when the sands have run out, and the truth breaks in upon us.

Our lives—" he smiled "—are a little journey through God's

His voice had become a whisper, and it was plain to me that

guts .

he was talking to himself, but then all at once he remembered me, and

turned on me fiercely, waggmg a finger in my face. "Your Father

Luther recognised this truth early on, and had not the courage to face

it; he tried to deny it, by his pathetic and futile attempt to shatter the

form and thereby come at the content, the essence. His was a defective

mind, Of course, and could not comprehend the necessity for ritual,

and hence he castigated Rome for its so-called blasphemy and idol-

worship. He betrayed the people, took away their golden calf but gave

them no tablets of the law in its place. Now wc are seeing the results of

Luther's folly, when the peasantry is in revolt all over Europe. You

wonder why I will not publish? The people will laugh at my book, or

that mangled version of it which filters down to them from the univer-

sities. The people always mistake at first the frightening for the comic

thing. But very soon they will come to see what it is that I have done, I

mean what they will imagine I have done, diminished Earth, made of it

merely another planet among planets; they will begin to despise the

world, and something will die, and out of that death will come death.

You do not know what I am talking about, do you, Rheticus? You are a

fool, like the rest ... like myself."

                                                            207

The Little Way of St. Therese

Everyone at some time or another has the opportunity, even responsibility, for the formation of someone in their life. It is not just ordained religious or consecrated religious who can benefit from the ideas in the following. Parents, teachers, good friends all have opportunities to be guides for others.
The following pseudo-dialogue between St. Therese and Hans Urs von Balthasar was constructed from material in Two Sisters in the Spirit, a study of St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, written by von Balthasar.                                                                                                       
Therese:

You did not hesitate, dear Mother, to tell me one day that God was enlightening my soul and giving me the experience of years. … I am too little still to coin well-turned phrases in order to give the impression of great humility. I prefer to admit quite simply that the Almighty has done great things in the soul of his divine Mother’s child; and the greatest of all is to have shown me my littleness, my impotence.

Balthasar:

Before she could write such words, Therese had to become detached from her own person in an entirely new way, through the praise and even more the graces that her office brought with it. Her period as novice mistress teaches her … the complete discrepancy between [her] office and [her] achievement. Indeed, this discrepancy represents the essence of very ecclesiastical office … simply to be an instrument of the divine will and a channel for divine authority.

Therese:

When I was given the office of entering the sanctuary of souls, I realized at a glance that the task was beyond my strength.

Balthasar:

Obviously, an instrument can do nothing of itself, and the person who wishes to serve as a divine instrument must rest completely resigned to whatever use the divine hands make of it. And, when someone resigns himself into God’s hand, his own gifts and experience are shown up for the puny things they are. At one time they can be of use, and at another time they remain unused or may even be disturbing.

Therese:

From a distance, it seems easy and pleasant to do good to souls, to make them love God more by molding them according to one’s own aims and ideas. Up close, it is quite the contrary … one feels it is … impossible to do good without God’s help …. One feels it is absolutely necessary to forget one’s likings, one’s personal conceptions, and to guide souls along the road that Jesus has traced out for them without trying to make them walk in one’s own way.

Balthasar:

This sentence contains Therese’s own judgement on herself and her existential method; clearly her tenure in office had taught her the limits of this method … it was only her ebbing strength that prevented her from explicitly revising it to bring it into line with her interior progress.

Therese of the Child Jesus did at least learn to modify her method. Everything purely personal is expunged … there remains the one immovable landmark, the office manifesting the will of God. It is as though she stands aside from herself and she can turn the light on herself or away from herself … not as she feels but as her office demands. Everything personal only counts as material that can be used or just as well left aside.

Therese:

From the first, I saw that all souls have more or less the same battles to fight, but they differ so much from each other in other aspects …. It is impossible to act with all in the same manner. With some souls, I feel I must make myself little …. If I am to do any good with certain others … I have seen that I have to be firm ….

Oh how it [that is, the grain of sand with which she identifies herself] desires to be reduced to nothing … nothing but to be forgotten …, not contempt, not insults, that would be too much glory …. To be despised it would have to be seen, but it wants to be forgotten. Yes, I want to be forgotten, not only by creatures but also by myself.

Balthasar:

When she thus turns herself into an instrument, she excludes the possibility of judging the work she is doing …; in the first place the achievement is due to the artist, not to the brush; secondly, there is here no relationship between the quality of the instrument and the work it accomplishes.

Therese:

If the canvas painted by an artist could think and talk, it would certainly not complain of constantly being touched and retouched by the brush; nor would it envy the lot of that instrument, knowing that it owes the beauty in which it has been clothed to the artist, not to the brush. Nor could the brush, for its part, boast of the masterpiece it had helped to produce, for it would not be unaware that artists … sometimes amuse themselves by making use of the poorest and most defective instruments.

Motherhood

Last Christmas the cousins and aunts again celebrated the annual Bagnola party. The party is almost entirely composed of females and on occasion a privileged male is present to witness the spirits of the opposite sex having a gay old time opening ornaments in an ornament swapping revelry. It was during the ornament swapping that cousin Peggy asked if I missed my mother who had passed away nearly two years before at the age of ninety eight. Being the slow thinker that I am, I gave some bumbling answer the meaning of which even eluded me at the time. This incident must have been ruminating in the back of my mind the past few weeks and has now been brought to the fore, prompted by the passing of the mother of my good friend Erica.
Mothers have a certain aura about them, an invisible emanation that is perceived to be a source of safety, nurturing, love. This is probably most evident to their children. I like to think that this ability to project such an aura derives from a mother’s willing and numinous cooperation with God's creative power. We are so fortunate, those of us who have had the privilege of our mothers being with us until their old age. We've had the good fortune to experience and realize as mature adults this amazing quality inherent in motherhood. This aura does not leave us children (we are always children to our mothers) when our mothers leave to join the Lord. It remains with us and in many ways, some unconscious, we draw upon it to guide us and inspire in us a greater love for our creator.
In a certain sense we never lose our mothers; not just in the Catholic sense of the Communion of Saints, but, we can still experience their presence in a very visceral and palpable way.

Unless we take deliberate steps to avoid contact with the news of the day we cannot avoid the thought of the dire possibility of losing our American way of life. Consider the current issue of immigration with all its possible consequences. Possibilities that range from the generosity of sharing our vast resources and wealth with others who do not have access to such largess to the possibility of diluting and potentially losing not just our material wealth but a way of life that is a product of that unique democratic American experiment. 

One can see in these extremes an opportunity to love and a selfishness born of a fear of losing something dear. Proponents of either side can argue as to love’s true meaning verses the result of a loss of a way of life that has produced so much.

In the March issue of First Things author Mark Helprin warns of modernism and its potential to destroy from within as well.

“In the life of the United States thus far, we have had a great though imperfect and, in historical perspective, brief respite from tyranny, oppression, and “ignorant armies clash[ing] by night.” Powerful forces from within and without have often been and are now poised to end this. The fundamental inhumanity, regimentation, mechanisms of control and conformity, and ceaseless reductionism inherent in modernism are the fertile seedbed of political tyranny, loss of human dignity, ideological madness, and genocide of the born and unborn. In the triumph and worship of the modern and its unprecedented riches is much ugliness and danger.”

A Prayer for Passion

Photo of a wood carving at the Shrine to St. Therese in Darien, Il

Lord give me the grace to believe.

Help increase my belief in Your Word,

for Your Word is the cornerstone of my Faith.

May my Faith grow on this foundation

and inspire me with a passion that is just a tiny bit

of the passion of St. Therese.

“I have put on the breastplate of the Almighty

and he has armed me with the strength of his arms.

… I advance to the battlefield, fearing neither fire nor steel,

my enemies shall discover that I am a queen

and the bride of a King.”

“The proud angel, in the bosom of light, cried

‘I shall serve forever’ and I feel the stirrings within me

 of a courage that is prepared to brave the fury of hell.”

These quotes are taken from St. Therese’s poem, My Weapons, Verses 1 and 4.