St. Peter the Rock

A brief of decription of St. Peter.Note the spectacular composition of the second paragraph. Could more be expressed with so few words as is done in these lines?

"This Friday eve, when the meal had been eaten with the disciples together, Yeshua slept once more under his mother's roof. And when he had laid himself down to rest, Miriam went out into her garden to learn what manner of men her son had chosen for his followers. She had seen them before, at the marriage in Cana; they were the three whom he had apparently elected to be his closest intimates, for they never stirred from his side.

St. Peter

Among them was the stocky fishermen with the leathery face – Simon, whom they were already calling Cephas, signifying "a rock." A curly black beard, which seemed continuous with his hair, framed all his features. His eyes were overhung with heavy brows and made a pattern of crow's feet at their corners, all of which would have expressed only simplicity and kindness had not the frank gaze of his eyes suggested the practical sagacity of the people, the accumulated wisdom of generations.

Simon showed her all possible reverence, addressing her with utmost humility and catering to her where he could, and Miriam sensed in him the love and devotion which the simple Jew of Galilee had for her son. She soon came to understand why Yeshua held him in such high regard. For the man was all faith, and this faith had begotten his conviction that the ways of his rabbi were those of righteousness and that his every act was performed on the word of God. It fortified his hope and assured him that no harm would come to his rabbi, that Yeshua, like Elijah before him, would avoid the narrow Strait of death and ascend, undying, into heaven, there to sit on the right hand of God for the judgment of the world. In this hope Miriam found her affinity with him, for since his coming to her house, Simon had been strengthening and consoling her, saying:

"Do I not see the Angels going in and out of his door as in Abraham's house? What evil can befall him, or what hurt can come to him, when a host of ministering angels stand at his right and left, waiting to act at his bidding?"

This hope of Simon's for happy issue of his rabbi's ministry brought him close to the mother and awakened her love."

from Mary, by Sholem Asch, p. 366-368

Coincidence of experience and disconnect of experience. What do we seek in life? What is our personal experience of life and are the conclusions we draw from these experiences valid as a measure of how we should live our lives?

To provide light on the answers to these questions we look the many sources of reinforcement of or cause to abandon our experience based conclusions. One of the ways we seek such guidance is by examining the experience and conclusion of those who have placed their experience at our feet and allowed us, at their great risk, to either accept their offerings as validating our own or rejecting their conclusions as inconsistent with our own.

In our effort to validate our own experience and the conclusions we can draw from them, the seeker could be guilty of only seeking the experience of others that reinforces their own conclusions. Such a seeker could be accused of not being open to new ideas or new ways of looking at our experience, of not “thinking outside the box” so to speak.

On the other hand one could be so open to new ideas that in efforts to accept the new experiential offering, which has not been coincident with our own, that they could be guilty of abandoning accepted norms and accused of “following false prophets” so to speak.

Where then is the balance between these two opposite tendencies? Can one actually attain such a balance? When one is faced with choosing one or the other on a particular issue how is one assured that their choice is consistent with the will of God, that being the ultimate goal of existence.

Particular dangers exist in our philosophical environments that enjoy the practice of deconstruction. By deconstruction I mean the deliberate practice of trying to reinterpret certain accepted cultural axioms, even moral norms, and presenting them in innovative ways. This being “thinking outside the box”. We are constantly presented with ways in which practices once considered unacceptable to a prudent way of life are re-presented in ways which attempt to make them appear to have virtues, opposite to their original intent, which can justify their acceptance.

I offer an answer. Only look at things plainly. When you hear something or read something it evicts from you a sense of truth or a sense of self-service, believe in that initial sense. Whichever sense (feeling) you experience is probably due to the coincidence with or disconnection from your own personal experience. Follow that sense in the direction of truth.

Critics of what I say may argue that feelings are not a reliable indicator of truth. God gave us emotions for a reason. Our emotions are guided by that “tabernacle in our heart” placed in us by our creator when we were formed in the womb and through which our God speaks to us.

From Christian Perfection and Contemplation, by Rev. R. Garrigou-LaGrange, O.P., p. 207:

"Prayer is a more powerful force than all physical energies taken together, more powerful than money, than learning. Prayer can accomplish what all material things and all created spirits cannot do by their own natural powers.  According to Pascal: "All bodies, the firmament and its starts, the earth and its kingdom, are not equal to the least of spirits . . . . By assembling all material things one could not succeed in producing even one small thought.  This is impossible and belongs to another order. . . . All material bodies together and all spirits, and all that they produce are not worth the slightest movement of charity, which belongs to an infinitely more elevated order." [Pensees (Havet ed.), art.17,1.] Prayer can obtain grace for us which will make us produce this act of charity.
"Prayer thus plays an infinitely greater role in the world than the most amazing discovery."

Jesus Comes of Age

Court of the Women in Jerusalem

At the age of twelve Jesus went with his family to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. The author depicts a scene when Jesus and Mary were together in the Court of the Women. Jesus was attempting to understand the practice of burnt offerings as against the psalmist’s admonition in Palm 51, “For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased, the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not spurn.”

While Jesus was pondering reconciling these two realities Mary knelt at his side and prayed –

 “Father in heaven, I have brought him safe into thy house who is Thy pledge to the world. Behold, he is grown to manhood, but in seeing and hearing he is not like to other men. For his young heart is bruised by our sinful lives and his spirit troubled by the injustice he has met so soon in his way. Even now, standing at my side, he burns with the sacred indignation that raged in Thy Prophets. With contempt he views the flesh and fat they kindle on Thy altar, and like Isaiah he demands that the heart alone be offered before Thee.

“I know not to what paths he shall be led, nor what road Thou hast paved for him. But I do see him, like a launched arrow, speeding toward the target Thou dids't set, and my heart trembles between joy and fear. Father, I fear for him, for I see the walls of fire in his path. He is too young, Father in heaven; the thread of his life is too frail. For a little while yet, let him see the flowers, not the thorns. Leave him to me for a little while longer. And teach me what to do, Father in heaven, for I am in awe of the power of his spirit and feel too weak to be his mother.     Mary, by Sholem Asch, pp. 256-257

Sholem Asch's Portrayal of the Young Jesus

Some descriptions of the young Yeshua taken from the book, Mary, by Sholem Asch.

p. 209

The boy, Yeshua, both at school and at home, was invariably found to dominate his immediate company. What the other boys found irresistible in him was an unquestionable, absolute sincerity. And Yeshua asserted his domination with a light hand, like a born prince – not by any display of superior scholarship, but by a natural authority of character which radiated from his least action or remark.

p. 210

The boys of the higher grades, all learners of the oral Law, found their diversion in mock trials to which they brought all the penetrating sagacity of scholastic pilpul, as taught during school hours. They would choose one of their number to act as judge, and he, after hearing the case – usually an involved contrivance of improbabilities – handed down a sentence framed in the spirit of the scribes and Pharisees. Not infrequently the sentence passed was of such astuteness that it was reported to the Rabbi, who, on occasions, had been known to pass it on to Jerusalem. The elders, therefore, encourage the game, seeing it as a welcome means for whetting a child's intellect and fortifying him in the knowledge of the Law.

Young Yeshua showed no ambition to excel in the game. The truth was that he had little relish for the oral Law with its labyrinthine technicalities. And when his friends challenged him to take part in the mock trials, he answered with finality, "I don't like to pass judgment on people."

p. 211

Yeshua lived in the world of the Prophets. He did not shine in the other studies, some of which called for great keenness and subtlety, involving as they did complex calculations concerning measures and crops. Nor was he much taken with interpretations of the Law, no matter how ingenious they might appear to others. His affinity was with the Prophets, whom he interpreted according to his own judgement.

Mosaic of the Prophet Jeremiah in the
 facade of Basilica of Saint Paul
outside the walls. Rome, Italy

In Yeshua’s grade they were studying the book of Jeremiah. They had come to the passage where the Prophet comforts his people and, in the face of the direst peril, foretells the future of radiance and joy. No man could more cruelly damn and execrate his people – and no one knew better how to console. The majestic mourner of Israel was also the sweetest minstrel of Israel's hope. Even now he had brought his fiery scourge down on their cowering backs, adding the Prophet's lash to the enemies sword, as though he gloried in his nation's wounds and had sworn to unscab their sores that they might never heal – but all at once he changes pitch and sings again of forgiveness to make the heart burst with hope. No man expressed more intimately his nearness to God than this Prophet of wrath and lamentation. Never once did he utter a plaint for his own torments, which were the wages of his exhortations. Not a drop of his personal bitterness stained the cup of comfort which he held out to his people. The spittle in his face was forgotten, his bruised body covered over, his prisoner's ditch consigned to oblivion. From the mouth of the Rachel he let poor and undying lament for his people, the mothers lament for her sons. And the voice of God itself he invoked to restrain Rachel’s tears with assurance of love and forgiveness. And finally, he stirred the deepest

Rachel

longing of his people till the end of time, when, like a messenger of love, he delivered the mystery of Israel's marriage with the Lord: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they brake, although I was a husband to them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After these days, saith the Lord, I will put My Law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." [Jer. 31-35]

By these words Yeshua was so deeply stirred that he could not hold back his tears while he recited them in class. There was laughter among some of the boys; others wept with him. All felt moved by the Prophet’s compassion, and even those who pretended to laugh did so with forced bravado as if to show their manly self-possession.

A Model for the Mother-Child Bond

Sholem Asch, in the passage that follows, provides a scene between the small child, Jesus and his mother. The child is wrestling with the story of Cain and Abel and Mary tries to answer the questions posed by Jesus. The segment in bold (my emphasis) is one that underscores Mary's role as an intercessor, even perhaps as co-redemptrix, on our behalf; and this from a Jewish writer. It is no wonder that Sholem Asch took a lot of heat from his fellow Jews.

***************************************************** 

   “Why,” he asked suddenly, “why did God accept Abel’s sacrifice and reject Cain’s?”

   “God reads the inward thoughts of men,” said Miriam, “and knows His servitors who are pure and contrite of heart and bring their offerings in love and goodwill. And He knows such as sacrifice in greed and hope of preferment. For there are men who have the grace of God and others who walk in darkness, destitute of grace.”

   The boy weighed the words and asked at last: “And what shall they do who have not God’s grace? Are they not to be pitied?”

   “Have you not learned,” Miriam asked in reply, “what the Lord said to Cain? – ‘If thou doest well, Shall you not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door and unto it shall be your desire, but thou shalt rule over it.’ God said this not to Cain alone, tinoki, but to all his descendants who envy their brothers, and, like Cain, wear a wroth and fallen countenance. God says to them – why art thou wroth and why is your countenance fallen? You can counter the sin at your door, for the choice is yours. You can choose the good or the evil. Punish then the evil that lies in your heart and seek to do well.”

   Yeshua pondered this in silence, sighing with finality, said: Emi, do you know what I think? I think God should appoint a helper for those who do not have the Lord’s grace, to take their part before God. These men more than the righteous need a helper, for the righteous have father and mother to take care of them.”

   Then Miriam’s eyes grew moist, and she said, “Tinoki, tinoki, when you grow up you shall be their helper.”

   “No, Emi, not I but you!”

   “Why I tinoki?”

   “Because you have pity for whosoever stands on your threshold, and there is no one can prevail against your tears. When your tears fall God will have compassion for them.”

   “Please, tinoki, I can bear it no more,” She turned her head away so that he would not see her tears.

(from Mary,part 2, chapter V, p.170-171)

A Spiritual Insight into Mary

Asch’s book on Mary is, of course, a novel. It is probably a weaving of fact and fiction.  Who but the most astute scholar of Jewish life and history would be able to distinguish those threads one from the other. Early in the book Asch describes a small patch of the fabric of Miriam’s spiritual life. Does it matter if it is true? Can we assume Asch is giving us a glimpse into the spirituality of the religious Jew at that time? Regardless of the answer to these questions, it cannot be denied that the author provides a moving account of the Jewish people’s reverence for Rachel and of Mary’s in particular.

   “… for a long time past, certain individual women had been mainstays of the imaginative life of the people. Their names assumed high rank in Israel’s hierarchy and quickened the creative fantasy of the myth makers. The Matriarchs of Israel were canonized by the people and placed , beside their men, on the uppermost rungs of Jacob’s heavenly ladder.

Rachel at the well

   …. ‘But of all mothers in Israel none was loved more deeply than Rachel. Rachel, Jacob’s bride-elect. For her the youthful Jacob had toiled twice seven years, and still she was an outcast in the holy matriarchy. In pain and agony she had born Israel a son, and had died bearing him another. And she alone among the Matriarchs was not laid in the ancestral sepulcher, to share the shade of Abraham and Isaac and her doting husband Jacob – as did her rival, Leah. She, Rachel, was hastily interred on the road to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem, like some worthless stone that one thrusts out of one’s way. Yet, surely, there was providence even in this. For she was buried on the highway down which, in years to come, Nebzaradan would lead Jewry into exile. The ruthless Babylonian would be scourging them past Rachel’s grave, and she, a sentinel by the roadside, would arise from her tomb and come before the Lord with bitter weeping for her children’s sake. And God would sustain her with words of comfort, saying:

‘Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and thy children shall return to their own borders.’

…. For the girl Miriam, Rachel had long been the chosen patroness, a guardian angel watching over her. Many times she saw her, not only in her dreams at night, but in broad daylight, seeing with inward eyes. The mother Rachel would appear to her, swathed in a dusky veil. At times her features were uncovered to reveal large dark eyes, reddened and moist, and heavy with grief and compassion, as though the anguish of all Israel were stored in them. And from those eyes Miriam felt the anguish radiating into her own heart as if the mother Rachel wished to make the girl a part of her and bind her to herself in a community of love and grief. To the girl Miriam the thought of Rachel was like the immanence of heaven.”

At this point in Sholem’s narrative, Mary is unaware of her coming commission as the mother of the Messiah. Yet her visions of Rachel and Rachel’s agony over the plight of her children has instilled in Mary a prescient sense of her impending role. Asch’s quote from Jeremiah, 31:15-16 hints at the author’s scriptural foundations of the story he is weaving.

It is interesting to compare Mary’s innate sense of history with today’s tendency to lay our memories at the feet of change and ignore, if not completely forget or obliterate, our past.

All commentaries aside, our author is a master of conjuring Jewish religious sensibilities.