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| Photina n., An issue of water from the earth; a spring; a fountain. v.intr., To rise to the surface, ready to flow; to rise or surge from an inner source. v.tr., To pour forth. adj., In a satisfactory condition; right or proper. interj., Used to introduce a remark, resume a narrative, or fill a pause during conversation; used to express surprise.dictionary.com |
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Friday, February 14, 2003 Happy Sts. Cyril and Methodius Day! Probably not quite the greeting one expects to get on February 14th... In any case, it is, and they trump St. Valentine. St. Cyril was one of the first developers of the Cyrillic alphabet (hence the name of the alphabet...). My college roommate, who opted to take Russian instead of French, has him to thank (at least in part) for the fact that the Russian "H" has an "N" sound, etc. The image to go with this day is simply an icon of Saints Methodius and Cyril, Cyril pictured holding a scroll with the Cyrillic alphabet. posted by Heidi | 14.2.03 Thursday, February 13, 2003 Today the first reading described the creation of Eve. The image I chose is a Byzantine mosaic from somewhere around 1160. posted by Heidi | 13.2.03 Wednesday, February 12, 2003 The first reading for today was on the creation of Adam in the second chapter of Genesis. The image I chose is Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni's painting of The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There is no substitute for seeing the Sistine Chapel in person. I had the opportunity to go to Rome in the beginning of March, 2000, before the world converged on Rome for World Youth Day. The Sistine Chapel was relatively empty when we saw it, and I sat down against the screen that divides the chapel and just stared up. Michelangelo had a sculptor's genius for spatial relationships, and he painted the figures as if they were leaning down out of the ceiling--something that can be fully appreciated only in person. posted by Heidi | 12.2.03 Tuesday, February 11, 2003 Today is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The image is a stained glass window from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Virginia. posted by Heidi | 11.2.03 Monday, February 10, 2003 Road to Rome, Part XII Before I begin this post, here are links to the other parts of my story: Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI sidenote Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part XI I had my turning point (Part X), I was confronted with my first taste of blatant anti-Catholic sentiment directed at me (Part XI), and I had two weeks until I took off for an Ecumenical Youth Congress. Two weeks of interior wrestling. I had made my peace with my most significant theological barrier to Catholicism, discovering in the process that the barrier was more my pride than my Protestantism (Part X ), but my issues with Catholicism were far from over. The next one was looming large. Legalism. Must go to Mass on Sunday. Must go to confession. Days of fasting, days of abstinence. Thou shalt, thou shalt not. Rules and regulations, policies and procedures, codes and canons. You must do this or else... The Law. Something in me died as I said to God that I could accept this if He had instituted it, but I did not understand it... Didn't Christ die to set us free from the law? I left on a long-weekend vacation with my family and took with me A Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. I was lying on the couch reading it one afternoon when I read: The apostle Paul says, "he who sows to his own flesh will from his own flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Gal. 6:8). Paul's analogy is instructive. A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines--they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. The Disciplines are God's way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work with us and transform us. By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done. They are God's means of grace. The inner righteousness that we seek is not something that is poured on our heads. God has ordained the Disciplines of the spiritual life as the means by which we place ourselves where he can bless us. - Richard Foster, A Celebration of Discipline, page 7. They are God's means of grace. "Means of grace" might (and does) mean any number of things to Richard Foster, but to a catechised Lutheran it means one thing: the Sacraments. But here he was, applying it to things entirely outside of Baptism and the Eucharist, and explaining the active receptivity of man to the workings of Divine grace. There's a bit of irony in the fact that it was a Quaker who brought me to an understanding of Catholic canon law... It is not about the Law--it is about Grace! Amazing grace... Our Mother the Church knows that we, her children, need direction, and so she gives it. This is not the Law of the Old Testament that condemns us to captivity, but a law that truly imparts life, for perfection comes not through our actions in keeping it perfectly but rather through the grace of God that is lavished upon us as we, in abiding by the directions of the Church, open ourselves to Him. Open ourselves (allow ourselves to be opened?) by availing ourselves of the Sacraments most centrally, and by attending Mass, by fasting and abstaining, by praying, by the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, by all the means direct and indirect that He has given us. Obeying the codes and canons, rules and regulations of the Catholic Church is not fundamentally about following a list of "does" and "do nots." It is about receptivity to divine grace. Being in a place to receive God's transforming grace that we may be changed from one degree of glory to the next, that we may be transformed into His likeness, that we, His bride, may truly be bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. And it is about the reality that to reject this grace, and to reject the opportunities that He has given us to receive this grace, is essentially to reject Him--and what, if not that, is mortal sin? It seemed to me that this was the essential thing that Martin Luther had missed when he started the Reformation, but I found myself struggling to understand how he, Catholic and theologian, hardly lacking intelligence (sheer stupidity is not generally one of the faults Luther is accused of), had missed it. As I left for the Ecumenical Youth Congress in the middle of July, I found myself praying semi-facetiously for the chance to talk with Luther to find out what he'd missed. Suffice it to say that God answered a prayer that I hadn't even known I really meant. I didn't talk with Luther himself, or even with a tormented Augustinian monk, but God gave me exactly the conversation that I needed. (You know who you are, and thank you again...) Other things from the Ecumenical Youth Congress: the opportunity to attend daily Mass, a multiple-day workshop on the Catholic perspective on Ecumenism drawing primarily from Ut Unum Sint, the chance to see friends from all over. And, at Mass that Sunday, the realization that I was present at the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb... As soon as I arrived home from EYC, I spent twenty-four hours scrambling for an opportunity to go to the World Youth Day weekend. I'd known that it had been possible to register for the entire week, but I hadn't been aware that a weekend option had been available. To say that it was a bit late to try to do anything about it would be an understatement--I was scrambling for this on Monday; those going up for the whole week had already left. I knew, however, that if God wanted me to go, He would arrange it--and He did. Not only did He arrange it, but He gave me the energy for it--an amazing grace for an amazing time. I have no words to adequately address it right now--for the people, for the Pope's address during the prayer vigil or his homily on Sunday, for the torrential rain and wind that ceased as soon as the Mass was underway... I came back from World Youth Day and entered the RCIA program as soon as it began in September. God's hand has been on me, guiding me and protecting me, and may it continue to be still. posted by Heidi | 10.2.03 Today is the feast of St. Scholastica, twin sister of St. Benedict. The Dialogues of Gregory the Great contains a section on The Life and Miracles of St. Benedict. Part of that section talks about St. Scholastica, and it is from this that most of our information about her comes. The image is a painting titled The Death of St. Scholastica by Jean Restout, a French Neoclassical painter of the eighteenth century. posted by Heidi | 10.2.03 |
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