The Wooziness of Grace

From Lisa Velthouse's Craving Grace:
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Theres a certain wooziness that accompanies grace. That much I know. It's the feeling of being bowled over by generosity and simultaneously being gut-certain you don't come close to deserving it. It's the kind of feeling that can leave one awed and overjoyed in an instant, that can throw legitimate doubts and fears out the window.

On Lent

From the editors of "Bread and Wine," a book containing readings for Lent and Easter:
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"Whatever else it may be, Lent should never be morose -- an annual ordeal during which we begrudgingly forgo a handful of pleasures. Instead, we ought to approach Lent as an opportunity, not a requirement. After all, it is meant to be the church's springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin's winter, a repentant, empowered people emerges."

Book Review

This review appeared originally at Alan's Eyes & Ears.

Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art, and Life, by Judith DuPre. Hardcover.

Every Christmas, I pick up a specifically seasonal book, and the last few years, that reading has focused on the Virgin Mary. This is another of those books, and a beautiful one at that.

The book contains dozens of striking photos, mostly of Marian works of art, although other photos are included that speak to particular themes. There are famous works of art, and obscure works of art. There is painting, photography, sculpture, and architecture. In addition to brief discussions of the artistic works, the book talks about a range of discussions related to Mary and related themes. Some of these are historical, some are devotional, and some come from the author's experience.

DuPre is taking a clearly modern view on Mary, and sometimes moves a tad too far into the non-traditional for my personal comfort level. But I take those passages as thought-provoking, as challenging, and DuPre usually moves back inside the guardrails of my comfort zone in due course.

Dante on the Trinity

In the deep and bright
essencs of that exalted Light, three circles
appeared to me; they had three different colors,
but all of them were of the same dimension;
one circle seemed reflected by the second,
as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third
seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles.

Steve Nicholson on Simplicity

Proper attitudes toward simplicity:
1. Receive what you have, what comes to you, as a gift from God.
2. It is God's business, not yours, to care for what you need and what you have.
3. Have your goods available to others.

Steps to take in developing a lifestyle of simplicity:
 1. Buy things for their usefullness, rather than their status.
 2. Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
 3. Develop a habit of giving things away.
 4. Refuse to be propagandized by advertising and the cult of the latest gadgetry.
 5. Learn to enjoy things without owning them.
 6. Look with a healthy skepticism on "buy now, pay later" schemes.
 7. Obey Jesus' instrictions about plain, honest speech.
 8. Reject anything that leads to the oppression of other people.
 9. Stress quality of life over quantity, and being over having.
10. Take time to see if God will provide a need without having to buy it.

2013 priorities

In deciding what to prioritize for my spiritual life in 2013, I have decided to retain my 2012 priorities, which I accomplished to various degrees in 2012. In looking at the "new monastic" and "urban monastic" movements, and I will continue to try to integrate these 5 priorities into my life.

S olitude
S tillness
S ilence
S implicity
S ervice

I have not worked out how each of these will be integrated into my life, but I have confidence that I'll figure it out. I have a destination.

Augustine on the Word

"Now this Word that was in God, this Word that was God, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made, in whom was life: he has come down to us. What were we? Did we deserve him to come to us? No, we were unworthy of his having compassion on us but he was worthy of taking pity on us."

on the Holy Innocents

From St. Gregory of Nissa (355-395):
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What does the killing of children signify? Why venture on so horrible a crime? If Jesus is lord of the stars, is he not sheltered from your attacks? You think you have power to give life or death yet you have nothing to fear from someone of such gentleness ... the mystery of the Passion begins today.

Athanasius on the Psalms

Comments by St. Athanasius, the great 4th century teacher. Being one the great intellectual lights of his time, I like the way he appreciates the power of the Psalms to stir the emotions.
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"But even so, the Book of Psalms thus has a certain grace of its own, and a distinctive exactitude of expression. For in addition to the other things in which is enjoys an affinity and fellowship with the other books, it posses, beyond that, this marvel of its own – namely, that it contains even the emotion of each soul, and it has the changes and rectifications of these delineated and regulated in itself.

[And] in the Book of Psalms, the one who hears, in addition to learning these things, also comprehends and is taught in it the emotions of the soul, and consequently on the basis of that which affects him and by which he is constrained, he also is enabled by this book to possess the image deriving from the words.

And it seems to me that these words become like a mirror to the person singing them, so that he might perceive himself and the emotions of his soul, and thus affected, he might recite them."

An Advent Thought

I had never run across this concept of the 3 advents, presented in a sermon from Pierre de Blois, who lived from 1130-1211. But I think I like it.
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There are three advents of the Lord: the first in the flesh, the second in the soul, and the third at the judgement. This first advent has already happened since Christ has been seen on earth and has spoken with men. This second advent is therefore something mingled with uncertainty, since who other but the Holy Spirit known who is God's? As for the third advent: it is most certain that it will happen, most certain that it will happen. For this is nothing more certain than death, nothing less certain than the day of our death.

Thus the first advent was lowly and hidden; the second is mysterious and full of love; the third will be dazzling and terrible.

In his first advent Christ was judged unjustly by men; in the second, he grants us justice by his grace; in the last, he will judge all things with equity.

Lamb in the first advent; Lion in the last; our most gentle Friend in the second.