(1. Soul of Christ, sanctify me.)

(2. Body of Christ, save me.)

(3. Blood of Christ, inebriate me.)

(4. Water from the side of Christ, wash me.)

(5. Passion of Christ, strengthen me.)

(6. Within thy wounds, hide me.)

(7. Let me never be separated from Thee.)

(8. From the wicked foe defend me.)

(9. At the hour of my death, call me.)

(10. That I may praise Thee forever.)

- – - – -

That with thy saints I may praise thee
for ever and ever.  Amen.
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
in saecula saeculorum.

When Sister Elizabeth was about ten years old, her parents dropped her off at church to sing with the choir at a parish mission.  Listening more attentively than most children might to the priest’s talk, she was disheartened to hear heaven described as an eternity of looking at God – a boring eternity of standing in long rows, as she pictured it, forever and ever and ever.  Little Elizabeth decided then and there that if this was heaven, she wasn’t interested.  As soon as she got home, she reported her decision to her parents, who understandably never again allowed her to attend a parish mission.

What are we entreating God to bestow upon us in this final petition of the Anima Christi?  Are we begging to stand in never-ending rows, gazing and praising in deathless boredom?  No, in truth, we are praying for the fulfillment of our purpose and the apex of joy.

If you are at all like me, you have moments of heartfelt gratitude, interspersed with moments  (sometimes more tenacious than the grateful ones) of grumbling, doubt, discouragement, guilt, and unrestrained ego.  It seems unlikely that anyone would claim that the latter are our happier times.  In fact, if we consider the occasions when we feel inclined toward grateful or admiring praise, whether for the greatness of God or for a good meal prepared by a friend, I imagine we will find that not only are these far from boring, but that they are among our most satisfying times.

Alleluia rarely springs from boredom or disinterest.  It may, however, arise during seasons of pain.  When I arrived at the local hospital where Sister Elizabeth (grown up by this time) was in the emergency room awaiting surgery for a broken ankle, I heard singing coming from one of the cubicles.  The voice sounded familiar.  It turned out to belong to Sister Elizabeth, lying on a gurney and singing the Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

I cannot forget a comment posted on YouTube: “On a very sad night….Praise is all I can do.”

After death, though, there will be no more pain or sorrow to dilute our praise.  “Bid me come to thee, that with thy saints I may praise thee for ever and ever.”

Saved Together

And notice this – we are not saved in isolation, but along with all the holy ones of God.  Isaiah emphasizes the communal nature of God’s consoling and glorious appearing:

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ (40:5)

In Paul’s letter to the Romans we read that humans beings are not alone in waiting “with eager longing” for the completion of God’s purpose.  Although groaning now, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:18-23).

It is right, then, that we pray to be united in praise with God’s holy ones – who will probably be a motley crew.  Indeed, there might be people whose presence among the blessed assembly will surprise us; while others might be astonished to find us included among the sanctified.

Joseph Tetlow, S.J., paraphrases the final petition petition of the Anima Christi this way:

Stand me solid among angels and saints
chanting yes to all you have done,
exulting in all you mean to do forever and ever.

At last, our purpose as human beings will be complete and our whole being, like that of Christ, will be a joyful yes to God.  The very idea of saying yes too often evokes fears of the thing I least want to happen (thereby summoning forth a gritting of teeth and the pious utterance, “O God, give me the strength to accept your will”).  But finally the will of God will be received for what in reality it has always been, the source of peace and joy; and in that gracious will we will be freed to exult.

From “Me” to “Thee”

Ron Hansen points out the grammatical movement in the Anima Christi from “me” to “thee”:

Nine lines of the prayer have been completed by the accusative pronoun me.  But as the “Anima Christi” winds up, there is the “from you” of the eighth line and the “to you” of the eleventh, and the twelfth, penultimate line will have Christ’s te without preposition, imitating Christ’s shift to the central point in the writer’s existence.

Ron Hansen, A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction (HarperCollins, 2002), 174.

“He must increase,” says John the Baptist, “but I must decrease.”  May the Spirit of Jesus work in us as we pray the Anima Christi, so that the same shift toward Christ may be taking place even now in the grammar of our own lives.

- – - – -

O God worthy of all praise,
May I not withhold praise, waiting until life is perfected
Or until I am worthy to exalt you.
May my whole being be a flame of praise to you and in you.

At the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to thee,
that with thy saints I may praise thee
for ever and ever.  Amen.
In hora mortis meae voca me,
et iube me venire ad te.
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

- – - – -

“Praise Thee Forever” image by Rose Hoover, rc

God calls, not just at the moment of death, but through our day-to-day lives.

Anima Christi – 9

(1. Soul of Christ, sanctify me.)

(2. Body of Christ, save me.)

(3. Blood of Christ, inebriate me.)

(4. Water from the side of Christ, wash me.)

(5. Passion of Christ, strengthen me.)

(6. Within thy Wounds, hide me.)

(7. Let Me Never Be Separated from Thee.)

(8. From the Wicked Foe Defend Me.)

(9. At the hour of my death, call me.)

(10. That I May Praise Thee Forever.)

- – - – -

At the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to Thee.
In hora mortis meae voca me,
et iube me venire ad te.

There is a book by Alfred McBride, which seems to be out of print now, called Remaining Faithful (or perhaps it is called Staying Faithful, which is the only similar title I can find by Father McBride).

In this book he speaks of a woman who founded a Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., ministering to poor black people who had traveled north from the rural South to find work.  Called Bishop Jones, she had a radio show on Sunday mornings.  Here is a passage from a sermon given on Palm Sunday:

Children, remember how hard it was when you worked on the farm.  At the end of the day your back was sore.  Your arms ached.  Your head throbbed.  But then you heard your mother come out on the porch and say, ‘Come on in.  It’s time to eat.’  And as you sat and ate, your aches and pains melted away and peace filled your heart.

Now next Thursday is Holy Thursday.  Christ will come out on the church porch and say, ‘Come on in and eat.’  And when you do he will take away the ache in your heart and the sorrow in your soul.  He will fill you with love and peace and forgiveness.

And an even greater day will come, the day of your death.  Then Christ will come out on the heavenly porch and say, ‘Children, come in and eat.  I have an eternal banquet ready for you.  Welcome home.’

God is leading us where we want to be – to our heart’s desire.  We are being led to God.  God is leading us home.

What a wonderful prayer – “bid me come to Thee.”

According to Pope John Paul II:

This is the prayer of Christian hope, which in no way detracts from the joy of the present, while entrusting the future to God’s gracious and loving care.

“Iube me venire ad te!” [Bid me come to Thee]: this is the deepest yearning of the human heart, even in those who are not conscious of it.

Grant, O Lord of life, that we may be ever vividly aware of this and that we may savor every season of our lives as a gift filled with promise for the future.

(Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Elderly, October 1999)

At the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to Thee.
In hora mortis meae voca me,
et iube me venire ad te.

- – - – -

“Call Me” image by Rose Hoover, rc

Hawk under umbrella

I was in the kitchen when I heard a wild beating and clattering.  All I could see from the window was a confusion of feathers and very large wings under the patio bench.  Since the feathers appeared to belong to a hawk, I put on my raincoat and gloves (even though the temperature was hovering around 90 degrees), as I have a deep respect for the talons and beak of even an injured hawk.  Thus protected (probably inadequately), I went out and pulled one of the potted tomato plants away from the bench, hoping this would help the bird escape its confines, and then backed away.

Our good neighbors, working on the house across the street, saw the hubbub, and came over.  By this time the hawk was lying still and was panting open-beaked on the hot concrete.  She (at least we called it “she”) looked for all the world as if she were dying. One person suggested that we shade her with an umbrella, which we did.  And since she seemed unlikely to pose a threat at this point, I removed my raincoat and gloves in order to avoid my own heat stroke.

Meanwhile I had called Alachua County Animal Services, and before long a nice young man who knew much more about hawks than we did, arrived.  By this time, though, the hawk had begun to revive, and after a few minutes of sitting under the umbrella and then on the patio wall, gave a great cry and flew into one of our huge live oaks.  She rested there for a while, and eventually disappeared.

Second hawk
The second hawk arrived quietly (unlike the first one) four days later, early in the morning.  I tried to call Animal Services again, but it was Memorial Day, and the office was closed.

Juvenile hawk on patio wall

This time it was a juvenile.  She sat on the patio wall for a while and observed us.  She moved to the driveway, then to the bushes, and from there flew to the roof.  We were relieved that she had moved to a higher realm, because while the hawk was watching us, a large neighborhood cat was watching the hawk. (However, I do think the cat would have gotten an unpleasant surprise had he actually tried to grab this birdie.)

Anyhow, we were hoping the young hawk had flown home, but after lunch, there she was again, on the edge of the carport and later on the railing of the deck on the other side of the house.  In fact, she hung around most of the day.  We put water out for her on the railing, while she mildly kept an eye on us and on her surroundings, seemingly unafraid.

The next day she was gone.

Now let me tell you something strange. The first hawk – the injured one who eventually flew away – clattered onto the patio at a time when a friend had recently moved into hospice to die.  The second hawk – the young one who hung around all day – came without disturbance the day after our friend had peacefully died.

I don’t believe that the dead – or the dying – come to us literally in the form of animals. But this I do believe:

• That everyday life sometimes works in symbols, and that the symbols, if we are paying attention, can at times reveal to us a truth deeper than what our senses can perceive.
• That there is a mysterious communion among God’s holy creatures, living and dead, human or not.  (See “With a Little Help from My Friends” for a quote from Saint Ignatius of Loyola.  See also Romans 8:18-23 for an example of the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation.)

Were the hawks showing us something about our friend, first dying, then reborn in the peace of God?  Or were they just hawks who, without any significance, blundered into our yard? Who can say for sure?  What we can say is that these wild creatures brought consolation and delight in a time of sadness.

- – - – - – - – - -

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,
and spreads its wings towards the south?
(From God’s words to Job, 39:26)

When this perishable body puts on imperishability,
and this mortal body puts on immortality,
then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:54-57

I would like to share with you a few thoughts on the Resurrection from James Alison’s book Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination (28-31); for Alison finds it crucial that Jesus was “risen as crucified.” The risen Jesus, he says “didn’t appear to his disciples just as someone who had been dead, but was now better and risen….In contrast to this, the risen Jesus was dead.”

The risen Jesus was dead? Doesn’t this contradict everything we have been taught about the Resurrection? Then we remember that unlike Jesus, the raised Lazarus was not dead.  He had been returned to life – and so would have to die again.

Alison continues,

But that death is nothing but a vacant form for God, something whose reality has been utterly emptied out, which can only be detected in the form of its traces in the human story of someone who has overcome death.

The marks, then, of Jesus’ death were something like trophies: it was his whole human life, including his death, which was made alive and presented before the disciples as a sign that he had in fact conquered death.

The risen Jesus was dead, but this death no longer had substance – it was “nothing but a vacant form for God.” It was empty of any death-reality and filled with God.

“Whatever death is,” says Alison,” it is not something which has to structure every human life from within (as in fact it does), but rather it is an empty shell, a bark without a bite. None of us has any reason to fear being dead, something which will unquestionably happen to all of us, since that state cannot separate us effectively from the real source of life.”

“Peace be with you,” says Jesus to the disciples hidden and trembling behind locked doors on the first day of the week. Then he shows them his wounds and says once again, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19-21).

- – - – -

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
(1 Corinthians 1:18,25)

Right after D-Day, our Sister Elizabeth — not yet Sister, but Lieutenant Hillmann — was stationed at a hospital in Bristol. Among her patients was a horribly burned soldier, barely out of childhood when he went off to war. He was burned every place on his body except for his face and the palms of his hands (suggesting that he had covered his face with his hands when the tank burst into flames). Not only that, but his burns were infested with maggots.

He kept getting worse, and he knew he was going to die. One day he asked Lieutenant Hillmann if she would write to his mother when he died.

“Tell her not to worry. It’s all right. I know I’ll be in heaven, because I’ve been a good boy.”

Very much at peace, he died soon after.

As Advent begins, we look not just toward the birth of Christ, but toward the Second Coming of Christ in glory. Jesus tells us that we know neither the day nor the hour, but urges us to be always ready. Perhaps he will return tonight or during lunch tomorrow. On the other hand, perhaps we will meet Christ in glory at the moment of our physical death, when time will be no more and all our words and concepts of God will be revealed in their inadequacy.

The young soldier was ready for glory. But what about those of us whose hearts are less simple — those of us who cannot claim with confidence that we have been “good boys” or “good girls”? Should we fear that day? Should we fear the Second Coming Christ in glory — or, if he seems to tarry, the day of our death?

The gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent has words of encouragement for that time when the cosmic events related to the Second Coming occur:

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28)

What are we to do besides standing up and raising our heads? After all, we do not have the purest of hearts. Our thoughts and actions are far from blameless.

First, we can throw ourselves on the mercy of God.
Jesus manifested this mercy in his earthly life; he showed us the same abundant mercy in his resurrection appearances; and we can be sure that in spite of whatever unsettling events may come to pass, his Second Coming will be charged with the power and tenderness of God’s mercy.

Second, we can offer for ourselves and for others the prayer of the second reading from the first Sunday of Advent:

May the Lord make you increase
and abound in love
for one another and for all,…
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness
before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus
with all his holy ones. Amen.
(1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 NAB)

And we can view the moment of his coming with joyful anticipation, for — wonder beyond all wonders — the highest ambition of the Christian life will be fulfilled: we shall be like Jesus; and this means that we shall be like God.

We recall that the snake in Genesis promised Eve that she and Adam would be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. The serpent, however, had no authority to make that promise. He couldn’t deliver.

But God does have the authority to make the promise. This time, the desire to become like God is no longer a power grab, but a holy longing. It is the desire to be who we are created to be.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
(1 John 3:2)

The dying soldier was blessed with a childlike and trusting spirit. But we too, whether trusting or doubting, steadfast or faltering, are God’s children, even now. And so we pray with assurance, Come, Lord Jesus!

For years, Mother Therese was favored with much consolation in her prayer. But at the beginning of 1885, there has been little consolation for some time. In fact, she has been suffering — not only physical suffering as her body is dying, but spiritual suffering as well, united with the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. But this painful period at the end of her life is relieved occasionally by remarkable consolations, of which one stands out as extraordinary. It is truly an experience which Sister Paule de Lassus (Saint Therese Couderc: The Woman—The Saint) calls a foretaste of heaven.

An uninvited choir

On Saturday, January 10, Mother Therese asks Mother Marie-Aimée Lautier, her Superior General, to visit with her alone.

“I don’t know what is happening,” Mother Therese says, “but since Our Lord is letting me speak with you, I will, since I can’t with anyone else. They would think that illness has made me lose my mind.”

What Mother Therese tells her is that since the previous day, she has been surrounded by a multitude of people singing and praying.

Sometimes she is frightened, and she would like them to go away. Nevertheless, she says that “There are hours when I am totally absorbed with them, for in spite of myself, I have to join with them.”

Mother Marie-Aimée suggests that she consult with the priest who is her confessor, which Mother Therese does. The next day, when Mother Marie-Aimée goes to see her, Mother Therese seems to be more at peace with what is happening.

“The Father is not afraid and doesn’t want me to be afraid. He believes that these are the souls in Purgatory and, since they are friends of God because they love him and are loved by him, they are, in his opinion, good company.”

They are indeed good company. While Mother Therese and the priest believe they are the souls in purgatory, I tend to think that these prayerful companions are in heaven. But Mother Therese has noticed that “they suffer and they express it in a heart-rending manner.” Can people in heaven suffer?

Those who have loved us on earth do continue to love us in heaven. It is likely that they love us even more after death, because they love us with the perfect love of God. Karl Rahner envisages them praying for us in this way:

“Lord, grant eternal rest to them whom we love — as never before — in your love. Grant it to them who still walk the hard road of pilgrimage, which is none the less the road that leads to us and to your eternal light” (The Eternal Year).

I imagine that the heavenly souls who surround Mother Therese are filled with compassion for her in her own pain. Their suffering is an expression of their love for her — and since they love with the love of God, an expression of God’s love for her as well.

She goes on to tell Mother Marie-Aimée about the experience of that morning. After she received communion, she says, the choir surrounding her struck up that ancient hymn of praise, the Te Deum. However, Mother Therese, like a lot of Catholics, prefers to be quiet following communion so that she can focus on Jesus. This time she doesn’t succeed.

“At the fourth verse, despite the efforts I made to attend to Our Lord as usual, I had to pay attention to them and sing along with them: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts…. I had to follow along with them all the way to the end.”

Joining them was more than just a distraction from her prayer.

“It was wonderful. Even if I were to live a very long time I would never forget that harmony, those tones, that respect to which nothing on earth can be compared. Each verse was sung with a feeling that corresponded with the praises or the supplications that it expressed.

“When they arrived at the last verse: In Te Domine speravi, non confundar in aeternum,* they sang it at least ten times with humility, fervor, and a confidence full of love. How they pray! How they sing! Oh, if we only knew how to pray as they do!”

Practicing death

I have heard meditation described as practicing death. When I think of death, I think of being completely in the hand of God in total trust, not clinging to anything, letting go of all fear or worry. (See Se livrer, the “To Surrender Oneself” reflection of Mother Therese, where she speaks of the “sweet peace” of the totally surrendered soul, a peace which is “part of the happiness of the elect.”)

So in this context, meditation – or for that matter any kind of prayer – would involve practicing this surrender right now. It would mean resting in the presence of God in total trust (or as total as is possible on earth), rather than waiting for death to hand ourselves over to the Good God.

The choir that surrounds Mother Therese shares in this praise and peace of the blessed souls in the hand of God, a praise that is supremely beautiful. Praise of God is always lovely, of course, and the praise of these celestial multitudes is not tainted by self-seeking. An essential element of its beauty is love and compassion: in this case, the love and compassion they have for Mother Therese.

Eight months before her death, Mother Therese has experienced a foretaste of heaven. It is a heaven concerned with earth, a heaven filled with love for those of us still struggling here.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the elders fell down and worshiped.
(Revelation 5:13-14)

_____
* The 1975 Liturgy of the Hours renders the English this way: “In you, Lord, is our hope: and we shall never hope in vain.”

Then I looked around me at the assembled faithful, who, if they were not in pain at the moment, would at some time in their lives have to suffer deeply. Each one was at that moment happy or sad, healthy or sick, at ease or in pain; they were all sinful; they were every one of them headed toward death — and they were all amazingly beautiful. In fact, an essential part of their beauty seemed to me to be their mortality — or rather our mortality — and our participation in the death of Jesus.

I suppose this loveliness shouldn’t have surprised me, because we share our mortality with the Son of God. I am reminded of a quote from The Chess Garden, a remarkable novel by Brooks Hansen:

…when a Christian observes the crucifixion either in the Word, in church, or, if he should be so lucky, in the moment that contains him — he sees something beautiful, and blessed and necessary and sanctifying, for there on the cross he recognizes God, and there on the cross God recognizes him. . . . [God] continues to recognize the nature of our condition, through Christ. He continues to see that we are crucified here, and we continue to see that He is crucified here as well. So we are understood, so we are welcomed to Him, so we are forgiven. (p 433)

May we have eyes to see the beauty of the crucified Christ, and the loveliness of our participation in the mystery of his death and resurrection.

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
(Psalm 90:17 KJV)

One day he asked Sister Elizabeth, “Am I going to get better?”

She doesn’t know where the answer came from, but she found herself saying, “Yes, you are going to get better — if not here, then in heaven.”

The next day when she went into his room, she found him still in pain, but totally at peace. “I’m glad I’m going to get better,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where — here or in heaven.” A few days later he died.

In The Impact of God, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995), Iain Matthew reflects on the experience of darkness as described by Saint John of the Cross. Matthew says that although not all pain is a healing darkness — that “night more lovely than the dawn” where God works to bring us to union with Christ — it is still true that any suffering can become this blessed night.

One of the qualities of this grace-filled night is that there is an “inflow of God”:

“The admission that we cannot heal ourselves, while it may take some tension out of the air, fails of itself to hold out hope. What makes ‘night’ blessed is the added assurance that the one who can heal does intend to heal. Where God finds space, he enters….That is what makes night something other than disastrous.”

“The one who can heal does intend to heal.”

Whether our suffering is physical or on some other level, God wants to heal us. What matters most in the long run, may not be whether the medical or psychic “cure” takes place now or later. To accept God’s loving desire to enter into our pain, to allow in ourselves the space where God can enter, to respond with faith to the “inflow of God” — this may in itself be a deeper healing than any cure would be.

Sister Elizabeth’s patient placed his trust in the healing intention of God, and his darkness became a blessed night filled with peace as it led him to that ultimate healing of heaven.

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
(Psalm 139:7-12)