To return, however, to the opening verses of the Canto: these are St. Bernard’s prayer to the Blessed Virgin, a beautiful and adoring paean. There is one verse, though, which jars me. In spite of the sublimity of the poetry, I believe Dante is mistaken when he has Bernard say to Mary:

you are the one who so ennobled
human nature that the maker of it
condescended to be made of it.

It was not because Mary was so good that God became human, but because you and I were (and are) in such need — because so often we debase rather than ennoble our human nature. Jesus comes to us out of that “love which moves the sun and the other stars,” a love so encompassing that it freely enfolds us in our sinfulness and our brokenness.

At the end of the Paradiso the poet experiences his own desire and will “turned already, / like a wheel that is moved evenly, / by the love which moves the sun and the other stars.”

In our truest self, each one of us is also moved by this love. Let us pray that through Jesus, God-with-us, our whole being might be in harmony with the divine love.

O loving God,
may I wait in peace for you,
and waiting
enter the place in my heart
where like the sun and the stars
I am moved only by your love,
and there find you
already with me,
waiting for me.

 

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.
(Psalm 130:5-6)

“Let us love, because He first loved us.” [1 John 4:19]

For how should we love, except He had first loved us? By loving we became friends: but He loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and gave us the gift of loving Him. We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful…

But our soul, my brethren, is unlovely by reason of iniquity: by loving God it becomes lovely. What a love must that be that makes the lover beautiful! But God is always lovely, never unlovely, never changeable. Who is always lovely first loved us…

How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is always lovely. As the love increases in you, so the loveliness increases: for love is itself the beauty of the soul.

“Let us love, because He first loved us.”

Homilies on the First Letter of John, IX,9,
Translated by H. Browne

For high quality viewing, click on “HQ” (bottom right of frame) after video starts.

Jesu, tibi vivo; Jesu, tibi morior;
Jesu, sive vivo, sive morior, tuus sum.

(Jesus, for you I live; Jesus, for you I die;
Jesus, whether I live or whether I die, I am yours.)

The lyrics are based on Romans 14:7-8:

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

I used to think that “Jesu Tibi Vivo” belonged to us, but have recently learned that it is far older than the Cenacle. It dates from the Middle Ages (at least according to one source), and it can be found here and there on the internet — primarily on Italian sites.  In fact, there is a rather remarkable photograph, posted on FlickR by Lyonora, of a young Italian drinking what appears to be an espresso.  On his arm are tattooed the words, “Sive vivo, sive morior, tuus sum”: whether I live or whether I die, I am yours.

Tuus sum: I am yours.

This is the primary, the most basic reality of our human existence. We belong to God who loves us totally and without reserve. We human beings can be confused about who we are in the depth of our being – and who we are called to be.  But one thing is clear. We are God’s, and our life is gift. Tuus sum.

Now saying “I am yours” is different from saying “You are mine.” In the human context, “You are mine,” can be abusive if it is not part of the relational and reciprocal “I am yours.” God in Christ does say to us, “You are mine” (see Isaiah 43, for example); but being claimed in this way by God is freeing, not imprisoning. According to Pope Benedict XVI:

Before we can say “I am yours”, he [Christ] has already told us “I am yours”… With his Incarnation he said: I am yours. And in Baptism he said to me: I am yours. In the Holy Eucharist, he says ever anew: I am yours, so that we may respond: Lord, I am yours…

Address at the opening of the 12th Ordinary General Assembly
of the Synod of Bishops, October 2008.

The Creator of the universe does not call us into an abusive relationship. God does not say “you are mine” as if speaking to a slave, because God also says “I am yours.” As strange as it may sound in a society that tends to idealize autonomy, obedience to God becomes what is most freeing for us. Dwelling in the love of God to whom we belong and whose own love is self-giving, our own limited love may then be transformed into the joyfully self-giving love of Christ.

I am not my own.
I am yours.
In that I find my joy and my peace.

_____

Listen to “Jesu Tibi Vivo,” as sung by Cenacle Sisters.
There are two CDs available on the Cenacle Sisters’ website which offer “Jesu Tibi Vivo” with both Latin and English verses.

The internet has made me more aware than ever of our human tendency to judge each other, although I doubt that more judging is going on now than in the pre-cyberspace world. It is rather that no thought, holy or otherwise, seems to remain unpublished these days.

The blatant ugliness of most of the judgments serves as a caution to me when I am tempted to indulge in it myself.

Below are a few examples, most of which will remain anonymous to protect the perpetrators. But first a distinction:

It is one thing to condemn an action that is obviously harmful. This we must do when necessary.

It is another thing altogether to condemn the person who commits the action; or to claim to know that a person’s heart is evil; or to predict the final end of another; or to hold a person in scorn.  All of these fall under the commandment of Jesus not to judge, that we ourselves may not be judged.

Now to the examples drawn from various websites:

An anti-Christian site informs us that it is only the immature who believe in “non-existent beings,” such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Jesus.

You can read elsewhere that most Christians are mean-spirited; and that people who speak out for God are often lunatics.

But neither are believers always generous toward other believers (or toward God, for that matter):

Mel Gibson says, “My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am…She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff.”
No matter, for she’s probably going to hell, we learn. It turns out that she is Episcopalian, not Catholic. (Note that the Catholic Church would NOT take the harsh stand that Gibson takes toward his wife.)

On a blog by a young Catholic we are informed that the souls of those who voted for Barack Obama are also in danger of hell.

We find on YouTube that people who practice centering prayer are deceived by Satan, both in being seduced into adopting this form of prayer in the first place, and also because this kind of prayer makes one open to demonic suggestion.

And let’s not forget the Antichrist: the pope is probably the most popular candidate (any pope, pick one).  Others who have been named are Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, the president of the European Union – and on and on….

Even more radically vicious judgments are on the loose (if it is possible to be more vicious than calling someone the Antichrist) which I will not cite because they are not suited for a family-friendly web page.  These judgments I prefer to chalk up to zealous ignorance.

So let us pause and take a deep breath of fresh air…

To continue on a happier note, here are some quotes about the true judgment:

In the evening of life, we will be judged on love.
(St. John of the Cross)

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory… Then through his Son Jesus Christ, [God] will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death.
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1040)

Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
(Psalm 98:8-9)

But when I typed, “What does love require?” (once again, in quotes), there were only 350 pages listed, and most were in the Christian context.  It’s those requirements that get to us.  So I asked myself what love requires.  Knowing that we can love only because we have been loved (see 1 John), the first is probably not a surprise; and the others follow.

Remembering that I am the beloved of God: frail, fallible sinner though I be;

Remembering that the other is the beloved of God, whether the other is a child, a co-worker, a beggar, or a terrorist planting a roadside bomb;

Prayer: to take on the mind and heart of Jesus, so that we grow in loving with God’s love, and that we become the mercy and compassion of Christ for the people we meet and for the world.

Our practical actions, I believe, flow from these three.  I am sure that you can flesh out this short list, and I would be glad to hear from you with your own additions.

 _____

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.

(1 John 4:16-19)

The cross is at the heart of God.

Does God Have a Heart?
For better or for worse, early Christian theology was strongly influenced by Greek philosophy. One (for me) infamous notion inherited from the philosophers is the impassibility of God. The belief that God is not capable of suffering was axiomatic for many Christian thinkers in the early centuries of the Church. It was later embraced by Thomas Aquinas, and it can still be found in the work of some contemporary theologians – this in spite of the biblical witness of a passionate God, a God who is afflicted in all our affliction (Isaiah 63:9, see RSV) and who grieves when we are unfaithful (Hosea 11:7-9).

If you believe that God cannot suffer, then it follows, as Thomas Aquinas says, that “Christ’s Passion did not pertain to his divinity” (Summa Theologica, III, Q 46, A 12). In this view, Jesus did suffer on the cross, but only in his humanity. If we carry this schema a step further, we are faced with a disturbing scenario: God the Father in no distress as he witnessed the Son in agony.

Suffering was viewed as a sign of imperfection.

However, we would probably argue — we who are made in the image of God — that the inability to suffer would itself constitute a grave flaw. It would certainly be a flaw in a human being. We know from our own experience that human maturity requires not only the ability to feel our own pain, but also the capacity for compassion, a word that literally means “suffering with.”

And from where does the ability to be compassionate come? Human beings receive this gift, like all good gifts, from God, whose own “compassion is over all that he has made” (Psalm 145:9).

If Jesus who died and was raised reveals God to us, who is the God whom he makes known?

Jesus reveals a God who is compassionate toward us like the best of fathers (Psalm 103:13), who loves us even more than a mother loves her child (Isaiah 49:15). Karl Rahner, speaking of the Incarnation, says that God’s Word who is Christ says to us: I am there. I am with you… I weep your tears. I am your joy… I am in your fear, because I have suffered it myself. I am in your death… I am your life.Kleines Kirchenjahr (Muenchen: Ars sacra, 1954)

We dwell in God. We are infused throughout our being with God who permeates every atom and electron and quark of our being.

The divine compassion assures us that whatever we do and experience, whether joyful or sorrowful, all is held and valued in the heart of God.

The divine omnipotence assures us that just as the pain and sorrow of Jesus were not wasted, neither will our own pain and sorrow be wasted.

The cross of Christ is at the heart of God. Our human life is in the heart of God.

Anyhow, as I was piling the cloths one by one over my arm, a man on a bicycle stopped. He had a plastic crate strapped to the back of the bike and the indefinable look about him that those who have been homeless for a long time seem to acquire. We began chatting amiably about the plants and the weather. Then the conversation shifted.

“Night before last I went over to Butler Plaza,” he began.

Butler Plaza is a huge strip mall emblematic of urban sprawl.

“About two o’clock,” he continued, “I went to sleep under a bush.”

That was the night it stormed and turned frigid.

“Now I have this cold.”

“No wonder,” I said.

“I’m on my way to get some cough medicine.”

There was a pause.

“I live in a tent in the woods, and I have blankets there.”

“But you didn’t have any at Butler Plaza,” I added reasonably. Perhaps I did him an injustice, but I imagined him not so much deciding it would be convenient to spend the night under a bush, but passing out there, dead drunk, with a storm coming on and no cover.

Once more he turned the conversation to the plants. “Maybe you should leave them covered tonight,” he suggested.

“It’s not supposed to freeze tonight. But,” I added, “take care of yourself. You’re more important than the plants.”

“I’m just a bum.”

“No, no, no,” I stammered, not knowing what else to say.

The conversation soon drew to a close, and off he rode.

When I told Sr. Elizabeth about his saying he was just a bum, she replied, without a moment’s hesitation, “Beloved of God.”

That is what I should have said to him, of course. I should have told him the truth. You are not a bum. You are beloved of God.

When you stop to pass the time of day with someone working in the garden, you are beloved of God. When you show concern for the living things in the garden, you are beloved of God. And when you drink yourself blind and pass out under a bush at the mall, you are, still and always, beloved of God.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.
(1 John 3:1)

My mother also liked to sing, but was not what you would call a Marilyn Horne. She barely opened her mouth in church, knowing that sometimes she wasn’t quite on pitch. In the bosom of the family, though, you never knew when she would burst into song.

On the highway in the family car—usually in the middle of nowhere and without any provocation that we could discern—there would issue from the front passenger seat the first words of “Dwelling in Beulah Land”:

“Far away the noise of strife upon my ears is falling.”

The volume would increase until she reached the chorus–by now joined by the rest of the family, my father, my brother, and me:

I’m living on the mountain,
underneath a cloudless sky.
I’m drinking at the fountain
that never shall run dry.
O yes! I’m feasting on the manna
from a bountiful supply,
For I am dwelling in Beulah Land!
(C. Austin Miles, 1911)

I don’t recall ever getting beyond the first verse. Indeed, I don’t think we knew the words beyond the first verse; and I don’t know where my mother learned even the first verse of a gospel-style song like “Dwelling in Beulah Land.” Our Presbyterian Church tended to stick to the more classical chorales and other “dignified” hymns (although at Sunday evening worship we could and did slip into more devotional songs); and the church of her childhood, in an effort to remain faithful to the tradition of the Bible, sang only psalms.

At home, too, Mama’s musical enthusiasms were irrepressible. She sometimes accompanied housework with operatic-style recitatives describing what was going on in the house at the moment. One day the mailman happened to step onto the front porch just as she launched into a melody delivered both fortissimo and appassionato. He managed to drop the mail in the slot before beating a hasty retreat down the steps as if pursued by who knows what unseen visitant.

Cantare amantis est, said Augustine. Singing belongs to the lover. My mother was a lover: of her family, of her God—and of laughter. She delighted in retelling the story of the startled postman stumbling from the porch.

Although I am not convinced that everyone who sings is filled with love, I do believe that when we sing, we tend to make ourselves vulnerable, taking a risk, as does anyone who loves. There is a kind of letting go in singing, whether we are divas like Marilyn Horne, or congregational singers, or those who sing only in the shower. Even the most staid adult becomes a bit childlike by opening his or her mouth in song.

But most people probably do not realize how powerful music is. I think that singing — or even just listening to music—can make us more reachable, for good or for ill. The Anti-Defamation League says that hate music:

“…is one of the most significant ways neo-Nazis attempt to attract young people into their movement; this source of recruitment is possibly the most important factor in the ability of neo-Nazi groups to expand or even maintain their membership.”

So even our musical letting go requires a bit of caution. Does the music we choose open us to goodness and love or to something less? The question is important because, after all, we are created for love. In this light I like to pray with St. Thomas Aquinas the beautiful prayer of the second verse of “Panis angelicus”:

Duc nos quo tendimus,
ad lucem quam inhabitas.

Lead us, we sing, where we are inclined to go anyhow, to the light wherein you dwell. Anything else would be such a serious violation of who we are and who we are made to be that an eagle might as well try to become a beetle.

We are made for love; and singing belongs to the lover.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly;
teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;
and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

(Colossians 3:14-16)

“We’d like to measure your trees,” the man said.

He was talking about the two huge live oaks in the front yard — actually sand live oaks, as he informed us. They are listed as champion oaks, the largest of their kind in the area, which is why the Forest Service wanted to measure them.

He also told us that the state’s Champion Live Oak (the live oak is a larger tree than its relative, the sand live oak) is located in a field outside La Crosse, not far from Gainesville. It is called the Cellon Oak after its former owner. Its trunk is 30 feet in circumference.

Sister Annette, Sister Elizabeth, and I decided that we wanted to view this giant for ourselves, so one day last week we set out northward toward La Crosse.

Live oaks (and also the sand live oaks in our yard) are wind-resistant, and tend to do well in hurricanes. They may lose branches, but usually remain standing – unlike laurel oaks, many of which crashed into roofs or smashed cars or landed across roads during the hurricanes of 2004.

As I lean against the massive trunk, I am reminded of the sturdy love of God – and also of George and Ira Gershwin’s song:

In time the Rockies may crumble,
Gibraltar may tumble,
They’re only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.

In time even a colossus like the Cellon Oak will reach the end of its lifespan. The sand live oaks which shade our yard and our house will die. God’s love for us, on the other hand, is here to stay.

My love, however, is more flimsy. It is inclined to give way long before the Rockies or the Cellon Oak. In fact, it is probably more like the laurel oak when faced with a strong wind.

Another song comes to mind. Here is the third verse of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”:

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

- Robert Robinson, 1758

Bind my heart to you, O God. Fill it with the love with which your Son Jesus loved you, for that is a love both pure enough and strong enough to steady my own changeable affection.