Cenacle Journal
Dec 26th, 2009 by Cybernun
The Christmas season continues through Epiphany (January 6, but celebrated this year on Sunday the 3rd) and the Baptism of the Lord (January 10).
May the peace that passes all understanding, the peace of Emmanuel, God-with-us, be yours during this holy season.
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
(Isaiah 9:6)
Dec 17th, 2009 by Cybernun
I was delighted to discover, in the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, W. S. Merwin’s lovely translation of the last Canto of 
Dante’s Paradiso. Canto XXXIII presents the final vision of the poet, and concludes with the famous line about “the love which moves the sun and the other stars” (l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle).
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)
I was delighted to discover, in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly, W. S. Merwin’s lovely translation of the last Canto of Dante’s Paradiso. Canto XXXIII presents the final vision of the poet, and concludes with the famous line about “the love which moves the sun and the other stars” (l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle).
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:
[Y]ou 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.
Nov 21st, 2009 by Cybernun
The only thing to be done now,
now that the waves of our undoing have begun to strike on us,
is to contain ourselves.To keep still, and let the wreckage of ourselves go,
let everything go, as the wave smashes us,
yet keep still, and hold
the tiny grain of something that no wave can wash away,
not even the most massive wave of destiny.Among all the smashed debris of myself,
Keep quiet, and wait.
For the word is Resurrection.
And even the sea of seas will have to give up its dead.D. H. Lawrence, “Be Still!” D. H. Lawrence: Complete Poems,
Edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto and Warren F. Roberts
What are our own waves of undoing? What are the waves that feel as if they would smash us into oblivion?.jpg "In the waves")
D. H. Lawrence says that the only thing to be done is to contain ourselves. If this is so, how are we to contain ourselves?
Does this mean giving up on life? No, not at all. Does it mean adopting a fortress mentality – walling ourselves round about so that nothing can touch us? No, just the contrary, I believe.
It means turning to what is most vital and most true to ourselves.
According to the poet, when we are feeling helpless against the waves of destiny, we must:
…keep still, and let the wreckage of ourselves go,
let everything go, as the wave smashes us,
yet keep still, and hold
the tiny grain of something that no wave can wash away,
not even the most massive wave of destiny.
W
hen the ship we are on is sinking, we do not weigh ourselves down with stacks of old magazines or a closetful of clothes and shoes. If the house is on fire, we do not dally long enough to carry out the rubbish or even to pile up our favorite books or retrieve the jewelry. We hold to nothing but the essential.
This “tiny grain of something” can only be the essential core of ourselves, what we have named in a Cenacle assembly as the mystical dimension of our life – that part of ourselves both as individuals and as corporate body that knows God, that is never apart from God, that sees God face to face even when our conscious life perceives nothing and is overwhelmed by the waves, even as we tumble over and over helplessly on the dark shore. Here the Holy Spirit prays in us and intercedes for us (see Romans 8). It is in this tiny grain that we are who we truly are.
LIke the widow’s mite (Mark 12), this grain may seem of little account, but in reality it represents all we are and all we have. So we must let the “wreckage of ourselves go,” be still, and claim nothing but this indestructible grain.
It is this tiny grain:
In truth each of us is being undone in one way or another. If nothing else manages to undo us, time and age most certainly will accomplish the task. The only tragic outcome would be not to yield to our remaking through that “tiny grain of something,” through the mystical core of ourselves where God is known.
Oct 29th, 2009 by Cybernun
At our house we have one of those old analog televisions that would have stopped working by now except for the fact that we have cable. I spent some time recently, however, in a house that has high definition TV. The picture was beautiful, but I was bothered by one thing. When I turned from the sharp display in front of me to look around the room and out the window, I noticed that the real world was not nearly as high resolution as what I was seeing on the television.
Am I the only one who has had this experience? I wondered: Do my glasses need changing? No. Was the sharpness set too high on the television? I don’t think so.
I think the problem is that real life just doesn’t happen in high definition.
Part of the beauty of the world around us is that human faces do not reveal every flaw to the casual glance, and objects are not always distinct from each other.
Outside my window right now I see live oak branches covered with resurrection ferns and draped with Spanish moss. The whole effect is one of graceful softness, highlighted and sharpened here and there by splotches of sunlight that make leaves, fronds, and moss glow. In spots, the details are completely overwhelmed by the brilliance of light.
If every green frond were distinct from the other and from the branch, if each gray strand of moss in shadow appeared just as clearly defined as the ones in gentle sunlight, much of the beauty would be lost.
In our own lives as well, we move from day to day in a state of blessed blurriness, though we may often long for a higher resolution monitor, so to speak.
I find this quotation from Gerald May helpful:
When we were children, most of us were good friends with mystery. The world was full of it and we loved it. Then as we grew older, we slowly accepted the indoctrination that mystery exists only to be solved. For many of us, mystery became an adversary; unknowing became a weakness. The contemplative spiritual life is an ongoing reversal of this adjustment. It is a slow and sometimes painful process of becoming “as little children” again, in which we first make friends with mystery and finally fall in love again with it. And in that love we find an ever increasing freedom to be who we really are in an identity that is continually emerging and never defined. We are freed to join the dance of life in fullness without having a clue about what the steps are.
Gerald G. May, M.D., The Dark Night of the Soul (New York: Harper, 2003), 132-3.
The obscurity is blessed, because we are indeed dwelling in divine Mystery, and that is where we are meant to be. It is there that we find goodness, love, mercy, and peace. It is there that we “join the dance of life in fullness without having a clue about what the steps are.”
Oct 9th, 2009 by Cybernun
Late one afternoon I rode my bicycle to the city hall gardens, where the fountains are enjoyable, and oftentimes the people as 
well. This particular day, I happened upon Pat Fitzpatrick, a dedicated advocate for the homeless, who was there with his signs.
The captions started me thinking about which human needs can rightfully be withheld if they are are not earned.
Is food, for example, something that one must deserve in order to receive?
What about housing?
Or health care?
And these questions inevitably bring up others.
Does having money make a person more worthy of food, housing, and medical care than someone who has none?
Does having millions of dollars that you have earned by the sweat of your brow make you more worthy than someone who has earned only a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand?
Does having millions of dollars that you have not earned, but inherited, make you more worthy than a struggling school teacher with a burdensome debt – or a homeless person with nothing?
Is a person who is unable to work for one reason or another less worthy than 
someone who holds down two jobs to make ends meet – or than someone who with one relatively unburdensome job earns more than enough to pay for the necessities and the superfluities of life?
When you get right down to it, no one is worthy of God or of God’s gifts. We are all unworthy, but we are all of infinite worth.
Our value lies not in what we possess, or how much we earn, or whether or not we have a job, or whether we are even capable of holding a job. Our worth is not calculated according to whether we are sober 
or blind drunk, illiterate or highly educated, fortunate or unfortunate in our genetic makeup. The truth is that our value resides in the fact that we are beloved of God, infinitely treasured, infinitely cherished.
Rejoicing in the love of God, we must also be humble, for as Saint Paul says,
What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?
(1 Corinthians 4:7)
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