The Comforts and Fears of Legalism

Quite some time ago, a good friend said something along these lines to me:

"I've been trying really hard to defeat spiritual legalism. When I think about sin legalistically, I'm constantly terrified that I've committed a mortal sin recently which I haven't confessed, and that if something were to happen to me I'd be damned instantly. I try to remember that if at the personal judgment I truly embrace God, He won't turn away from me."

I think this is certainly a valid way of thinking about things from a Catholic perspective, and I don't want to speak against it, but it did strike me as a very foreign viewpoint when I heard it. Foreign to my own experience, that is.

You see, my experience is pretty much the opposite: As someone who seldom feels a strong relationship with God, I find the idea that when I've gone to confession my sins really are forgiven, whether I feel like it or not, very comforting. On the other hand, relying entirely on the idea that when faced with the full experience of God I would unhesitatingly rush to him is, for me, a little terrifying. Unhesitating rushing is not something I'm known for. I'm not the rushing type. The idea of being face to face with God is more than a little terrifying for me -- as perhaps it should be.

As such, I find a more traditional (some would say: dour) approach to Lent intensely comforting, as opposed to the "this is a great time to work on your relationship with God" approach. Even in my married life, I'm not sure how you "work on your relationship" -- but I do know how to say "I love you", spend time talking together, go on a date, or buy a present. Similarly, I don't know how to "work on my relationship with God", but if fasting, prayer and alms-giving are what builds our relationship with Him, those I know how to do.

Jesus is Not My Pal

One of the elements of modern (often Evangelical, but sometimes Catholic) spirituality that I find most foreign is when people talk about Christ as being "my best friend." It seems an even more familiar form of the relationship suggested by hopeful missionaries, "Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?"

It's possible to err in either direction on these things, and I make no representation that I am a perfect Christian, but I don't think of myself having a "personal relationship" with Christ, certainly in a "best friends" kind of way. The ways in which I would normally envision Christ are not guy-next-door, my-buddy-the-savior kind of images. Christ the King, enthroned in eternal splendor into union with whom all Christians wish to enter for life everlasting. Christ Crucified, pouring out his blood for the sins of the whole world. Christ Risen, triumphing over the reign of death which had doomed humanity since the Fall. Christ in the Eucharist, kneeling before the glittering monstrance in which the Body of Christ forms the center of a sunburst of golden rays, with the crucifix above and the tabernacle behind.

This is not to say that I see Christ as distant. But while not a sparrow falls without the Father knowing it, you can hardly expect a sparrow to understand God, much less consider himself God's friend. God knows us better than we know Him, because we are understandable to Him in a way that He is not to us. I wouldn't say that I feel distant from God. Indeed, the reality of God is as foundational to my ability to understand the world as are the non-material qualities of Good, Justice, Mercy and Beauty which spring from Him, and as basic to life as the physical laws and order of creation.

Though in many ways a classical liberal, in personal as in political life, suspicious of too much power concentrated in one person -- Christ is the king to which my knee bends eagerly, the perfection which deserves utter love and obedience, the authority which is at the same time absolute and freeing.

Certainly, all this represents a relationship between persons. Christ is one of the three persons of the Trinity; we are persons made in God's image. Yet I find it hard to think of it as a "personal relationship" in the sense that I take the phrase to be meant. And it certainly is not what I would think of as a "best friend" relationship. When I look for Christ, my gaze is naturally upward. I don't picture throwing my arm around His shoulders and asking, "How's it going, buddy?"

The Long Quiet Mid-Afternoon of the Soul

It has been observed that, "There seems to be a rash of "Dark nights of the soul" going around the blogosphere. It's almost as if the revelation that Mother Theresa suffered through such an experience has made it pandemic!"

Though I'd read for years about Mother Theresa's dark night of the soul, it seems that the most recent coverage of it has kicked off no small degree of fascination. I've even read some bible-thumpers declaiming that Mother Theresa's lack of "spiritual consolations" (whatever exactly those are) show that she hadn't truly become a Christian.

All this had been giving me some pause for thought, and then the other day I ran across a link over at JulieD's Happy Catholic to a set of podcasts by Fr. Thomas Dubay on contemplation. I was working on a long data project, and I was getting tired of the music I'd been listening to, so I figured I'd listen to a couple episodes while working. (What can I say, I'm an inveterate multi-tasker. It's not always a virtue, but there it is.)

Fr. Dubay was talking (working from St. Theresa of Avila) about how contemplative prayer involved an "intimate being alone with God who love us" and sometimes results in a "strong felt present that He is there." He distinguishes this from either an emotional reaction to the process of prayer, or an intellectual knowledge gained from study and belief.

This somehow brought together for me a couple threads that I'd had in my head up to this point. The root, I think, of my failure to get all the fuss about the "dark night of the soul" is that if the dark night is the failure to feel any of this assurance that God is out there -- that basically describes my normal and constant experience of being Christian. Nor is it something I'm particularly upset about. While I'm certainly willing to imagine that one could have some sort of experience that was clearly something other than one's own emotional or intellectual reaction to belief, it's not something that I can imagine experiencing clearly enough to desire, much less get excited about missing.

I think there must be rather different ways that different sorts of people experience faith. My own experience of Catholicism is simply as the set of beliefs about the world according to which Things Make Sense, whereas none of the alternatives seem to do so. This is not, I will quite willingly own, an ecstatically exiting sort of faith. It's low on special effects, emotional and otherwise. On the other hand, given the very different ways that God has seen fit to make us all, I can hardly see why everyone should have the same spirituality.

My heart is ready

The antiphon for the first psalm for today's Morning Prayer is My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.

I read the antiphon this morning and my immediate reaction was a recoil. "No, it isn't. Not even close. My heart is no where near ready." There are too many things in it, on it, around it. At best it is a divided heart, not a simple heart--a singular gift for a Simple God.

I couldn't pray this in all honesty. But also in all honesty, I could say, "I want my heart to be ready, O God, make my heart ready." That, I could say because it true at the core, at the very marrow of bones. I want to be ready, I know I am not. My heart is half hard, half missing--a rocky field fit only for weeds and dodder--a shadow life thrown into relief by the season in which shadows are drawn more sharply and light is more visible.

--Steven Riddle

Lately I've been pondering whether I would be ready to die, were I suddenly taken. The thought of facing Judgment scares me, frankly. I am not prepared to see God face to face. There was a time when I would feel secure after I'd received absolution, because my soul was clean. That doesn't seem enough now, on my part.

Imagine that a person were to give a gift to a king of a metal tray. Although clean and polished, the tray is without adornment or etching. The king accepts the gift graciously because it is the best that his subject has to offer, but the gift in itself is not worthy of his magnificence. Even if none of his subjects can offer the king a fitting gift, the quality of each one's gift will reflect the love and respect in his heart.

My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready. I'll always link this verse with the scene in The Passion where Jesus whispers it in the pause before the whips fall on his back. Can anyone ever be ready to be beaten to a pulp? Perhaps this is one of those prayers that God realizes even as we pray it.