Lenten Detox
Several months ago I referred to a book by the Australian Cistercian, Michael Casey, which I found rich in concrete insight. The book, “Fully Human, Fully Divine,” will serve as my Lenten reading. Here are a few excerpts:
When it comes to fighting sin, we need to identify and neutralize whatever nourishes its growth and increases its strength. We find this process difficult because often enough it involves renouncing things that are harmless in themselves but which, for one reason or another, happen to trigger a disproportionate response in us. Just as those with celiac disease have to avoid glutten because of a kink in their physiology, each of us needs to be aware of potential stimulants of unhealthy passions, be it a matter of lust, envy, jealousy, anger or self-depreciation. What is perfectly harmless for someone else may be deadly for us. And so we need to be aware that for us, if not for others, certain events are plague carriers.
Filling our minds with God’s good news means building into our lives a regular intake of words and images that counterbalance the contrary messages that have their origin in the interaction of concupiscence and the world around us. We need to be constantly reminded of the invisible aspects of our existences: our spiritual origin and destiny, our value in the eyes of God, the loving and forgiving presence of God in our life, the mysterious overlap of time and eternity. These things will slip from awareness unless we deliberately remember them, and then our spiritual life will slowly fade away.
As an author of books on spirituality, I reproach myself for not practicing what I sincerely preach, but, quite frankly, I know that such integrity is beyond me. The truth, however, deserves to be spoken even if those who speak it have not fully succeeded in shaping their lives according to its considerable demands.
Thanks for calling our attention to this author. I’ve just ordered the book from Amazon.
Bob-
Thanks for reminding us of this little gem of a book. I have “stolen” not a few homily ideas from points in this book.
Happy Lent!
“We find this process difficult because often enough it involves renouncing things that are harmless in themselves but which, for one reason or another, happen to trigger a disproportionate response in us.”
Mind-blowing, when you think about it. Such randomness and contingency, such inequity in the iniquity. Especially the similarity the author notes to the quirkiness of physical ailments. Makes you wonder if the embodiedness of our spirits doesn’t go ALL the way down. What was Descartes thinking?
Mark,
yes: all the way. In his chapter two on “The Recalcitrant Body,” he even says this (I hope half tongue-in-cheek):
“I often think that the ‘virtue’ attained after decades of practice is no more than the effect of a decline in what the fourteenth century author of “The Cloud of Unknowing” termed ‘our boisterous bodiliness.” In other words, the absence of certain vices may be merely the effect of old age. A few good habits may have contributed slightly to the process, and maybe some change in outward circumstances, but mostly it is a matter of the inner fire slowly consolidating prior to extinguishment.”
“Remember, you are dust …!”
Really brilliant. Thanks very much.
Michael Casey has also written a wonderful book on LECTIO DIVINA and anoher on the history of prayer. They are excellent books and well worth getting to know.
While we’re on the subject of Lent — I was especially taken with the second citation from Casey’s book. I think he’s right in suggesting that life’s progress has a way of wearing us down in ways that are spiritually beneficial. For better or worse, the decline of the body enables us to empathize better with all who suffer and makes us more ready for the death we all one day must face. And yes, some of the wilder and woolier antics of youth do become less enticing with age. I guess my thought on all this is, Thank God. Lord knows I do a lame job of sanctifying myself. Mostly I pray that God will trump my intransigence, because I know I won’t get around to doing it on my own. More than that, I can’t. Another great external imposition of the Lord — another tool for the whittling of the spirit — is family life. God bless ‘em! I recall myself as a young student: earnest, but surely more self-absorbed than now — this thanks to my wife and children, who won’t let me retreat for more than an hour at a time into high-minded solitude. Fr. Imbelli, I’ll look for that book.
Is this book maybe an updated version of Casey’s “A Guide to Living in the Truth: St. Benedict’s Teaching on Humility”?
I am fortunate to have heard Casey in 2004 at a local abbey, when he autographed my copy.
“We need to be constantly reminded of the invisible aspects of our existences: our spiritual origin and destiny, our value in the eyes of God, the loving and forgiving presence of God in our life, the mysterious overlap of time and eternity. These things will slip from awareness unless we deliberately remember them, and then our spiritual life will slowly fade away.”
The necessity of LOH or some form of regular prayer is manifest, even as I do not practice as desired what I write. Soul food for starving souls in this excerpt.
If the book is the same one, there is much of value but some in our group who read it found very harsh judgments — perhaps not unexpected from one who is OCSO, of the “strict observance”
The thread caused me to pull the title off the shelf.
Carolyn,
The book I mention in the post is dated 2004 and has as subtitle “An Interactive Christology.” So I suspect it is different from the one you read. Though, like all of us, he may well repeat ideas and insights.
I know this is not very monkian, but I like to think that our few good habits may contribute more than “slightly” to the process. Seems like many people become bitter, not better, as they grow old, and the proverbial “dirty old man” has to be more than just a stereotype. Maybe some people willingly grow old in a Let-Thy-will-be-done fashion while others choose to rage against the machine. Compare the things Joan Rivers has done to her body as she’s aged to the things Meryl Streep hasn’t.
So much food for thought in what this guy has to say, it’s a shame Lent’s a time for fasting. BTW, what is LOH?
Mark,
It’s Liturgy of the Hours.
There was an astoundingly beautiful reflection by a priest in England, Daniel O’Leary, in the Tablet 6-28-08 called”Home before dark.” It is a powerful counterpoint to the bitter growing old you mention.
“Advancing age is a time when people look back over the way they have come, and consider the essence of a lifetime on earth. But it is also a period of looking forward – to the homeland to which God calls the faithful to return….
“Finding out who we really are is like a personal, lifelong Passover. Too many tapes from the past have labelled us too soon. They have tricked us into a false identity. The final phase is the time when the mirror is clearest, revealing, maybe for the first time, our authentic voice and our own name. We begin to see with the eyes of Jesus. We finally whisper our “yes” to the mystery and miracle of who we really are, and always were….
Your life is a Eucharist and you are the priest that gathers, transforms and celebrates it. It is not the amount of work, or length of your days that matter; it is their consecration. This eukharistia of our lives is our gratitude for them…
No matter how old we are, we still have time to let the light in, to break down the barriers we once erected between us and our truest self. Nothing is so sad as regretting, on our deathbed, our unlived lives, our untold stories, our unsung songs. Yet, in Gods extravagance, during those last times, everything lost – the dream, the innocence, the melody – can be restored.
And if one of these summer evenings, you faintly hear again your mother’s voice calling you in because the night is coming, your eyes will start to shine because, as the house of heaven draws ever closer, you will recognize it, with astonishment, as the home you never left.”
I cannot read this ever without tears.
Amen
Carolyn — As a Lenten discipline, and also in an effort to lead a more contemplative life, I’ve been limiting my time on-line. How providential I broke that rule this morning. Thank you.
Ellen,
ROFLOL – rolling on the floor, laughing out loud. You and me too. Blogging is a time hog. I am glad as well that my eye caught this thread on keeping one’s focus on the better part.
Blessings,
Carolyn