Author: a fool

All alone with Jesus

Day 600 – ready?

Oh, Master, make me chaste and celibate – but not yet.

To know what to do and to be ready to do it are two completely different things.

I have known for some time that I am called to more enclosure – more solitude. And I prayed that God may grant me that gift. But am I ready for it? Today is a day of change. I finish one calling and enter more deeply into another. And I return to a much older one. With Your help, O Lord!

… Day 597: Jesus alone

Do continue to practice diligently what I then, as if giving birth, instilled in your ear: “Weep before the Lord.” That is, you should ask of God only one thing: that you may desire Christ alone in wounded love, and that you may with full concentration of your heart and with all your soul wish for him alone as your dowry.

Otter, Monika C. Goscelin of St Bertin: The Book of Encouragement and Consolation [Liber Confortatorius]

… Day 595

The anchorite’s role and influence in the community was a byproduct of his spiritual life rather than something envisaged as its purpose. The initial obligations went rather in the other direction: Wulfric sought an encounter with God and counted on the community to provide the necessary conditions.

John of Ford. The Life of Wulfric of Haselbury, Anchorite (Cistercian Fathers Series Book 79)

To be solitary (in Jesus) is to not be productive (in a worldly sense).

… 6 June: Day 594

Things are changing – aren’t they always!?

Today in 1841, Marian Rebecca Hughes made private vows before Edward Bouverie Pusey – the first woman to take religious vows in the Anglican church since the Reformation. So maybe today’s festival should be “All Saints of Anglican Religious Life”?

Wulfric of Haselbury was an anchorite, recluse, solitary priest. Know for his healing and insight. He lived the life of a solitary next to St Michael and All Angels Church in Haselbury Plucknett, Somerset. I am encouraged that while he worked well with the vicar, he was never “licensed” to this life by his bishop. He was, in the original sense, a house ascetic. He said Mass in his inner cell and spoke to people in his outer cell.

Sometimes, to be honest, God moves and I am not ready for it. I felt the need to surrender above all the desire to be heard and trusted: to be the person with the answers. Or, to put it differently, the desire to be loved by people. I need to desire to be friends with people (rather than using them for my own ends).

Today is Day 594 in The Anchorage. Circumstances mean my “solitary life” is going to be more defined. And I am not ready. “Maybe tomorrow, Lord!!!”

… Adoro te, Domine Jesu Christe

I adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, hanging upon the Cross, and bearing on your head a crown of thorns: I beseech you, Lord Jesus Christ, that your cross may free me from the avenging Angel.

I adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, wounded upon the cross, drinking vinegar and gall: I beseech you, Lord Jesus Christ, that your wounds may be my remedy.

I adore you Lord Jesus, placed in the tomb, laid in myrrh and spices: I beseech you, Lord Jesus Christ, that your death may be my life.

I adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, descending into hell, liberating the captives: I beseech you, never let me enter there.

I adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven and sitting on the right hand of the Father: have mercy on me, I beseech you.

O Lord Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, preserve the righteous, make righteous the sinners, have mercy on all the faithful: and be gracious to me, a sinner.

O Lord Jesus Christ, I ask you for the sake of that most bitter suffering which you bore for my sake upon the cross, and above all when your most noble soul left your most holy body: have mercy on my soul at its departing. Amen. We adore you O Christ and we bless you, Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Lord hear my prayer. And let my cry come to you.

We adore you O Christ and we bless you, Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. Lord hear my prayer. And let my cry come to you.

The prayer:

O most kindly Lord Jesus Christ: turn upon me, a miserable sinner, those eyes of mercy with which you beheld Peter in [Caiaphas’] court, and Mary Magdalene at the banquet, and the thief on the gibbet of the cross: and grant that with blessed Peter I may worthily lament my sins, with Mary Magdalene may perfectly serve you, and with the thief may behold you eternally in heaven. Who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.

Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (pp. 325-326). Yale University Press.

… the agony aunts of their day

A few quotes from The Friendly Recluse: Medieval hermits were the agony aunts of their day.

Hermits, anchorites and anchoresses (men or women who lived enclosed in a small cell in a church) were holy figures with looser ties to ecclesiastical authorities and more autonomy than those who lived in formal religious communities. … their nature was one of isolation and ‘the solitary combat of the desert’.

While the degree of social contact medieval recluses had differed, there is evidence to suggest that they were the agony aunts of their day, often flying in the face of the recommendations of religious authorities. … The scholar of medieval devotional literature, Michelle M. Sauer, has said that while ‘The anchorite, in theory, was utterly alone in the cell … the reality of this lifestyle was quite different’ and ‘anchoresses were sought out by devout Christians and courted by towns, becoming a visible sign of holiness and protection’

The whole article is interesting – a good introduction to some of the literature. And, the main purpose, a town advertising for hermit/anchorite is a solid idea that many more modern towns should consider.

… asceticism and freedom

I am reading Asceticism – a collection of papers on various topics related to … yes, you guessed it … asceticism.

The opening paper has a quote from The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn when the prisoner says to the Minister:

I’ve got nothing, see? Nothing! … You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.

I was reflecting on that quote in the context of the oft-quoted Albert Camus:

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

As a community (ie the Church) we often speak of not being ruled by the world. But in reality what does that mean for the individual? There is a political aspect to the solitary life: a life not ruled (in theory!) by the standards of the world. For me, and I have thought about this a lot in the last month, the solitary life is a place and that place is a person. I refuse to be objectified! I refuse to be put in a box and then told, “see you are not acting right (ie according to the box which you have been put into)”. For many years I have looked for the “right box” – the right objective truth that defines me.

The only freedom is in Nothing (ie a NOthing, a Person!)

Anyway …

… traditional devotions

I was reading about the traditional devotional life of anchorites in Medival England. These anchorites followed the fashion of the day, which was dominated by affective piety focusing on the humanity of Jesus. So the major focus was the Passion of Jesus.

Besides the 15 Oes, there were prayers to “The Five Wounds of Christ”, “The Seven Wounds of Mary”, or the “Seven Prayers of St Gregory” centring on the Passion of Jesus. There were also liturgical feasts dedicated to the Prayer in the Garden, the Five Wounds of Jesus, the Winding Sheet (burial shroud), and the Precious Blood.

As an aside, The Gregory Prayer Book has a number of these prayers and devotions. An interesting and useful aid to my prayers. There is also a Book of Hours available that gives some insight into English devotional life.

I wonder what happened to all these devotions?

… tears

More important than baptism is the spring of tears that comes after baptism, although it may be somewhat bold to state this. Because baptism is the cleansing from evils that were present in us beforehand, but the sins which we commit after baptism are cleansed by tears. Although baptism is performed at infancy, all of us have polluted it, and so we need to purify it anew with tears. If, in His love for humanity, God had not granted us tears, few there would be, and difficult to discover, those who would be in a condition of grace.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent