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Bloggians --

I know it has been a while since I last posted, and one of those posts made it seem as if I might have run away and join the convent. Au contraire, my little bloggerings. Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum ...

Miss Lauren's hand has been honorably requested to her father (and granted by the Cnytr herself) in marriage.

All I can say is, His Grace hath made the match; let all grace say "amen".

Please keep Miss Lauren and her fiance Geoffrey in your prayers.

Gratefully and humbly yours,

Lauren

Thank you for praying for Yevgen's dad, who seems to be doing fine after surgery. Yevgen is now back in the States and all seems fine.

This weekend, even though I do not think I have a vocation, I am going to visit the Byzantine Discalced Carmelites of Holy Annunciation Monastery in Sugarloaf, PA. I am doing this for a retreat, but also because I am totally intrigued by the combination of Byzantine and Carmelite (though the order was originally an Eastern one, brought to the West via persecution, and in this sort of charism is returning to its roots), so much so that I feel I simply must see it.

I hope it will be a fruitful and prayerful weekend, especially after the Orientale Lumen conference of this week, about which I hope to blog eventually (I took very detailed notes, especially of the talks dealing with iconography).

Holy Annunciation Monastery seems to be one of the fastest-growing Eastern Catholic monasteries in the States. I get the impression that they're the Nashville Dominicans of the East. If you're in the area, I would encourage visiting them. One of the things mentioned at the OL conference was the importance for monasticism in the church. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky wanted a monastery in every diocese, not only to pray for the diocese, but also where the faithful can go and make retreats and refresh their souls. The monastics, it was mentioned, are the guardians of the church, standing on the ramparts of the heavenly city. Through their prayers, they keep out the forces that attack the church from without, and protect the light of the church from within.

Therefore, good readers, I once again apologize for my lack of activity, but promise, again, more in the future. Please keep me in your prayers this weekend, and I will keep you in mine.

Below, for your edification and delight, I am linking two videos of the Liturgy at the monastery. The tones are beautiful Ruthenian tones (I'm more familiar with the Ukrainian tones), which sound as beautiful, angelic and altogether heavenly as the videos of their chapel look. The sweet and holy voices of the sisters make it so. I believe the familiar Ukrainian tones to me require the voices of men, but the Ruthenian tones sound very well when women sing them.

God bless. ~~





(this latter video as I'm posting is not yet processed, but do come back and check it out when it's finished).

Please pray for my photographer Byzantine seminarian friend Yevgen (above). He is in Ukraine until this end of this week. Earlier I got an email from him asking for my prayers, as his father is unwell and needs heart surgery, which is scheduled for today. Yesterday he (and his family?) were at the hospital donating blood, presumably for said surgery.

I don't have details of what's going on, but would appreciate if you keep him, his father and his family in your prayers.

Thank you.


One of Yevgen's photos of a Byzantine diaconate ordination

I'd be happier if there was more biretta involved.



P.s. So where do I get the iConfess app for my iTouch?

HT: Orbis Catholicus

Does this (an advert on a Telegraph article I was reading this morning) strike anyone else as slightly ironic and remind one of this?

NUMBER ONE ...
... THE LARCH. THE. LARCH.

It has also often struck me, in the same vein, that there ought to be a sort of Audobon's Field Guide to Religious Habits in Rome.

Then we might be able to have an episode of Cnytr about How To Recognize Different Types of Religious Habits From Quite a Long Way Away.

NUMBER ONE ...



THE HERALDS OF THE GOSPEL. THE. HERALDS. THE. HERALDS.

NUMBER TWO ...



THE HOLY SPIRIT ADORATION SISTERS. PINK. NUNS.

NUMBER ONE ...
... THE HERALDS...

HT: LOLSaints

Speaking of nationalistic hymns, I'm sure we're all familiar with Psalm 137 (sans the last two verses because we live in post-Vatican II times):

By the rivers of Babylon
there we sat and wept,
remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there
we hung up our harps.

For it was there that they asked us,
our captors, for songs,
our oppressors, for joy.
"Sing to us," they said,
"one of Zion's songs."

O how could we sing
the song of the Lord
on alien soil?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!

O let my tongue
cleave to my mouth
if I remember you not,
if I prize not Jerusalem
above all my joys!

This has itself been adapted and set musically again and again and again. It has been hymned by the Russians, the Ukrainians, it's been sung bluegrass style, gospel spiritual (which I sang in middle school but cannot find on youtube), and it has been covered by Sinead O'Connor and Don McClean, the latter's setting featuring on the hit tv show Mad Men.

However, in doing a search for the song featured in the post below, also called "Jerusalem", I found the following:



Yes. You are seeing a Hasidic Jew singing Reggae.

His name is Matisyahu, or Mathew Paul Miller. Originally born in PA, he settled in NY (for a time in a highly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn) and now lives in White Plains. Although he sings mostly in English, he sprinkles his lyrics with Hebrew and Yiddish words.

While Jerusalem (Out of Darkness Comes Light) isn't a direct adaption of Psalm 137 (Matisyahu instead makes it about the modern plight of the Jews, referencing even the Holocaust), the refrain harkens back to it.

Matisyahu: both awesome and hilarious. You can't make this stuff up.

Surrounding Glastonbury Abbey near Bedford in England are apocryphal tales of Joseph of Arimathea and Christ establishing a wattle-and-daub church, of Joseph thrusting his spear into the ground whereupon the Glastonbury thorn grew up, and of a place in which he buried the Holy Grail, whereupon a spring flowed forth.

(ahem Please note I say these tales are apocryphal only because I think the true resting place of the Holy Grail is somewhere in Spain.)

And why? Because why wouldn't Christ take time out of his busy schedule to bring Christianity, personally, to God's own country, that is, England?

However, the aforementioned legend in ancient Glastonbury was also the inspiration for Blake's famous poem And did those feet in ancient times, originally the preface to his pandering Milton: a Poem. The poem reads thus:

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen !

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills ?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills ?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire !

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

On its own, the poem is alright. Granted, I have a bias against the English Romantics and I think their best portrayal is in Blackadder the Third (here, round abouts 4:33; "Quiet, woman! Can't you see we're dying?"). However, when set to music in 1916, and in the dark days of World War I it became a sort of God-and-St-George patriotic Anglican hymn, seen and heard in this slightly effusive Youtube video:



I find the composition much improved when set to music, and I find historical context adds quite a lot. When this hymn becomes the aforementioned patriotic hurrah, it's actually quite moving.

I was thinking of this mostly through a combination of the Monty Python mattress sketch and the fact that this past weekend was Memorial day, and filled with our own American patriotic songs. None so fascinating, I submit, as the above. But for good reason.

A friend of mine pointed out, rightly I think, that our best patriotic song is America. It is both beautiful and poetic and not too weird. He also pointed out the Battle Hymn of the Republic which contains just the sort of problems that Mark Shea often points out, and leads to confusions like John Brown's Body, John Brown himself being a ... questionable figure, glorified by the abolitionists whilst painting over the problems he brings up rather than addressing them, as the 19th century was very wont to do.

But our lack of uniquely American and mostly non-weird patriotic hymnody (please note the tune for "My Country 'Tis of Thee" is actually the tune for "God Save the King") is not really our fault. It simply comes from being one of the newest kids on the block, and "growing up", if you will, in a modern and sometimes post-Enlightenment era. We didn't have the deeply religious time of the Middle Ages, our country didn't have a Renaissance, and thus we lack some cultural richness (but also many problems, Deo gratias) that comes with age.

America is a truly unique place -- the worldwide melting pot (at least in theory) makes us a sort of culturally new thing, which, being a confluence of many things, isn't any one new thing. I believe this sometimes makes us cultural schizophrenics. I think, unfortunately, we're past the days of heroic patriotic hymnody (+thank God we're past the days of Blake, the Romantics and the Transcendentals), but we're learning a new kind of patriotism, whether for good or ill I am not yet able to say, and what that post-Nationalistic patriotism looks like I could tell you less (I am unfortunately more backwards-looking than forward-thinking on such issues, and must often look over my shoulder before I could guess at what's ahead).

In the meantime, though we've not the pretty hymns to say it, we ought to remember this whole week the men and women who died defending this country in the line of duty, and to thank them wholeheartedly.

Not too long ago, I posted an article about 6 Saints Who Can Kick Your Arse. Unsurprisingly and awesomely, St. Simeon Stylite was among them. This past Sunday in the Gregorian calendar of the Eastern Catholic Church, we commemorated St. Simeon Stylite along with the fathers of Nicea. St. Simeon must not be allowed to pass without comment, as he is Tough, Good For You and Awesome, much like the dangerously delicious bacon gun.

[Note: halfway through this post, I realized this Sunday's commemoration was of St. Stimeon the (New) Stylite, the Younger, not the St. Simeon Stylite Original Flavor, commemorated by the Orthodox on September 1st and by the Latins on January 5th. Confusingly, the Melkites celebrate the Younger Simeon on May 24th, although supposedly the Elder and the Younger are a century apart. I suspect this may be a case of historical mistaken identity and am forging ahead regardless.]

I first encountered this saint in high school, mentioned as a sort of a joke by my Latin teacher, really, because he's both hilarious and awesome. I believe the article says it best when it says,

At first he tried to shun the luxuries of mid 5th century life by shutting himself in a little ramshackle Unabomber-style hut for three years, where he figured not eating or drinking anything at all for the entire period of Lent would be a good idea. After the hut proved too expansive and extravagant for him, Symeon packed up his loincloth and moved to a crevice in a rock in the desert. [...] Realizing the rock was still too awesome a place to spend his life, Symeon raised a stone pillar with a little platform on top, climbed up and sat there. He went through a couple of these pillars before he settled on one over 50 feet high where he stayed ... for 36 years.

What the WHAT?

You would think that with a bio like that, volumes could be written about the man's zeal and holiness and ... probably many other strange ascetical practices. Instead, my favorite Catholic saints site says lamely,

Son of a poor shepherd, and worked as a shepherd as a child. A would-be monk at age 13, he was turned away from monasteries because his severe self-imposed penances. Tired of the gossip and arguments from fellow religious, he lived as a hermit on top of a column, occasionally preaching to those who gathered to watch and pray with him, and starting a movement of pillar living among Eastern hermits.

If one were to read that without knowing any background information, wouldn't the phrase he lived as a hermit on top of a column make one do a mental double-take? He lived ... WHERE? How ... how does that even work? Can he get down? Where does he ... you know ... (to which, I'm not sure if this image is supposed to answer that unasked question, but it might).

Even the very sober Catholic Encyclopedia expresses some bland surprise at his particular asceticism:

If it were not that our information, in the case of the first St. Simeon and some of his imitators, is based upon very reliable first-hand evidence, we should be disposed to relegate much of what history records to the domain of fable.

In fact, the way it continues, however dry, is, I think, still pretty hilarious:

Simeon the Elder, was born about 388 at Sisan, near the northern border of Syria. After beginning life as a shepherd boy, he entered a monastery before the age of sixteen, and from the first gave himself up to the practice of an austerity so extreme and to all appearance so extravagant, that his brethren judged him, perhaps not unwisely, to be unsuited to any form of community life [ROFL ~L]. Being forced to quit them he shut himself up for three years in a hut at Tell-Neschin, where for the first time he passed the whole of Lent without eating or drinking. This afterwards became his regular practice, and he combined it with the mortification of standing continually upright so long as his limbs would sustain him.

Among the twenty-seven liturgical books used by the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholics, the book of the commemoration of the saints (the Menaion) has this to say about the great saint:

Holy Father Simeon was the first to take up this particular form of ascesis: that of standing day and night on a pillar in unceasing prayer. His parents were common folk and he fled from them when he was 18 to become a monk. He fasted at times for 40 days. He grew in holiness and wisdom with great gifts of discernment, healing and prophecy. It is said that he started to stand on the pillar, because it was the only way for him to be alone in prayer with God, because of all the people that were constantly coming to him. His pillar was at first about ten feet tall, then twenty, then 35 feet; finally over 60 feet tall. On his pillar, he did warfare with the demons, overcoming them through his prayers. All classes of people came to his pillar. He healed many sick by his prayers. He gave comfort and instruction to some. Others he denounced for their heresies. The Empress Eudocia was brought back to Orthodoxy from the Eutychian heresy by one such rebuke. Twice, his mother, St. Martha, came to see him, but he would not come down from his pillar to greet her; saying: "Don't disturb me now, Mother dear, if we are to be worthy to meet in the next world." St. Simeon lived for 70 years and reposed in the Lord on September 1, 459. St. Martha is commemorated on July 4th.

Additionally, it has two hymns for the saint. I'm sure whoever wrote them MUST have had a (very pious) sense of humour:

Apolytikion (First Tone):

Thou becamest a pillar of patience and didst emulate the Forefathers, O righteous one:
Job in his sufferings, Joseph in temptations, and the life of the bodiless while in the body,
O Symeon, our righteous Father, intercede with Christ God that our souls be saved.

Kontakion (Second Tone):

Thou soughtest the heights, though parted not from things below;
thy pillar became a chariot of fire for thee.
Thou becamest thereby a true companion of the angelic host;
and together with them, O Saint, thou ceaselessly prayest Christ God for us all.

"Pillar of patience"? "Seeking the heights"? Hahahahahaha! Come, now!

A professor of mine once told me that when his children were younger, they would invent hagiography, mostly centering on medieval ascetics, i.e. the story of St. Awesomesauce the Gaul who repented a sinful life, became a monk and ate half a bean every other month whilst wearing chains and wrestling with demons and is once reported to have cured the left ankle of St. Flutius, only to have his penance restored to him at a later time. However Evagrius Ponticus' mention of St. Simeon (here, but ignore the snarky intro) comes dangerously close to the made-up hagiography.

St. Simeon Stylite: so awesome he can't be for real, but he is.

Pray for us, St. Simeon Stylite, and teach us your zeal for asceticism!


Icon of St. Simeon Stylite; the church below references the church that was later built in his honor; the snake is the worldly temptations he left below, and I believe the the oyster and pearl is a reference to heavenly riches, but I am not at all sure

from a 13th century Syriac bible; Al-Za'faran Monastery(?), Turkey(?)

Within one week, I will have celebrated the Ascension not once (the Gregorian calendar: Thursday), not twice (the made-up mobility of the feast: Sunday), but three times (the Julian calendar: Thursday).

And it's a good thing, too. I believe I finally "get" the feast of the Ascension. Oh there are a number of reasons, I understand intellectually, for the Ascension. Why exactly the fanfare, however? What does it all mean, aside from the obvious? (i.e. Christ sits at the right hand of the Father until he comes in glory, if he did not go he could not send the Holy Spirit, etc...)

Now you can tell me the same things again and again, but until I hear it in a Language I Understand (which usually involves capital letters of Significant Words), the puzzle pieces don't exactly click into place. I understand but I don't get it.

It was until Sunday, when I was messing around with Relevant Radio on my computer in a vain attempt to find where and when Fr. Thomas Loya's Light of the East would come on, that I heard another priest speaking of the Ascension. Same old same old until I heard,

...[the Ascension] is the parallel feast to the Nativity.

Suddenly the Truth Bombs went off in my head and I Understood.

In Eastern Catholicism, the concept of theosis is emphasized -- that is, becoming more and more clearly the image of God, to be divinized (but not to become God in his essence -- obviously that's impossible and heterodox), to be partakers in divine nature. Athanasius is often quoted:

As, then, if a man should wish to see God, Who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he may know and apprehend Him from His works: so let him who fails to see Christ with his understanding, at least apprehend Him by the works of His body, and test whether they be human works or God's works. And if they be human, let him scoff; but if they are not human, but of God, let him recognise it, and not laugh at what is no matter for scoffing; but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer the very Word of God. For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality. For while He Himself was in no way injured, being impossible and incorruptible and very Word and God, men who were suffering, and for whose sakes He endured all this, He maintained and preserved in His own impassibility.

(54 De Incarnatione)

God becomes man so that man might become God. That's just how it all works. Clearly to pay Adam's debt, as Athanasius explains earlier in that same work, it must be paid in an infinite manner -- but no one is infinite but God. At the same time, only man could pay it, since he was the offender. Thus, God becomes man for the purposes of paying Adam's debt, opening to us the closed gates of paradise and saving mankind.

But how does the Ascension fit in there, exactly? How does that include man becoming God?

Now we turn to Gregory Nazianzen:

If any assert that He has now put off His holy flesh, and that His Godhead is stripped of the body, and deny that He is now with His body and will come again with it, let him not see the glory of His Coming. For where is His body now, if not with Him Who assumed it? For it is not laid by in the sun, according to the babble of the Manichæans, that it should be honoured by a dishonour; nor was it poured forth into the air and dissolved, as is the nature of a voice or the flow of an odour, or the course of a lightning flash that never stands. Where in that case were His being handled after theResurrection, or His being seen hereafter by them that pierced Him, for Godhead is in its nature invisible. Nay; He will come with His body— so I have learned— such as He was seen by His Disciples in the Mount, or as he showed Himself for a moment, when his Godhead overpowered the carnality. And as we say this to disarm suspicion, so we write the other to correct the novel teaching. If anyone assert that His flesh came down from heaven, and is not from hence, nor of us though above us, let him be anathema. [...] For that which He has not assumed He has not healed.
(To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius. (Ep. CI.))

I've even heard that last quote as that which He has not assumed, He has not redeemed.

And so it clicks. God comes down from heaven in the Incarnation, becoming man to pay Adam's debt for which he must suffer, die and rise. To fully redeem us, his risen body ascends to the right hand of the Father in glory. In the first, Christ took on our humanity; in the latter, Christ took our humanity with him. There is that fish hook I posted about earlier. It is the fullness of our redemption.

To speak poorly in semi-Platonic/Universal terms (it's been a while, correct me if I'm wrong), any human individual is a particular instance of Humanity, a species yet belonging to/participating in the genus. By the instance of one man who is Christ who is God coming and dying and rising, it is not simply once instantiation of God-man or simply God or simply one man who Ascends, it is Man, it is Humanity, contained in Christ who is both fully God and fully Man. The Genus is itself redeemed.

And now it makes sense to me.

O sweetest Jesus, who, without leaving the bosom of the Father, hast, as a man, dwelt among the earth-born, to-day art thou ascended in glory from the Mount of Olives, and graciously hast borne on high our fallen nature, and hast sat down with the Father. For which cause the Bodiless Powers of heaven, amazed at the marvel, were affrighted with dread, and seized with trembling, they magnified thy love toward mankind. With them also, we earth-born, glorifying thy condescension toward us, and thine Ascension from us, pray, saying: Do thou, who, at thine Ascension, didst fill with joy unutterable thy disciples and the Birth-giver of God who bare thee, vouchsafe unto us, thine elect, joy also, through their prayers, because of thy great mercy.