Discovery

In an interesting interview already ten years old, Tamara Rojo speaks of her first experience of ballet, at the age of five. She’d been brought into the school gymnasium out of the cold while waiting for her mother to pick her up. A dance lesson was going on: ‘There was this quietness and harmony, it felt perfect, like a world I’d never seen. I didn’t want to leave. When my mother finally came, I said: ‘But we need to stay and watch this to the end, whatever it is!’ Because I didn’t know what ballet was. I didn’t understand that ballet was a performance.’

The precocious, mysterious insight small children can have regarding their call, the way they must follow. It calls for reverence.

Perspective

One day it’s enough,
you feel, to view the world
through the common lens
of history, content
with no vision wider
than that of the obvious.

Next day, caught by
a tumult of longing, you search
among the straw and
chaff of things for the golden
corn of meaning.

From Fr Paul Murray’s Light at the Torn Horizon.

Down the Mountain

A rereading of Mann’s The Magic Mountain leads George Packer to a conclusion that seems to me exact: ‘In driving our democracy into hatred, chaos, and violence we […] grant death dominion over our thoughts. We succumb to the impulse to escape our humanness. That urge, ubiquitous today, thrives in the utopian schemes of technologists who want to upload our minds into computers; in the pessimism of radical environmentalists who want us to disappear from the Earth in order to save it; in the longing of apocalyptic believers for godly retribution and cleansing; in the daily sense of inadequacy, of shame and sin, that makes us disappear into our devices. The need for political reconstruction, in this country and around the world, is as obvious as it was in Thomas Mann’s time. But Mann also knew that, to withstand our attraction to death, a decent society has to be built on a foundation deeper than politics: the belief that, somewhere between matter and divinity, we human beings, made of water, protein, and love, share a common destiny.’

Stranezza

Ostensibly the account of a writer’s block endured and overcome, Roberto Andò’s film La Stranezza develops into a kind of parable. The intensely particular becomes an image of universals: the film is really about what it means to be human; what is more, it is a humanising film. I watched it during a transatlantic flight, in the kind of half-stupor such passage induces, and am astonished to find that a number of scenes and dialogues not only remain fresh in my mind but present themselves as carriers of happiness. The ‘strangeness’ to which Luigi Pirandello is subject (a circumstance well known from the author’s life, dramatised with imaginative freedom) is at once constricting and liberating, enabling insight and representation without precedent, born of cordial encounters. Life as theatre: this is what the story is ultimately about. Gently and companionably, Andò prompts a question, addressed to each of us: And you, are you really playing your part?

Religion of the Self

I think of an essay Vito Mancuso published on 13 June last year, a day after the death of Silvio Berlusconi. Mancuso reflected not so much on the man as on the phenomenon he embodied, il berlusconismo, instantiating a global tendency that puts ‘the primacy of personal success before any kind of outreach to others, establishes applause as the measure of anything’s value and transforms citizens into spectators.’ The piece goes on: ‘You see, in earlier times one could imagine the transcendent in various ways: in the classical sense of Catholicism and other religions; in the socialist and communist sense of a classless, finally just society; in the liberal, republican sense of an ethical state like the Prussian one lauded by Hegel; in the sense of right, incorruptible personal conscience as in Kant’s moral philosophy; and in many other ways besides. All of them, though, have this in common: the conviction that something exists that is more important than the self, before which the self must quieten itself and serve. From the beginning of mankind, the concept of God has stood, exactly, for the vital sense according to which there is something more important than my self, my power, my pleasure […]. The triumph of berlusconismo represents the breakdown of this spiritual and moral tension. In as much as it constitutes a religion of the self, it proclaims the opposite: nothing matters more than me.’ Where this tendency is prevalent, what chance has any meaningful notion of society or of the common good?

Skjør enhet

Kallet til Abram, vår far i troen, var synodalt. Etter å ha mottatt sitt oppdrag, ‘tok han sin hustru Sarai, sin brorsønn Lot, det folk de hadde samlet i Haran’ og satte avsted til Kanaans land. Først gikk alt utmerket. Så lenge reisens mål er fjernt, og derfor idealiserbart, byr ikke synodalitet på store utfordringer; de sammen reisende tenker seg turens mål som de vil. Når man nærmer seg veis ende, derimot, når spørsmål oppstår om hvorledes et territorium skal deles, oppstår spenning. Abram og Lot hadde såpass eiendom ‘at landet ikke lot dem begge leve sammen.’ Så skilte de lag. ‘Gå da fra meg’, sa Abram: ‘hvis du tar til venstre, tar jeg til høyre.’ Historien befrir oss fra tendensen til å tolke synodalitet forenklende. Hvis man ikke tenker seg den samme finalitet, hvis man ikke har et felles bilde av paradiset man vil gjenopprette, utsettes man for sentrifugale krefter. Da er det fare for at enheten, som av sitt vesen er skjør, bryter sammen.

Fra et essay om ‘Synodalitet og hellighet’.

Kråken

Et nytt, rystende møte med en sats fra Schuberts Winterreise gir Daniel Capó anledning til å reflektere over vår tids underliggende ubehag. Han skriver at ‘spørsmålet kunst stiller gjennomtrenger oss alle og åpner fremtiden for nye veier. Schuberts romantisisme, tynget av angstfulle pine, lar seg oversette til vår egen tid med alle det tyvende århundres kjennetegn: totalitarisme, overdreven propagandabruk, rockemusikk. Intet samfunn kommer uskadd gjennom slik erfaring; ikke heller vår gjenskapelse av fortid eller nåtid. Lik vandreren som synger sin Winterreise, er vi på ferd mot vårt sanne hjem. Sivilisasjon utgår fra en enkel gestus gjentatt gjennom alle tider: utstrakte hender og anerkjennende øyne som hilser oss velkommen og som hindrer oss fra å gå i oppløsning.’ Du kan lese hele essayet her.

Angelus

I dag morges, mens jeg stod i regnet på bussholdeplassen langs Prinsens Gate, hørte jeg meg ett Angelusklokken fra St Olavs Domkirke utgyte over byen sin velsignende klang. Lite gir meg sånn trøst som Angelusklokken. Den står for meg som en sivilisasjonsmarkør. På samme tid diskret og majestetisk, utroper den livets hensikt og betydning, retning og mål; og den sprer sitt budskap også over dem som ikke aner hva den står for. Jeg tenker på noen linjer fra et dikt av Jehan Le Povremoyne tonesatt av Vierne: ‘Angelusklokken lyder over min by som ennå sover; Angelusklokken til Marias ære. Se hvor natten viker og Erkeengelens budskap sprer glede over min by som ennå sover. Lik hindens kalv fra bak høydene, springer solen frem.’

 

Har vi bedt kompletorium?

Nylig kom jeg over utdrag fra et foredrag Kardinal Stanislas Dziwisz gave ved universitetet i Lublin i 2001. Dziwisz, som var Johannes Pauls privatsekretær gjennom hele hans regjeringstid som pave, mintes mordforsøket på Petersplassen den 13 mai 1981. Paven ble umiddelbart fraktet til Gemelli-sykehuset for å opereres mens verden holdt pusten og hele Kirken bad. Da paven etter noen dager kom til bevissthet, åpnet øynene og forberedte seg på å si noe, var forventningen stor. Hva for et mystisk utsagn ville han komme med, han som var stått på terskelen mellom liv og død? Dziwisz forteller at Johannes Pauls første ord var: ‘Har vi bedt kompletorium?’ Det er et rørende vitnesbyrd, synes jeg. Det viser at denne store kristne – kunstner, intellektuell og politiker – hadde et indre liv fullstendig strukturert av Kirkens bønn. Slik manes vi til trofasthet på egne vegne, til visshet om at, ber vi med Kirken, får vi akkurat den næring vi trenger for det ansvar og de oppgaver forsynet betror oss.

Queen of the Night

I gather there’s a plan to reboot Amadeus on Sky. Good luck to them. I’ve never understood why people bother to tamper with artistic creations that, within their idiom, achieve something close to perfection – like ridiculously remaking Brideshead. The producer’s promise of ‘a corrupting symphony of jealousy, ambition and genius’ is quite enough to make me resolve not to see the film. Mozart will forever remain a mystery unfathomable. The truest thing that can be said about him is what Piotr Anderszewski says in Monsaingeon’s portrait: ‘I have never been able to reconcile myself to the premature death of Mozart.’ Yet there’s something about the Miloš/Shaffer Amadeus that comes across as definitive. I love this scene in which a telling-off from a fierce mother-in-law makes Mozart touch the essence of one of opera’s most original characters. He must have operated a bit like that. If we were to discover just a fragment of his secret of sensation, how interesting, how rich life would be.

Blindness & Sight

The trajectory traced by St Teresa of Ávila reaches from the outset right to the loftiest end of spiritual life. She counsels souls who wobble ‘like hens, with feet tied together’ but also those who soar like eagles. Nor does she forget the perplexing darkness of the long intermediate stage when the soul, like a timid dove, is dazzled by rare glimpses of God’s Sun while, ‘when looking at itself, its eyes are blinded by clay. The little dove is blind’. Everything she writes, she tells us, is born of experience. For long years she herself ‘had neither any joy in God nor pleasure in the world’. She lived in an in-between state, a no-woman’s land. What changed it? No summary can do justice to her subtle account of the transformative miracle wrought in her by God. We can, though, get some sense of its impact. Teresa testifies how, at a decisive juncture, ‘todos los que me conocían veían claro estar otra mi alma’: her soul had become other; it was no longer what it used to be.

From a conference given in 2015.

Vince malum in bono

Ordene var mottoet til Biskop Jurgis Matulaitis, en av det tyvende århundres store bekjennere. Han var en lærd mann, en bønnens mann som elsket Kirken og utgjøt seg for henne. Han elsket også sitt Litauen, som han bidro til å bygge opp ved å nære, etter århundrers russisk dominans, landets særegne arv og på samme tid dets kulturelle og etniske mangfold. Biskop Matulaitis var en klok veileder, som uredd kalte en spade en spade. Her er et utdrag fra et brev han skrev i 1913 til en ung mann som ville bli prest: ‘Jeg har inntrykk at dine tvil har sitt opphav her: Du lar deg dominere helt av eget ego. Ditt liv beveger seg rundt din egen person som på en akse. Gjerne ville du sette deg selv og ditt levnet i banken, slik at egoet kunne tjene mest mulig renter. Du ønsker å beskytte og forsikre deg selv slik at ditt ego ikke går under eller utsettes for ulykke. Men selv de forsiktigste folk opplever iblant at de ikke er i stand til å holde på egen kapital.’ Biskop Matulaitis ble saligkåret av Pave Johannes Paul II i 1987. Du finner en masse ressurser på engelsk, deriblant hans åndelige dagbok, på denne siden.

The Woods

Writes Helen Waddell about Boethius:

‘It was fortunate for the sanity of the Middle Ages that the man who taught them so much of their philosophy was of a temperament so humane and so serene; that the ‘mightiest observer of mighty things’, who defined eternity with an exulting plenitude that no man has approached before or since, had gone to gather violets in a spring wood, and watched with a sore heart a bird in a cage that caught a glimpse of waving trees, and now grieved its heart out, scattering its seed with small impotent claws’:

Interesting After All

Any writer hopes to interest his readers, not necessarily to convince them, but to make them reflect, and to count the time well spent. So I was happy to discover Harry Readhead’s recent review of Chastity. He writes: ‘Chastity is a curious little book. It is immensely readable, yet deals with something I never thought I would find remotely interesting. It reconsiders and reframes a virtue that has long been understood simplistically and scornfully. By the time the curtain, as it were, comes down, we have the impression that chastity, in its broadest definition, communicates something noble, something admirable, something freeing and — ironically — something desirable. We are, in other words, persuaded by the author’s argument, which is subtle but insistent, clothed in the language of reflection and meditation: for it is an argument for a life lived on our own terms, liberated by the racket and noise of ego.’

Guardian Angels

The beginning of Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius speaks of a marvellous encounter. Just as Gerontius leaves this world, he realises he is not alone. A mysterious, discreet companion accompanies him into the hereafter. ‘Someone’, he says, ‘has me fast within his ample palm.’ Who? The answer is not slow in coming. His angel tells him: ‘My Father gave in charge to me this child of earth, e’en from its birth to serve and save, alleluia, and saved is he. This child of clay to me was given to rear and train by sorrow and pain in the narrow way, alleluia, from earth to heaven.’

From a homily for today’s feast of the Guardian Angels.

Oppskrift for bønn

‘Min käre Swinstead! Jag skulle tro att ni under omständigheterna inte kan uppnå den inre frid ni skulle vilja ha. Men det finns ett annat slags inre frid som innebär att vi helt enkelt vill det som Gud vill, även om det tycks vara just den otrevliga förströddhet och den utåtvändhet som vi förmodar är skadliga för oss. Det enda som krävs är att vi accepterar alla våra livsomständigheter och den verkan som dessa utövar på oss, och att vi glatt och villigt använder dem som ett medel att tillintetgöra vår egen vilja. Det finns inget annat bönerecept tror jag. Er alltid tillgivne F John Chapman OSB.’

Et brev datert 30 juni 1914 fra Abbed Chapmans åndelige brev, en uforlignelig bok om bønn, vakkert og trofast oversatt til svensk av en nonne i Hillerød under tittelen Allt är bra när allt känns fel.

Om verseføtter

In a virtuoso paean to scansion, ‘fear for the layman, opportunity for the academic to display his obfuscating expertise, alas’, Craig Raine reflects on the importance of developing an ability to listen with intelligence. The rhythm of poetry (and prose) supposes acoustic exercise. ‘Metrical variation occurs when the assimilation of the part to the whole sounds forced and unnatural. The ear decides. But you have to have one.’ Not everyone does. By way of example Raine performs a deft analysis of Auden’s poem Night Mail. Re-reading these familiar lines made me want to watch again the 1936 film with the same title, which Auden coproduced. It left me thoughtful, and touched. The film presents the image of a nation with self-confidence, of high ideals of collaboration, of a people eager to stay in touch with itself. Qualities hard to come by in today’s Europe, which nonetheless yearns for them. Auden’s poem features in the final three and a half minutes of the film.

Fischer

Alfred Brendel har ofte snakket om alt han skylder den store Edwin Fischer. Han bemerket en gang at han visst aldri hadde hørt noen få pianoet til å synge lik Fischer. Man skjønner hva han mener ved å lytte til denne innspillingen av Beethovens fjerde klaverkonsert. Kadensen i første sats er storartet. Er den Fischers egen? Men det store vidunder er annensatsen som, slik Ingmar Bergman bemerket i et berømt kåseri, er en skeptisk dialog mellom orkester og piano. ‘Beethoven lar orkesteret være i dårlig humør, bare hør hvor sint det er!’ Så kommer pianoet inn og sier, «Jeg skal trøste deg, jeg»‘, bare for å få til svar: ‘Ingen kan trøste meg!’ Pianoet gir dog ikke opp: ‘For en ømhet!’ ‘Til slutt begynner orkesteret å lytte, og satsen slutter i fredelig overenskomst.’ Fischer trekker oss inn i den lignelsen om grasiøs utholdenhet.

Utsett ikke

Fra dagens messelesning (Ordspråkene 3.27-34):

‘Min sønn, gjør godt mot dem som trenger det, nekt ikke å hjelpe om det står i din makt! Si ikke til din neste: «Gå din vei, og kom igjen i morgen, så skal du få!» – så sant du har noe å gi ham nå.’

Dette kan synes lettvint, kanskje; men i virkeligheten står holdningen, hvis vi tar den på alvor, for en høy grad av nestekjærlighet og selvovervinnelse. Jeg har med egne øyne sett at den kan føre et menneske til hellighet.

Nærvær

Denne bysten av Marcus Aurelius, laget mot slutten av det annet århundre, ble anskaffet av Nasjonalgalleriet i 1966. Jeg stod foran den som fjetret i formiddag. Å kalle den livaktig er utilstrekkelig; det er liv i den på forunderlig vis, et slags nærvær forblitt gjennom århundrene. Det er forunderlig at marmor formidler slik vitalitet. Og det slår meg: Alt det pjatt vi etterlater oss, nå, som vår ‘arv’ til ettertiden (kilometervis med smilefjes og utropstegn) veier mindre enn en eneste forstenet hårlokk på et slikt portrett. Keiseren er ung ennå: fjortisbarten strir med å etablere seg. Det mest slående er imidlertid blikket – utforskende, intelligent, klarsynt, og fredløst. Vi ser ansiktet til én som er seg tilværelsens alvor bevisst. Det får meg til å tenke på et avsnitt i Meditasjonene: ‘Lev ikke som om du hadde ti tusen år å kaste bort. Døden står ved din albue. Gjør da nytte for deg mens du lever, mens du kan’ (IV.17).

Utvalgt & benådet

Pope Francis has often referred movingly to the reading from St Bede that the Church gives us today, on the feast of St Matthew, especially to the phrase ‘miserando atque eligendo’, his episcopal motto. It is characteristic of Bede, that most humane of writers, to highlight the mercy at work in Christ’s election of his apostle – for a call is always gratuitous, independent of any merit real or imagined. It is equally characteristic that he, a monk through and through, should stress the utter self-surrender that must mark our response to such mercy, for to follow Jesus, he says, means ‘imitating the pattern of his life, not just walking after him’. Jesus subverted Matthew’s familiar world, not obliterating it, but showing its insufficiency to fulfil the supernatural desire that lay dormant in him. In this respect the drama of the apostle’s call remains paradigmatic for us all. It challenges us to consider afresh our own call and our loyalty to it now.

I helhet

I et retrettforedrag til prestene i Tromsø denne uken, snakket Sr Pauline Bürling om jesuitten Alfred Delp, henrettet av Hitlers regime i 1945, bare 37 år gammelt, for sin aktive motstand mot nazismen. Hun siterte den beryktede anklageren Roland Freisler som sa til Delps gode venn Grev von Moltke: ‘Kristne og vi nasjonalsosialister har dette til felles: Vi fordrer det hele menneske.’

Men der finnes en kategorisk forskjell. Den kristne fordring frigjør, lar menneskelig personlighet utfolde seg grenseløst og åpner for fellesskap; sekulær totalitarisme derimot begrenser livet, og kveler individet i fryktelig isolasjon.

Det er nyttig å minnes om dramaets innebyrd – og om forbilder vi kan se til.

Å være fri

In a note posted yesterday, reflecting on a recent encounter with President Zelenskyi, Timothy Snyder develops what he calls ‘the Zelenskyi paradox’. It is his shorthand for the insight that ‘a free person can sometimes only do one thing. If we think of freedom as just our momentary impulses, then we can always try to run.  But if we think of freedom as the state in which we can make our own moral choices and thereby create our own character, we might reach a point where, given who we have chosen to become, we have only one real choice. That was how Zelenskyi described his decision to stay in Kyiv: as not really a decision, but as the only thing he could have done and still remained true to himself. It was not only about defending freedom, although of course it was, but about remaining a free person.’ In fact this insight corresponds perfectly to Augustine’s, to which I regularly refer, that to be truly free is to have no choice to make, being fully configured to the good, true, and beautiful.

Evangelisering

Fra en presseuttalelse fra Den nordiske bispekonferanse: «Biskop Erik Varden OCSO (50), Biskop av Trondheim og Apostolisk Administrator av Tromsø, ble valgt som ny formann for Den nordiske bispekonferanse. Biskop Raimo Goyarrola (55), biskop av Helsinki, ble valgt til viseformann. Biskop David Tencer (61), biskop av Reykjavik, ble gjenvalgt som tredje medlem av konferansens permanente råd.  […] I et første utsagn sa Biskop Varden: ‘Konferansen har en vesentlig oppgave når det gjelder å nære vår evangeliserende innsats gjennom dype samtaler og tillitsfullt vennskap. Det katolske nærvær i våre land vokser. Vi ønsker å ledsage veksten på intelligent vis; vi ønske å støtte alle gode tiltak.’ Han sa videre: ‘Vårt post-sekulære samfunn åpner seg på nytt for metafysiske spørsmål og åndelige verdier. Mange mennesker er søkende. Kristus er og forblir verdens lys, målet for menneskets eksistens! Det er vårt ansvar å representere ham trofast og troverdig.’

Kontemplasjon

The word ‘contemplation’ is currently on many lips. It is a good thing. Many aspire to attain deep prayer. They long to ‘see God’, which is an eminently Scriptural aspiration. How often, though, the spiritual quest is treated, even in manuals of prayer, as if it were distinct from the general demands of Christian discipleship. We need the realism of St Bernard in the text which the Church this morning lets us read at Vigils: ‘The first stage of contemplation is to consider constantly what God wants, what is pleasing to him, and what is acceptable in his eyes. We all offend in many things; our strength cannot match the rightness of God’s will and cannot be joined to it or made to fit with it. So let us humble ourselves under the powerful hand of the most high God and make an effort to show ourselves unworthy before his merciful gaze, saying Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved […]. Once the eye of the soul has been purified by such considerations, we no longer abide within our spirit in a sense of sorrow, but abide rather in the Spirit of God with great delight. No longer do we consider what is the will of God for us, but rather what it is in itself. For our life is in his will. Thus we are convinced that what is according to his will is in every way better for us, and more fitting. And so, if we are concerned to preserve the life of our soul, we must be equally concerned to deviate as little as possible from his will.’ From Sermo V de diversis, 4-5.