Oppmuntring

Jeg satt på flybussen grytidlig i dag morges da jeg leste annen lesning i matutin og ble slått av umiddelbarheten i ord nedtegnet for nær tusen år siden av Anselm av Canterbury, et helstøpt menneske, tvers igjennom munk. Så forunderlig at ømhet sånn kan formidles på tvers av århundrene. ‘Kom nå, arme menneske! Legg dine gjøremål til side en stakket stund, ta fri fra dine mange urolige tanker! Kast dine bekymringer bak deg, og utsett de slitsomme oppgaver som venter. Gi litt av din tid til Gud, og hvil deg i ham. Tre inn i din sjels lønnkammer, og steng alt ute, unntatt Gud og det som kan hjelpe deg til å søke ham. Lukk døren og søk Gud! Tal mitt hjerte, åpne nå din dør og si til Gud: Jeg søker ditt åsyn; ditt åsyn er det jeg søker, Herre. Herre, lær nå mitt hjerte hvor og hvordan det skal søke deg, og hvordan det skal finne deg.’

Healing Wounds

‘There is a tendency in Christian devotion to prettify, even to idealise, wounds. This tendency is perverse. Human nature, created in the image of God to be like God, is made for wholeness. Here and now we inhabit a world that is wounded, groaning in pangs of deliverance. We are wounded, subject to the anomaly which Scripture calls ‘sin’, an existential wasting-sickness. Sin leaves its mark on our spirit and on our body. It can paralyse our will or lead it astray. To be fully human is to own this state of affairs. It is to be reconciled to loss and the inevitability of death. But it is no less to remember that our woundedness is of time, and that time will pass. The Christian Gospel envisages the passage from a frank acknowledgement of wounds to the prospect of definitive healing. It proposes a vista of transformation, ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ where ‘death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more.’ There, the first things will have passed. The first things, though, must happen first.’ From Healing Wounds, published today.   

Die Manns

The docudrama is a tricky genre. The dramatic component easily comes across as a series of ornamental vignettes jarring with or romanticising the documentary. Life is mostly duller than drama; so we are left feeling cheated, confronted with something that is neither quite real nor quite satisfying our thirst for fantasy. Heinrich Breloer’s Die Manns is an exception to this rule. True, Thomas Mann and his gifted entourage were not a ‘normal’ family: in their case realism was fantastic. There is at the same time a narrative rigour to the drama that presents a credible portrait, not only of a clan, but of a world before, during, and after World War II subject to cataclysmic change. It is an unsettling and appropriate film to watch again now, with so much coming undone. The serene commentary of Elisabeth Mann Borgese adds a note of paradoxical hopefulness. Marcel Reich-Ranicki called Die Manns a high point of German cinema. I’d say that is no exaggeration.

Iron Age Words

I recently learned that Fr Paul Mankowski would advise people to pray the Divine Office by giving them this recommendation: ‘It’s good to have Iron Age words in your mouth every day.’ His phrase has been ringing in my ears, echoing with truth. There’s something about the taste of substantial ancient utterance that trains one’s palate to appreciate excellence and identify bosh, an exercise which, practised daily, may actually train me to swallow the latter before I am tempted to articulate it. This morning at Lauds, I savoured the phrase: Ego et anima mea regi cæli lætationes dicimus. Literally: ‘My soul and I speak rejoicings to the king of heaven’ (Tobit 13.7). There’s no dualism here, but recognition that I’m often enough at odds with myself. Am I where my soul is? To let myself be challenged by that question is, I think, an excellent way to prepare for Christmas.

En selv i ett ord

Jeg sjarmeres og inspireres av et kvikt svar Einar Økland gir en intervjuer i forrige ukes Dag og Tid:

– Dersom du skulle summera deg sjølv opp i eitt ord, kva kunne det vera?

– Kolon.

– ???

– Kolon har noko på begge sider, men er heilt ope både for innspel og utspel. Men dette er ei artikulering som kjem i ettertid. Ein veit ikkje kva ein tek inn, eller kva ein slepper ut, før etterpå. Eit alternativt svar kunne vore «punktum». Eit punkt har inga utstrekning og kan vera både byrjing og slutt.

Poesi

Mitt bidrag til «Årets bok»-spalten i The Tablet den 30. november 2024:

Det er noe forunderlig på ferde i Pater Paul Murrays diktning, en slags krystallisering som utfolder seg fra det ene bind til det neste, uten å minske hans poesis karakteristiske jordbunnethet og intimitet. Lys ved reven horisont inneholder mange fine tekster i et register som strekker seg fra det lekne («Sang til tegnsettingens pris») til det gravalvorlige («Til en venn på dødsleiet»). Jeg har lest samlingen oppmerksomt, ærbødig, takknemlig.

Et godt menneske

I det jeg går og tenker på Mount Melleray, husker jeg med høy aktelse en munk som var prior der i en krevende tid, et inderlig godt menneske. Jeg feiret da tiden kom hans begravelse: ‘For anyone inclined to think that a monk’s dying to the world is a life-denying, fearful, glum affair, Brother Boniface provided a startling corrective. What a cheerful, warm-hearted, hospitable man he was! As Mount Melleray’s porter he exercised for decades a ministry of welcome. A brother who worked with him has told me he never saw Boniface turn away a person in need. That is a noble legacy. Brother Boniface received all comers kindly. He practised the asceticism of suspended judgement. Not that he was gullible. In fact, he was very shrewd. But he refused to condemn another. As a result, he was a vessel of comfort for many. He gave fresh heart to the hopeless, showed the way to the lost. Gifted with wonderful patience, he knew how to listen. Having listened, he would speak, but not much. His essential message was conveyed simply by his presence.’

Ingen blivende stad

Nyheten om at cistercienserne forlater Mount Melleray har vekket mange og sterke reaksjoner. Klosteret har spilt en nøkkelrolle i Irlands katolske og verdslige historie. Jeg har nettopp lest på nytt et elegisk essay John Waters skrev etter et besøk for ti år siden, seg vel bevisst at han var vitne til noe dyrebart i ferd med å forsvinne: «Det slår meg dypt at disse mennenes bedende, tause nærvær her på stedet på et eller annet vis er vesentlig for vår menneskelige fremtid, selv om vi knapt vet at de finnes, ja, selv om vi forakter deres ofre. Jeg tenker ikke kun på dét at de ber for oss; jeg tenker på at de lar oss ane noe som er verd å tro på så betingelsesløst at, om vi så fnyser av det, det lar oss fortsette vår tilværelse i det vi tenker på som den ‘virkelige’ verden, litt som da vi en gang i tiden festet natten lang i visshet om at våre kjedelige foreldre sov urolig hjemme, i håp om at vi ville vende trygt tilbake ved morgengry.»

Infant of Prague

It seemed eminently meaningful to find myself, in the evening of the feast of Christ the King, on my knees before the Infant of Prague. The aesthetics of the statue and its shrine will appear differently to different people, but that is beside the point: what the monument expresses is that God, to become man, became a child. Dom Porion has written: ‘God made himself a child to heal our useless fears and to inspire us with confidence; for fear, lack of trust, and timidity constitute an ancient and grave illness that affects us all to a greater or lesser extent.’ This is true. There is a further dimension to this image. Having been made in Spain it was brought to Prague in rough conditions: it lost its hands. A Carmelite praying before the statue seemed to hear it say: ‘Give me hands and I will give you peace.’ He promptly restored them. Countless people have since found peace in the statue’s presence. Of course, there is also a parable in the story: each of us is called to be Christ’s hands in this world, instruments for the good he wishes to accomplish. Caritas Christi urget nos.

 

Cecilia

‘Cecilia’s Christian witness caused scandal in a city still largely pagan. She was arrested, then condemned to suffocation in the baths. When the city’s prefect heard she was still alive after 24 hours, he ordered decapitation. The henchman struck thrice, unable to sever the head from the trunk. Roman law did not permit a fourth attempt. He left Cecilia bleeding, therefore. She lived on for three days. Then she died, and was buried by Pope Urban. This story, told in ancient chronicles, was confirmed by observation in the jubilee year of 1600. During restoration works at the abbey of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, on the site where Cecilia’s family had held its titulus, the martyr’s remains were found. Not only were they in a state of incorruption. The twisted position of Cecilia’s head also corresponded exactly to the story of failed execution. The find was a sensation. Swiss guards had to be brought in to control the traffic of pilgrims wanting to pray in the physical presence of one of Rome’s most beloved saints.’ From Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses.

Poison

One of the papers I look at each morning is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a good old-fashioned continental broadsheet with a deserved reputation for serious, well-researched journalism. Even here one senses a change of tonality these days. I have been struck to find, over little more than 48 hours, three front-page headlines that cry out: ‘Poison!’ The contexts were various, applying first to a political party (the AfD), then to the culture of victimisation, then to Platform X. The matters in hand are causes for concern, that is true. But what does it do to public discourse when bastions of measured analysis yield routinely to hyperbole? What does it say about journalism that such easy recourse is had to the semantic register of toxins? It goes beyond my competence to attempt the psychoanalysis of a newspaper. But it seems to me these questions are worth asking. The task of the press is surely to articulate problems so that these can be addressed, not just to cry wolf.

Creating Order

One of my favourite books by Thomas Merton is his Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shakers. The Shaker village of Pleasant Hill is unfar from Gethsemani. Engaging with the history of the place and its deep motivation, he was struck by parallels with monastic life. He summed up his findings in this little book, illustrated with his own photographs. We are treated to a precious collection of Shaker apophthegmata, like this one: ‘We are not called to labour to excel, or to be like the world; but to excel them in order, union, peace, and in good works – works that are truly virtuous and useful to man in this life. All things ought to be made according to their order and use.’ What a revolution might ensue in a time in which ‘manufacture’ has become an all but meaningless term, if this principle were heeded here and there. The Shakers also liked to say: ‘If you love a plant, take heed to what it likes.’ That counsel is transferrable to many aspects of living and relating.

Såret løve

Historien om den hellige Hieronymus og løven fikk endelig form i Den Gyldne Legende, men må ha sirkulert lang tid i forvei. Opprinnelsen er uklar. I middelalderversjonen dukker en løve opp en kveld i Hieronymus’ kloster i Betlehem. Brødrene var fra seg, men Hieronymus så at dyret trengte hjelp. Det hadde en såret pote, gjennomboret av en torn. Helgenen fikk tornen ut, og løven frydet seg: «Den løp gledesstrålende gjennom klosteret og knelte foran hver munk og viftet med halen, som om den ville be om unnskyld for ugagn den før hadde gjort.» Motivet er ofte blitt fremstilt i kunsten. Nylig så jeg dette tiltalende panelet på Lübeck-alteret i Nikolaus-kirken i Tallinn. Hieronymus er knusktørr og streng, men utfører sin kirurgi med omhu. Tornen er blitt til en diger spiker, solid nok til å holde sammen en låvedør. Den fryktelige løven fremstår som en valp. Budskapet er klart: iblant er ting vi frykter i seg selv uskyldige; på samme tid skjer det at små sår kan ramme oss veldig.

Oppdagelse

I et intervju som alt er noen år gammelt forteller Tamara Rojo om sin første opplevelse av ballett, fem år gammel. Hun var blitt geleidet inn i gymsalen, ut av kulden, mens hun ventet på at moren skulle hente henne hjem fra skolen. En dansetime var i gang: «Der var en sånn stillhet og harmoni. Det føltes fullkomment, som en ny verden jeg aldri før hadde sett. Jeg ville ikke gå min vei. Da moren min endelig kom, sa jeg, «Men vi må da bli her og følge med til slutten på dette, hva det nå er!» For jeg ante ikke hva ballett var. Jeg forstod ikke at ballett var forestilling.»

Denne klarsynte, mystiske innsikt små barn ofte har i forhold til et kall, til veien de må følge. Den må møtes med ærbødighet.

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.