We’ve reached the end of our journey through the mansions and arrived at the center. Where, Teresa describes the spiritual marriage that takes place between the soul and God. After briefly covering this mansion I’ll talk about my reflections of the book overall. (more…)
Written and posted by Jamison on November 17, 2009, 11:09 am.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections
We’ve come to the sixth level of our castle/tower. At this point, according to Teresa, the soul is tightly bound to Christ. It has chosen to be united with Christ, to become one with the betrothed. However, there is still a period of betrothal that must be endured. According to Teresa it is certainly a matter of endurance. Most of her descriptions of this area of spirituality deal with the suffering and pain that come from the trials as the soul gets closer to Christ. However, again, Teresa links this suffering to a righteousness, coming from being so closely aligned with Christ. She states:
…because so delectable a pain can never be bestowed upon the soul by the devil: he can give pleasures and delights which seem to be spiritual, but it is beyond his power to unite pain — and such a great pain! — with tranquility and joy in the soul; for all his powers are in the external sphere, and, when he causes pain, it is never, to my mind, delectable or peaceful, but restless and combative.
So the sufferings that are endured in this arena are those that also bring joy and peace in Christ. They’re not trials that come from the devil, but are experiences that temper and mature the soul for it’s journey to marriage with Christ.
To reflect on this for myself, I have to say I have a hard time with the ideas that Teresa is trying to get at here. She seems to be presenting a path of prayer that brings the soul closer to Christ, and in doing so we engage so fully in the suffering of Christ that we begin to experience His suffering in our life, physically. Although I can see how people who are delving deeply into the mystical paths of prayer that this might be something they experience, but I’m to the point where I think Teresa has left the common man. Perhaps we all have the ability to engage Christ as deeply as she’s presented here, but I don’t think it’s very common or usual in the life of the modern believer.
So what can we learn from this, despite the feeling that it’s beyond where most of us will be? What I take from this is more insight into the nature and place of salvific suffering. The idea of being bound to Christ’s suffering, no matter our place and time in life. Experiencing the suffering of Christ isn’t something that is easy to do, and I confess as to not fully understanding how Teresa’s explaining how we experience it. But, to experience that which Christ took on himself for our sake is certainly a noble pursuit in whatever way of our life that we can seek it.
Written and posted by Jamison on October 29, 2009, 1:04 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion
As I approach the fifth section of this work, I need to make a confession. It’s getting harder and harder to finish this book. This is not because the content is giving me trouble, but because the writing craft is so foreign to what people today are used to. I find myself frustrated because I feel like the point that Teresa is trying to make could have been made in about 1/3rd the amount of words she uses. However, I will see it to completion, but I wanted to share that struggle before I dive in.
In the fifth mansions we’re approached our prayer of union with God. It is in this place where we are approaching true union with the divine. Unlike previous mansions, we’re fully and completely aware of our union as well. We recognize that our experience with God is real and true, and not a dream or an illusion.
Written and posted by Jamison on October 7, 2009, 10:07 am.
Filed under: General Discussion
As we continue our journey into the 4th mansions, or 4th floor of our building, we come to the point where Teresa says that the natural and the supernatural start to mix. She begins by talking about the difference between “sweetness in prayer” and “spiritual consolations”. The first of these is something that we attain for ourselves. It is those moments of meditation and discipline where we feel the joy and passion of being close to the Lord. Teresa talks about crying when viewing and meditating on a statue of the Passion, or the joy experienced when doing God’s work and feeling full of His love.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 29, 2009, 8:47 am.
Filed under: General Discussion
We’ve come now to the third or mansions, or the third floor of our tower. At this point in Teresa’s descriptions we’ve arrived at the point where people are basically living a pious life. In this level we find people who have managed to overcome the day to day struggles of sin. Granted, from her description, the holiness appears to be an outward holiness, and perhaps hasn’t penetrated them completely.
I believe that, through His goodness, there are many such souls in the world: they are most desirous not to offend His Majesty; they avoid committing even venial sins; they love doing penance, they spend hours in recollection; they use their time well; they practise works of charity toward their neighbours; and they are very careful in their speech and dress and in the government of their household if they have one.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 26, 2009, 12:38 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation
After talking with a couple different people I want to take a quick pause in my thoughts to just cover a couple things.
First, someone expressed some confusion about the metaphor of the various mansions. What Teresa is doing is using an urban planning metaphor that people in her day would understand. In her time there were castles that were built for the kings/lords/noblemen, etc.,. These castles were surrounded by mansions that were built progressively outward from the castle. As you got further away from the castle you were further away from the king, and closer to the wilds of the world. Now, most of us today don’t live in castles, so the metaphor breaks down a bit.
The basic idea though is that Teresa wants to take us on a 7-step journey into our own souls. Before the journey we’re completely focused on the world, and after the journey we’re completely focused on Christ. She uses a metaphor that works for the people she was talking to, but if it’s something that just doesn’t make sense to you, then feel free to discard it or substitute something more meaningful. Something more modern might be to look at a 7 story office building. The bottom floor is where you enter from the world, and at the top is the CEO of the company. So we’re making a journey upwards in our building as we progress through each of the 7 floors.
Second, I want to mention that I was perhaps a bit too hasty in my last post, and as pointed out in the comments, didn’t phrase something particularly well, so I’d encourage my readers to read the comments from the previous post and understand that I wasn’t trying to say that Protestants don’t suffer, but that most non-Orthodox/non-Catholic theology doesn’t look at the idea of Redemptive Suffering, which is what Teresa has at the heart of her second mansion/floor. She wants us to realize that we have a responsibility to avoid falling in to sin, and that we too often shy away from fighting it because it’s hard, and we don’t like to suffer. Too often we also blame God for “not giving us enough strength”, which she refutes with the quote from my posting.
Finally, I want to just say a quick word about how my intentions for these reflections. In my first post I asked a question about how an inward spiritual life can affect an outward Christ-like life. To be clear, that’s my question, and not one I’m even sure if Teresa is providing an answer to. But I’m entering this reading with a mind towards seeing if any of Teresa’s wisdom touches on this topic.
Ok, back to regular posting. Just wanted to clarify a few things before we continued our walk.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 23, 2009, 10:28 am.
Filed under: General Discussion
This second portion of Teresa of Ávila’s work is quite short. She explains that this is because she has covered much of this material in a different book. However, I don’t really feel compelled to go and seek out that book, and want to just stay focused on what she’s given us to chew on in this book.
In the second mansion described by Teresa , we have progressed deeper into the human soul, but not too deep. We are still in an area of the castle where the broods of vipers and wild animals (as she is so fond of talking about) can still enter and seek to bite us, in other words we can still be tempted to sin quite readily. However, in this second phase of our journey inwards, we start to see a change in intention. If prayer is the doorway in which we begin our pathway towards uniting Christ and our soul, then it is in the second mansion that we start to perfect our steps through the denial of sin.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 21, 2009, 9:40 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation
Today I picked up, and started reading Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. I thought it might be an interesting task to bring the readers of HHG (all 3 of you) along with me as I journey through this classic work. The nature of this work is to examine our souls as if they were a mansion with many layers of rooms. Christ’s light is at the core, with His power of love, compassion and perfection. The world of sinfulness and darkness exists beyond the outer rooms. Therefore the question we face is how we can move ourselves further inwards towards the pure light of Christ.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 19, 2009, 5:01 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion, Reflections, Transformation
NOTE, the contents of this post are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of other authors on this site.
Today on a walk, I was listening to a podcast from a Franciscan friar about the history of Catholic hospitals. This again started prodding some thoughts in my head, that have been ruminating there for a while, about the topic of a Christian response to the healthcare debate in the United State. History shows that when it came to bringing healthcare to the people, it was the Christian churches (and religions in general) that led the cause, and in fact were the only source of health and healing for most people. As early as 325 AD, the Council of Nicea ordered that every town that had a cathedral, also must provide a hospital to care for the sick. This even developed into Christian monks helping to create some of the first mental health counseling treatments.
Written and posted by Jamison on September 13, 2009, 4:25 pm.
Filed under: Culture, General Discussion, Our Roots
I apologize in advance, knowing full well that I will probably make a few unorthodox statements and probably ruffle more than a few feathers — I’m sorry, really. But indulge me for a few minutes and allow me to be quite frank. There’s a long overdue vent that requires being thrown out into some ones and zeros and let people ruminate on.
It seems you can take the Orthodoxy out of the culture, but not the culture out of the Orthodoxy.
Written and posted by Michael on July 20, 2009, 3:02 pm.
Filed under: Culture, Orthodoxy
I won’t lie — I’ve neglected my contributions to The Hitchhiker’s Guide [psst... and I'm the admin]. In fact, because I felt like I had nothing to say or to contribute to the discussion of the ancient faith, I didn’t say anything at all.
It was probably better that way.
Written and posted by Michael on July 15, 2009, 2:52 pm.
Filed under: Daily Walk, The Journey, The Road Ahead
This past Sunday I had the honor of being able to experience the Eastern liturgy for the first time. Michael’s child was being baptized, and even though the baptism doesn’t take place during the liturgy, we were all invited to attend the liturgy beforehand. I decided to take them up on the invitation and see just how different the Eastern liturgy is, and so I thought I’d document some very brief thoughts.
For those unfamiliar, the Eastern Orthodox churches follow the Byzantine Rite. It’s a much longer liturgy than most of us in the West are used to. It’s also mostly sung, without instrumentation (kudos to the choir at St. George for doing such a nice job).
One of the things that struck me right off the bat is that the congregation seems to be more of a spectator than in the ‘modern’ Western Rite. The priest is often speaking with his back turned, and there’s a great deal of quiet prayers that the priest is saying while the congregation and/or choir is singing or speaking a different part of the liturgy. It does promote the idea of heaven coming down to us, and we are witnesses to the great mystery, more so than in the Western Rite.
There is also a great deal of repetition in the Eastern Rite. Many litanies are repeated over and over again, which I’m sure contributed to the length of the service. Also, there was many more places where people are doing the sign of the cross, so there was a bit more physical movement.
In terms of things I didn’t like, I have to say I felt a bit lost, but this is probably due to the lack of good congregational materials that are available for the Eastern Rite. Even though the liturgy was incredibly rich, I almost felt that it was too much for me. I felt a bit of overload at times. Perhaps that would lessen in time, as someone would get used to it more, but the initial shock was certainly there. Also, since the liturgy was so packed, at times it seemed that things were a bit rushed.
However, there was a great deal that I appreciated. I enjoyed the lack of instruments frankly. It kinda kills the whole ‘worship wars’ idea. There was a deep reverence as well that seemed to carry into everything that was done, even when it was done quickly. Not just the sacred host, but many elements, were given reverence, including kissing of crosses, and the display of the the Gospel, and reverence towards icons. In fact the entire worship space had a very rich artistic and reverent feel to it.
So it was certainly a very interesting first experience in an Eastern context. I think there’s a lot that both East and West have going for them in terms of their liturgies and I feel like I’m richer for having experienced both.
Written and posted by Jamison on July 15, 2009, 9:36 am.
Filed under: General Discussion
I haven’t written here in a while and had some thoughts on my mind so now’s as good a time as any to share them.
In a previous post I talked about my reasons for becoming Catholic, as opposed to the other two options that seemed open to me at the time. I spent a bit more time in that post talking about my reasons for not going Orthodox, and felt that I glossed over the Anglican piece a little too quickly. Since it’s something that’s been mentioned more than once I thought I’d take a moment to talk a bit more about our friends in the Church of England.
First, I should say that I was a bit dismissive in one of my previous statements. I said that, “Additionally, I simply felt that the political reasons for forming the Anglican church in the first place simply weren’t very convincing for me.” I didn’t unpack that however, which I should have. First off, it is important to note that the idea of ‘Anglicanism’ has existed for centuries, mainly as the distinctly British Isles stream of the Catholic faith. Much like there are many ethnically based branches of the Orthodox church there are also cultural streams in the Catholic church that have existed since the earliest days of the church. Much before the split that formed the Church of England proper, there were seeds of a culturally distinct church going back to the days when Augustine was sent to Britain in 597. These distinctions showed themselves in various ways throughout the years, embodied in various people such as Thomas a Becket and John Wyclif. It was people like this that formed the backdrop that allowed Henry VIII to move for a more formal separation when he wanted an annulment that the Pope refused to grant. So even though it was the act of Henry VIII that began the formal Anglican church, there was a distinct cultural difference that was present for ages previous.
Second, I wanted to emphasize again a point that I made in my previous post that there are a great many wonderful Anglican’s that are doing amazing work for God’s kingdom in the world today. When you peel back the veneer that is current state of the Episcipol church in America right now you find that there are many wonderful parishes trying to balance the commitent to the traditional (such as the Book of Common Prayer) with the needs of the modern secular world. One of the wonderful things I remember in Seminary was the deep liturgical history and heritage that the Anglican tradition tried to bring to the Protestant world. Many times the churches that were on the cutting edge of reviving ancient spiritual practices, were the Anglican churches.
It’s because of this desire to hold on to tradition, and the desire to still associate itself with the line of Apostolic Succession yet, engage the world in a way that is much closer to the way that Protestantism behaves, that has caused the Anglican church to be associated with a term called ‘via media’. That is to mean, that they often see themselves as the ‘middle way’, the church that is between the ancient Roman world, and the bridge to the new churches of the Protestant Reformation. However, I believe it is this balancing act that has given the Anglican communion it’s greatest strengths, and it’s greatest weaknesses. Especially in the church in America. It too often seems that the Anglican church tries to be everything to everyone but in the end becomes nothing to no one. The grasp and desire for diversity and acceptance often leads the Episcopal church in America into squabbles and hardships that end up detracting from a primary purpose of the Church, which is to bring the incarnation into the lives of Christ’s followers.
As I listen to many programs about converts to the Catholic church, I’m surprised at how many of them are from the Anglican church. What’s even more intersting is how many of them ended up leaving, not because of a complete lack of theological merit in the Anglican church, but because of what was seen as a complete breakdown in the structure and leadership of the church. In many ways this is what caused me the most issue with considering a conversion to the Anglican church. Not the lack of theological truth and depth (John Wesley, my historical mentor was a deeply committed Anglican), but it’s lack of direction and purpose in the world as it struggles with it’s mission, as a church trying to walk a very fine ‘middle’ line, and optical amplifierperhaps falling too often.
Written and posted by Jamison on June 1, 2009, 8:18 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion
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In the season on Lent, Christians are called upon to focus themselves on Christ’s sacrifice for us in the upcoming Passion, by engaging in some form of spiritual discipline. We’re all familiar with the traditional avenues this usually takes, such as picking something to give up for Lent, and the traditional Catholic discipline of no-meat on Fridays. However, many times we miss the point when we simple “give something up”, that it’s not supposed to be just about our ability to overcome our desires, but our discipline is meant to bring us into closer communion with God. That means that our discipline doesn’t have to be about letting go, but could also mean adding on. Because of everything that has happened in my life this past year, I’ve decided that simply giving something up is not what I need to do this Lent. I’ve had to give up a lot this year already, and I feel I need to add something to my spiritual life instead.
So for this Lent, I’ve decided to commit to praying the Liturgy of the Hours. This is an ancient discipline that centers around praying at certain times of the day. It’s a practice that is very, very ancient and it meant to help focus your daily life around prayer with God. In ancient times, monks would gather and pray together every three hours. In modern times, most people who pray the LoH commit to praying the three main hours of Morning (Lauds), Evening (Vespers) and Night (Compline). Each prayer time consists of some Scripture and prayers that are appropriate for the season, and if combined with the Office of Readings (a set of readings that have no set ‘time’) you can get a large dose of Scripture and meditations. So for this discipline I’ll be committing to praying when I wake in the morning, after I get home from work, and then right before bed.
Committing to this for the entirety of Lent is going to be a big challenge for me. However, with the advent of technology, I have a lot of things that will be able to help me. Instead of purchasing the large (and expensive) 4-volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours, I will be using a site called Universalisfree video poker how to play backgammon no deposit bonus online casino 888 no download casino play roulette craps game black jack download american roulette play video poker baccarat free casino game no download online casino free money on line casino wagering roulette online online casino betting free online casino slots free craps best casino roulette gambling internet casino gambling uk best casino online full pay video poker no deposit casino code best craps game black jack tournament best online casino site craps online game newest online casino free slots no download play blackjack online free dueces wild video poker black jack gambling online video poker game free casino cash no deposit video poker tutorial play free video poker how to win at black jack casino roulette casino guide how to win at roulette rules of craps casino game online real money backgammon baccarat casino online free video poker game play free video poker video poker odds video poker tournaments , which publishes the complete set of daily prayers for each day. You simply go to the site each day and click on the prayer time you’re looking for and you get that day’s reading. However, I still want to be able to read the LoH even if I’m not near a computer, so I’m also purchasing the Universalis iPod version. For a fraction of the cost of the printed edition, I will have the complete LoH on my iPod Touch that I can reference at any time. It’s laid out with an easy to use calendar that allows you to browse through any day of the year, in a nice easy to read format.
I’ll be honest, this is going to be a very hard discipline to keep. It’s not easy to take something on brand new for an extended period of time that requires work and commitment. It’s going to mean that I commit time each day, three times a day, to stopping what I’m doing and reciting the prayers and readings for that day. It means taking my focus off whatever is distracting me at the time and refocusing on God. But after all, that’s the point of all this anyway isn’t it?
Written and posted by Jamison on February 24, 2009, 9:04 am.
Filed under: General Discussion
>мебелиe are tough days indeed — plenty of anxiety, stress, and negativity to go around and then some. And of course the overly-spirited mud slinging between Presidential campaigns, their supporters, and anyone with a political point of view has only contributed to further divisions, polarizing individuals even further than before. My wife and I have even been the target of some of that mud slinging because we don’t hold to a certain party line, which I think is just preposterous. But before I get distracted with political points, I’m going to lay that aside to reflect on something of greater importance: finding peace by drawing near to God and His mercy through the simple act of prayer.
Written and posted by Michael on October 20, 2008, 2:26 pm.
Filed under: Daily Walk, General Discussion, Orthodoxy, Transformation
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