To God, About God

What’s wrong with the world?  When this question was sent out by a British newspaper in the early 20th century to noted authors of the time, intending to elicit essay responses, G.K. Chesterton famously gave the most concise response: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely Yours, GKC.”  The remark hits upon a profound truth.  Take your pick from among the laundry-list of social ills that plague our world: abortion, crime, war, poverty, sexual scandal, political corruption, domestic violence, alcoholism, drug abuse.  Every social ill ultimately has its root in the individual human heart, and without seeking a remedy to this first of all, we are like sailors on a sinking ship continually heaving water off the boat while ignoring the leak.

This is not to say, of course, we should ignore social problems, or neglect putting our energies into shaping a social order that respects justice, human dignity, and the common good.  It is, however, to point out what Chesterton realized, and indeed what recent Popes have pointed out in their social encyclicals: a just social order  necessarily depends on a fundamental conversion of the human heart, both to initiate worthwhile change, and to maintain and preserve it.

 It is most interesting, in this light, that Aquinas reckons the virtue of obedience as part of the cardinal virtue of Justice (ST II.II.104.2).  In our contemporary American culture, we are perhaps not used to thinking of “obedience” as a virtue.  We more naturally, I think, imagine it a necessary but annoying part of certain very limited segments of life: a worker obeying his manager’s wishes on the job; a soldier bound to obey his higher officer; even a pet properly trained to follow the dictates of its owner (it is telling that two out of the four automatically generated Google suggestions for “obedience” pertain to doggy-training!).  Yet Aquinas, articulating a longstanding Christian (and biblical) tradition, sees obedience not only as a virtue necessary to the just maintenance of human society, but pervading all aspects of human interaction.  Why?

 The first part of the answer is fairly straightforward.  Insofar as obedience indicates a certain way of yielding our immediate desires and inclinations to the common good, the obedience we give to civil law ensures that society can function on a day-to-day basis.  Society demands order, and if I thwart that order by stealing something not rightfully mine, the state can justly punish me and demand I recompense the aggrieved party.  So too the “obedience” I give to my employer is a choice I make in full knowledge that if I neglect my duties, the employer can relieve me of my employed status.  Aquinas, though, will say that something more than external conformity to the law is needed to make obedience meritorious.  Charity must inform the practice of obedience, such that we obey “not through fear of punishment, but through love of justice” (ST II.II.104.3).  Justice, moreover, extends beyond the legal and civil order with which we generally associate it.  It extends to obeying religious superiors (“observance”), to obeying parents (“piety”) and above all to obeying God (“religion”).

 As a religious, I can testify (with virtually every other religious I’ve met) that among the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the last is the most difficult.  Poverty can offer challenges, such as not being able to travel as readily or obtain the worldly comforts many people today enjoy.  But in our consumerist world this sort of life is somewhat refreshing and attractive.  Chastity has its demands as well, though my experience is that fidelity to one’s prayer life and closeness to the sacraments protects and sustains the heart and mind in this regard.  Obedience, though, cuts to the heart of what it means to be a human being, or more specifically what it means to be a son of Adam.

 Each of us clings desperately to our own will, and not without reason.  Our free will, among all the goods we possess, is perhaps the most cherished and intimate part of ourselves.  It is the center of our moral action and all our behavior.  It is the faculty we have, as a gift from God, to carry out day-to-day tasks, from the minutest to the greatest.  It is where thought, memory, experience and desire all unite into concrete decisions about how we are to live.  As we know, though, the more valuable and sacred a thing is, the more drastic and destructive can be its effects when misused.  Scripture and history eloquently and relentlessly narrate the abuses that arise from a disordered human heart that is bent on “having its way.”  So, too, in our own personal lives each of us experiences the weakness of our human will with its faults and inclinations to sin, even in spite of our best intentions.

 The vow of obedience in religious life, therefore, is partially meant as a kind of school of discipline to remedy this natural inclination to selfishness and pride.  All Christians in virtue of our baptism are called to self-renunciation for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 16:24).  But in making the vow of obedience in religious life, one is in essence saying, “My life is not my own. I put it entirely at the service of God and His Church as God reveals His will to me through my superiors.”  The rub comes when we are called to do things for God and His Church at the command of his sometimes very weak and fallible human instruments.  Thus charity enters in.  Unless a superior demands something that is contrary to God’s law and thus violates conscience (in which case one is actually bound to disobey), the practice of obedience hones us in charity.  I happened to have been blessed with very good superiors thus far in my Dominican life, but whether one enjoys this situation or not, in either case obedience impels the religious to put aside his own will, put himself at the disposal of another, and (above all) trust that “in everything God works for good”(Rom 8:28).  In doing so, we imitate in some small way the One who became “obedient, even unto death, death on a Cross”(Philip 2:4).

 There is even a freeing aspect to such a vow.  The central Dominican mission is to preach for the salvation of souls.  We cultivate a life of prayer, study, and contemplation precisely for this end.  Taking a vow of obedience in a sense frees one of the burden of always thinking and wondering and planning where he is going to be in the next year, the next month, even the next week.  If the Order calls, we go.  If there are souls in a particular place, then, well, the gospel needs to be preached there, whether I in my own cleverness had thought of the possibility or not.  One must be ready, of course, for bearing a certain burden, and for facing up to and enduring perhaps very demanding ministries and missions.  But in all things, God’s is the glory and we put ourselves entirely at the service of His desires as they come to us through the Order to which we are vowed.

 With the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, upon us at the outset of this new calendar year, we may look to Mary as an icon of that perfect obedience to the Father’s will which we are all called to imitate.  Unhesitating, total, undaunted, willing even to endure misunderstanding and suffering, Mary’s obedience to the Father’s will is the model for all religious.  Mary could have had no idea what she was getting into when she uttered her Fiat, but she trusted that her Father would provide, whatever circumstances arose.  It is this kind of loving obedience to the Father that is the cure for our fallen nature’s more destructive tendencies, tendencies that will last as long as we dwell within this mortal coil.  We do well to continue heaving as much water out of the ship of human affairs as we can, though each of us must be especially attentive to that primordial leak which only grace informing our will by charity can plug.  Mary, Mother of God, Ora pro nobis!

Advent has now begun, and for us students that means that the Day of Judgment is quickly approaching. Of course, by “Day of Judgment” I mean Finals Weeks in mid-December, when all of our studies for the semester are summed up in term papers and final exams, and our professors “judge” our learning for the semester by assigning grades. It is a time of busyness and of stress, of late nights, and those disconcerting moments when we think, “can I get it all done in time?

 I suppose that, in general, the several weeks before Christmas are that way for many others as well: gift-purchasing, holiday party-planning, travelling arrangements, and general preparations for the Christmas season tend to fill our time and generate a bit of stress. And Christmas day itself becomes a sort of “Judgment Day”, when the results of all of our prior efforts are revealed – and we hope that our work will not have been in vain!

 While all of this busyness and stress can indeed seem to take away from the season of Advent, there is, at least, one thing fitting in all of this: Advent is supposed to be a time of anticipation and preparation; but it is a preparation for the coming of Christ – at Bethlehem and at the end of time. Thus, at the very least, our preparations for our own “judgment days” – whether that be the last due date for a research paper, the day of the final exam, or Christmas day itself – can serve as a reminder for us that something “big” is indeed coming, and we ought to be prepared.

 But how are we to prepare for the real “Final Exam” – that anticipated coming of Christ, whom we believe “will come to judge the living and the dead” (Apostle’s Creed)? Not indeed by sheer busyness, nor by worry or stress. Instead, I think one important way to prepare is made clear when we notice that the New Testament Greek word for Christ’s coming – παρουσία (“parousia”) – also simply means “presence”: we are called to prepare for  Christ’s presence in our midst. And yet, his presence is not simply a future reality: “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). That is, Christ’s “coming”, or presence, has already begun in our midst; we must, therefore, acknowledge and respond to Christ’s presence now if we want to be ready for His presence in the future.

 As religious, we are reminded of this every morning, during Matins, when we pray Psalm 95, which exhorts us: “If today you here his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:7b-8; cf. Heb 3:7-4:14). That is, “Judgment Day” begins today; Christ’s presence is before us, now – in his Church, his Sacraments, his Word, his servants, and his poor. Do we see him? Do we hear him? Are we watching? Listening?

 This advent, then, may our other preparations remind us to prepare for the presence of  Christ. Let us keep watch and adore his Presence in our midst, and let us today listen to and heed his voice in his Word, his Church, and in our conscience. Let us allow Him to call us, to change us, to make us holy. And, then, indeed, the Day of Judgment will not be a day of woe or of stress for us, but a day of fulfillment and of completion – of dwelling in Christ’s Glorious Presence.

This past Wednesday, November 30, our community buried our beloved brother Raymond Charles Bertheaux, OP.  Br. Raymond was born in 1936 and grew up in San Francisco. He professed first vows in 1954 and served the Order and the Church throughout the world ever since.  Almost 20 years of his life were spent as a missionary in Chiapas, where he traveled from village to village by horseback. Prior to his recent years of service at St. Albert’s as our archivist, Br. Raymond lived in Guatemala, ministering to the poor and the sick. This was after he spent 12 years at Santa Sabina, our headquarters in Rome, where he worked in the bookstore, archives, and on Analecta, a journal dedicated to Dominican history.

 In the old days, Br. Raymond would have been referred to as a frater conversus, or lay brother. Today, friars like myself who are not on the track to ordination, are called cooperator brothers. Although the Dominican Order is primarily a clerical one, forming young men as priests to celebrate Mass, preach, and hear confessions, cooperator brothers have been an important part of our mission since the beginning.

One of the first cooperator brothers of the Dominican Order was Oderic of Normandy. Counted among the 16 original disciples of St. Dominic, Br. Oderic helped Blessed Mannes (Dominic’s brother) to found our community at Saint Jacques in Paris. Since then a number of cooperator brothers have faithfully served the Order in whatever capacity they were called to do so. In the 1400s, Blessed James of Ulm was a designer of stained-glass windows, one of which can still be found at the Basilica di San Patronio, a 10-minute walk from the tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna. Probably one of the most famous cooperator brothers of the Order is St. Martin de Porres, whose feast we celebrate on November 3. In artistic renderings, St. Martin is often shown holding a broom or a basket of bread and wearing a black scapular and capuce/hood (once distinctive to cooperator brothers). These depictions speak to St. Martin’s humility and willingness to serve, especially the poor, but sadly do not portray the fact that he was quite gifted in medicine, using his knowledge of herbs and other remedies to cure the sick.

Obviously the ministerial work of a cooperator brother is different from that of a priest, but other than that we have a lot in common. We all profess the same vows and embrace the four pillars of Dominican life. Our prayer is centered upon the Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office, and the recitation of the rosary. Our study is for the sake of preaching, whether it be in word (teaching and giving lectures, presentations, and retreats) or deed (the very witness of our lives as consecrated religious). Finally we all share a commitment to the common life, to growing together in virtue and caring for one another in fraternal charity.

Not only did Br. Raymond know this, he also lived it, and it’s one of the reasons he was such a wonderful example of what it means to be a Dominican.

"To paint the things of Christ, one must live with Christ” -Fra Angelico

Several years ago, a young man who had come on a “Come and See” weekend to look at our province asked me, “Where does holiness arise from in your Order?”  It is a natural question to ask when one thinks of the distinct charisms and spiritualities which animate the beatiful array of religious orders and congregations within the Church.  The Jesuits have the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius; Carmelites ascend Mt. Carmel through different stages of the interior life; Benedictine spirituality centers around the rhythm of prayer and work, ora et labora, where through personal lectio divina, communal liturgical prayer, and following the Rule of St. Benedict, the monks are led to sanctify every thought, word, and action as they seek total union with God.  Defining “Dominican Spirituality” as such, however, has always posed somewhat of a problem.  Dominicans do not really have “methods” of prayer that each friar follows in the same way, or specific tracks or plans to follow regarding our spiritual growth.  Moreover, we are both contemplative and active friars; we perpetually stand on a threshold between the monastic-like structure of our common life which sets the conditions for our contemplation, and the outward-looking urgent demands of preaching the gospel for the salvation of souls.

My first thought, then, in response to the young man’s question, “Where does holiness arise from in your Order?” was “Well...from the Holy Spirit, where else?”  This simple answer, of course, should not obscure the fact that the Holy Spirit is about His work in all the charisms of the Church’s congregations and orders.  But it does say something unique about Dominican life.     

“Dominican Spirituality” is, in one sense, hard to define precisely because it is so broad.  It gives a great deal of freedom for individuals to grow in whatever direction the Holy Spirit leads, developing their unique gifts and putting them at the service of the Church and the gospel.  We have the “four pillars” of our life which give an idea of our central ideals: prayer, study, preaching, common life.  Our central mission is to “preach for the salvation of souls.”  The grace, intellectual training, and zeal for this mission arise out of the conditions of our common life, structured as it is by common prayer, personal prayer, theological study, and the fraternity and charity developed in community.  But if we had to choose one simple way of describing Dominican Spirituality, I believe we could do no better than begin with a phrase of Blessed Fra Angelico, the celebrated 14^th century Dominican artist: “to paint the things of Christ one must live with Christ.”

St. Dominic’s life, Fra Angelico’s life, and the lives of the whole bright panoply of Dominican saints through the centuries, each shine forth with the Holy Spirit’s presence arising from that individual’s life with Christ.  For Fra Angelico, this came through what John Paul II called “translating the eloquence of the word of God into color,” as in him “art became prayer.”  For St. Martin de Porres, it was through taking on the humblest of tasks in his community, and constant attendance to the poor and sick.  For Thomas Aquinas, it came through issuing forth the vast and wondrously articulated theology of the Summa Theologica (among many other works).  And at the font of this Dominican family is St. Dominic himself, known for never speaking a word unless “to God or about God.”

St. Dominic himself, perhaps, is the best example of the way the Holy Spirit comes to life within the Dominican charism and spirituality. This “athlete of Christ,” as Dante called him, was well-read and intellectually trained, devoted to his brethren, and exceedingly devoted to the mission of preaching; but above all, his whole life emerged from a passionate, intimate, continual immersion in prayer to and with Jesus Christ.  The “Nine Ways of Prayer” give an intimate portrait of our Holy Father using a variety of bodily postures, vocal and mental prayer, meditation on the scriptures, penitential practices, and books that incite contemplation, to maintain this deep and affectionate initmacy with his Savior.  The “Nine Ways” are an example of how St. Dominic himself was led in prayer, but they were not adopted in a kind of rigorous or absolutely prescribed way for all Dominicans to follow: as the Holy Spirit led, so Dominic followed, and this alone would he fundamentally desire each of the brethren to do.

Fra Angelico, in fact, has a well-known fresco that depicts St. Dominic in prayer, which is also a good image for pinpointing Dominican spirituality: Dominic is seated in a calm posture with a book in his lap, one hand ready to turn the page of the book, the other positioned pensively below his chin, signifying a certain meditative but absorbed and thoughtful silence.  This image, though often presented alone, is part of a larger fresco called “The Mocking of Christ,” where Our Lord is seated in a chair behind and above St. Dominic, blindfolded, receiving blows, spitting, and slaps from mysteriously placed hands, heads, and sticks.  The Blessed Virgin weeps for her Son on the left side of the scene.  Through the Sacred Scriptures, St. Dominic is encountering the Lord in this image, the Blessed Virgin mysteriously present with him; he is “living with Christ” in a most intimate way, a way that allows the Holy Spirit to shape his most interior thoughts and affections, which then forms the foundation of his whole spiritual life.

  “Where does holiness arise within the Dominican Order?”  From living with Christ, as our Holy Father Dominic did.  And from this intimate, affectionate, deep, and constant union with Jesus, structured by common life, prayer, study, and the mission of preaching; from this foundation the Lord of the Harvest raises up souls after his own heart to save their own souls and bear much fruit for the Gospel.  Each Dominican’s life, then, whether serving the poor, preaching missions, painting frescoes, or crafting mystical theology, becomes a kind of brushstroke of the Divine Artist, so that He may set forth the Beauty of His Son in the clearest, most marvelous light possible to the people of every age.  St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bl. Fra Angelico, and all Dominican Saints, Pray for us!