Saint Cyprian of Carthage on the Lord's Prayer

Patristic commentaries on the Lord's Prayer were some of my favorite readings during my patrology course last year. St. Cyprian, who is commemorated today with fellow martyr Pope St. Cornelius, was not the first to compose such a commentary but his has been one of the most influential. Here are some selections from the work:

Before all things, the Teacher of peace and the Master of unity would not have prayer made singly and individually, as for one who prays to pray for himself alone. For we do not say “My Father, which art in heaven,” nor “Give me this day my daily bread;” nor does each ask that only his own debt should be forgiven; nor does he request for himself alone that he may not be led into temptation and delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and common, and when we pray, we pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one. The God of peace and the Teacher of concord, who taught unity, willed that one should thus pray for all, even as He Himself bore us all in one.

But what matters of great import are contained in the Lord’s prayer! How many and how great, briefly collected in the words, but spiritually abundant in virtue so that there is absolutely nothing passed over that is not encompassed in these prayers and petitions, as in a compendium of heavenly doctrine. “Pray ye thus,” He says: "Our Father, which art in heaven.” The new man, born again and restored to God by His grace, says “Father,” in the first place because he has now begun to be a son. But how great is the Lord’s indulgence and goodness towards us, seeing that He has wished us to pray in such a way as to call God Father, and to call ourselves sons of God, even as Christ is the Son of God,—a name which none of us would dare to venture on in prayer, unless He Himself had allowed us thus to pray! We ought then, beloved brethren, to remember and to know, that when we call God Father, we ought to act as God’s children; so that in the measure in which we find pleasure in considering God as a Father, He might also be able to find pleasure in us.

After this we say, “Hallowed be Thy name;” not that we wish God may be hallowed by our prayers, but that we beg that His name may be hallowed in us. Because He says, “Be ye holy, even as I am holy,” we ask and entreat, that we who were sanctified in baptism may continue as that which we have begun to be. And this we daily pray for; for we have need of daily sanctification, that we who daily fall away may wash out our sins by continual sanctification.

There follows in the prayer, "Thy kingdom come." We ask that the kingdom of God may be set forth to us, even as we also ask that His name may be sanctified in us. For when does God not reign, or when does that which always has been and never ceases to be begin with Him? We pray that our kingdom may come, which was acquired by the blood and passion of Christ; that we who first are His subjects in the world, may hereafter reign with Christ when He reigns, as He Himself promises and says, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world.”

We add, also, and say, “Thy will be done, as in heaven so in earth;” not that God should do what He wills, but that we may be able to do what God wills. For who resists God, that He may not do what He wills? But since we are hindered by the devil from obeying with our thought and deed God’s will, we pray and ask that God’s will may be done in us; and that it may be done in us we have need of God’s good will, that is, of His help and protection, since no one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God.

As the prayer goes forward, we ask and say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And this may be understood both spiritually and literally, because either way of understanding it is rich in divine usefulness to our salvation.  For Christ is the bread of life; and this bread does not belong to all men, but it is ours. And just as we say, “Our Father,” because He is the Father of those who believe, so also we call it “our bread,” because Christ is the bread of those who are in union with His body. And therefore we ask that our bread—that is, Christ—may be given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and body.

After this we also entreat for our sins, saying, “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” The Lord calls sins debts, as He says in His Gospel, “I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desired me.” Lest any one should flatter himself that he is innocent, and by exalting himself should more deeply perish, he is taught that he sins daily by being bidden to entreat daily for his sins. Thus, John also in his epistle warns us, and says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” He who taught us to pray for our debts and sins, has promised that His fatherly mercy and pardon shall follow. He has here clearly added the law and bound us by a certain condition, that we should ask that our debts be forgiven us in such a manner as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that that which we seek for our sins cannot be obtained unless we ourselves have acted in a similar way in respect of our debtors. Therefore also He says in another place, “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” And the servant who, after having had all his debt forgiven him by his master, would not forgive his fellow-servant, is cast back into prison; because he would not forgive his fellow-servant, he lost the indulgence that had been shown to himself by his lord. “When ye stand praying,” He says, “forgive if ye have aught against any, that your Father which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive you your trespasses.”

Moreover, the Lord of necessity admonishes us to say in prayer, “And suffer us not to be led into temptation.” In which words it is shown that the adversary can do nothing against us except what God shall have previously permitted; so that all our fear, and devotion, and obedience may be turned towards God, since in our temptations nothing is permitted to evil unless power is given from Him.

After all these things, in the conclusion of the prayer comes a brief clause which briefly and comprehensively sums up all our petitions and our prayers. For we conclude by saying, “But deliver us from evil,” encompassing all adverse things which the enemy attempts against us in this world, from which there may be a faithful and sure protection if God deliver us. For when we say, "Deliver us from evil," there remains nothing further which ought to be asked. When we have once asked for God’s protection against evil, and have obtained it, then against everything which the devil and the world work against us we stand secure and safe. For what fear is there in this life, to the man whose guardian in this life is God?

What wonder is it, beloved brethren, if such is the prayer which God taught, seeing that He condensed in His teaching all our prayer in one saving sentence? For when the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came unto all, and gathering alike the learned and unlearned, published to every sex and every age the precepts of salvation, He made a large compendium of His precepts, that the memory of the scholars might not be burdened in the celestial learning, but might quickly learn what was necessary to a simple faith.

Cyprian of Carthage (d.258): On the Lord's Prayer (Excerpts)

Let it Snow!

During our 30-day retreat, Boston received a record-breaking annual snowfall of over 110 inches. This was welcome to a couple of us who had wanted a snowy winter and a snowy retreat, but didn't expect it would all come in February. (The snow-haters had a lot to complain about, so they were secretly happy too).

Here are a few images that capture what we did between prayer periods on retreat:

Saint Francis de Sales: Act of Abandonment

To celebrate Saint Francis de Sales, a master of the spiritual life whose work I have come to appreciate more fully over the past couple of years, I would like to share his Act of Abandonment.

I love this prayer and return to it frequently because it not only addresses carrying the cross given to us, but embracing it and venerating it, approaching it with reverence because it has been given to us for our salvation. When I struggle with spiritual desolation and feel the weight, it is not 'being tough' and soldiering on that carries me through, but recalling that I am following Jesus in his great outpouring of love.


O my God, I thank you and I praise you 
for accomplishing your holy and all-lovable will 
without any regard for mine. 
With my whole heart, 
in spite of my heart, 
do I receive this cross I feared so much! 

It is the cross of Your choice, 
the cross of Your love. 
I venerate it; 
nor for anything in the world 
would I wish that it had not come, 
since You willed it. 

I keep it with gratitude and with joy, 
as I do everything that comes from Your hand; 
and I shall strive to carry it without letting it drag, 
with all the respect 
and all the affection which Your works deserve. 

Amen.

Spiritual Thought: Sentire and Sapere

Novitiate is an experience that is difficult to describe, partly because much of it is deeply personal, but also because of its nature as raw experience, a direct communication through sense powers.

Saint Ignatius expressed this in the Spiritual Exercises by using the verb sentir rather than saber to express what is important in the spiritual life. (The words in Latin are sentire and sapere, which correspond to French sentir and savoir and Armenian kidenal and imanal).

The neat difference between the two verbs is something difficult to describe concisely in English, but roughly it is the difference between experiential knowledge and pure intellectual knowledge; sentir knowledge is felt and experienced through the senses, whether the external senses or the internal senses of imagination and memory. It is knowledge acquired through first-hand rather than second-hand experience, and can therefore be more difficult to communicate because it comes through wordless sensation rather than a verbal formula.

Saint Ignatius explains this in his Second Annotation to the Exercises, in which he instructs the retreat director to relate the points for meditation briefly in order to allow the exercitant more freedom for the experience that occurs in the meditation, 

For, if the person who is making the Contemplation takes the true groundwork of the narrative, and, discussing and considering for himself, finds something which makes the events a little clearer or brings them a little more home to him -- whether this comes through his own reasoning, or because his intellect is enlightened by the Divine power -- he will get more spiritual relish and fruit than if he who is giving the Exercises had much explained and amplified the meaning of the events. For it is not knowing much [saber], but realizing and relishing things interiorly [sentir], that contents and satisfies the soul.

-Spiritual Exercises, Second Annotation

His insight into prayer and how the human person experiences God through the senses relates what many consider arcane mysticism to the life of everyman. By the sixteenth century, Christian spirituality in the west threatened to split into scholastic intellectualism and spiritualist quietism, but his understanding of an integrated person calls for balance between sense experience and intellect within the mind.

This is why I contend that Ignatius has an Eastern Soul, one that transcends the dichotomy between mystical experience and intellectual definition and bridges the gap between the pietist and rationalist world views that later sprang up and have come to dominate modern thought. 

People versed in Catholic theology would be puzzled if Ignatius were referred to as a theologian; he studied but never taught nor wrote what are considered works of theology. But in the original sense used by the Cappadocian Doctors, a theologian is one who has a deep experience of God and shares it with others, in which sense the Spiritual Exercises is a profoundly theological work and Ignatius a theologian par excellence. 

New Advent

Preparing for the season of Advent today, I came across a recommendation for approaching the daily readings. This is very helpful for me because I meditate on the readings every day, but even if you only focus on the Sunday readings it is still beneficial for entering into the readings more deeply.

The Two Parts of Advent 

(from Creighton University's Online Ministries)

Part 1: up until December 16
While most liturgical seasons have the gospel as their main focus, during the first weeks of Advent, the Church gives us daily readings from the prophet Isaiah.  With the eyes of faith, these foretell the coming of the Messiah. Rather than a continuous gospel narrative familiar to us for most of the year, this part of Advent offers a wide variety of gospel readings that support the first reading of the day. 

After almost two weeks of Isaiah readings, we hear the foretelling of a Messiah from other prophets from the Hebrew scriptures - in Sirach, Numbers, Zephaniah and returning to Isaiah. With each passing week, the prophets speak more clearly of the coming of a Savior. 

So, in reading the first reading, for the first part of Advent, we listen to the anticipation, expectation, hope and promise.  In listening to the second reading, we listen for the fulfillment or connection with the gospel.

Part 2: December 17 - 24

In these last eight days before Christmas, the relationship between the readings changes.  Now the gospel brings us to our celebration of Christmas.  The gospels are taken from the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. 

Each of these days, the first reading is taken from the Hebrew scriptures, and chosen to match the gospel.  In many cases we can imagine Matthew or Luke having the first reading open on their desks while they wrote the gospel.

So, we can read the gospel first and then read the first reading.  The sense of anticipation and fulfillment builds as we read the story of the preparation for Jesus' first coming into this world for us.

Interior Desert

Desert spirituality has been very important in my spiritual life, and it is something that has been coming up consistently over the past two weeks. And what does this look like?

I wish!

The desert is a place of solitude, which makes it a place of encounter with 1) self, 2) God, and 3) evil.

It is a place that has loomed large in the spiritualities of monasticism and especially the Christian East, but there are many levels of interpretation and understanding the desert.

Fuge, tace, quiesce (be alone, be silent, be still)

In the Bible, the desert is a place where Israel is courted and betrothed to God, but also a place of temptations and trials. It becomes a battleground of the eschatological battle of Christ against the powers of the world. Defeating Satan means weakening him by spreading the kingdom of God and supporting other Christians through prayer. In the desert, the means to fight are acquired: mortification and penance used systematically for the practice of virtue keep the individual focused on the "narrow gate" of the Gospel, the asceticism (askesis, "exercise") essential for seeking union with God. By fasting and penance, it is also shown that man "shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4, Deut 8:3; cf. Vita Consecrata 7b).

The desert is a place to flee to "live alone for God alone," a place of radical detachment, an exhortation to the Church and contemporaries never to lose sight of the supreme vocation: to be always with the Lord (cf. Vita Consecrata 7b). The first encounter is with self: the discovery of how far one is from God and the difficulty of return. It thus becomes a place of spiritual combat, struggle against the passions and the devil that oppose union with God, against the evil in the world that begins in the individual heart. True knowledge of the human heart is attained in the desert. Its weaknesses and foibles are revealed and it is strengthened for spiritual battles. Herein lies the importance of controlling "thoughts" (custodia sensuum), understanding virtue and vice, and honing weapons: continuous prayer, nourishment by Scripture, humility, and mortification.

The importance of purifying the heart and the senses from passions (apatheia, "equanimity") is paramount: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8).

In addition to this negative interpretation, there is also a positive one. The desert is a place of God's providence, where Elijah was nourished (1 Kings 19:7) and a place prepared for God's people (Exodus, cf. Rev 12:6). In Thomas Merton's book Thoughts in Solitude, he described the desert as a place dear to God precisely because it is useless to man, where there is nothing attractive and nothing to be exploited; it was made to be nothing but itself, the perfect place for man who seeks to be nothing but himself.

This was my primary experience of "interior desert" over the past week. It is a place of profound silence and imperturbable solitude, a place of refreshment where food and water are forsaken for nourishment on God alone. It has been a place of rest with God, but also pilgrimage: no one who takes a long look at himself in the presence of God can be satisfied. The pilgrimage that begins and ends in the world must at some point pass through the dry wasteland where there is nothing to depend on but God and no one to blame but the self, and thus there is purgation. But beyond every desert is a promised land, beyond the teaching is the goal of the lesson, and beyond the pilgrimage is rest. 

Saint Maximus the Confessor on Virtues

I have been reading some writings of Saint Maximus the Confessor recently, including something that speaks about the theological virtues. I especially liked the last part, in which he says it is absurd to try to separate God's love from God's essence. This reminded me of a retreat conference on prayer two years ago that I have never forgotten: remember that the goal of the spiritual life is God, not the consolations of God.



Love is a holy state of the soul, disposing it to value knowledge of God above all created things.

We cannot attain lasting possession of such love while we are still attached to anything worldly.

Dispassion engenders love, hope in God engenders dispassion, and patience and forbearance engender hope in God.

These in turn are the product of complete self-control, which itself springs from fear of God. Fear of God is the result of faith in God.

If you have faith in the Lord you will fear punishment, and this fear will lead you to control the passions.

Once you control the passions you will accept affliction patiently, and through such acceptance you will acquire hope in God.

Hope in God separates the intellect (nous) from every worldly attachment, and when the intellect is detached in this way it will acquire love for God.

The person who loves God values knowledge of God more than anything created by God, and pursues such knowledge ardently and ceaselessly.

If everything that exists was made by God and for God, and God is superior to the things made by Him, he who abandons what is superior and devotes himself to what is inferior shows that he values things made by God more than God Himself.

When your intellect is concentrated on the love of God you will pay little attention to visible things and will regard even your own body as something alien.

Since the soul is more noble than the body and God incom­parably more noble than the world created by Him, he who values the body more than the soul and the world created by God more than the Creator Himself is simply a worshipper of idols.

If you distract your intellect from its love for God and concentrate it, not on God, but on some sensible object, you thereby show that you value the body more than the soul and the things made by God more than God Himself.

Since the light of spiritual knowledge is the intellect’s life, and since this light is engendered by love for God, it is rightly said that nothing is greater than divine love (cf. 1 Cor. 13:13).

When in the intensity of its love for God the intellect goes out of itself, then it has no sense of itself or of any created thing.

For when it is illumined by the infinite light of God, it becomes insensible to everything made by Him, just as the eye becomes insensible to the stars when the sun rises.

Maximus the Confessor (580-662): Four Hundred Texts on Love 1-10

The Counsels in Daily Life

This week, the evangelical counsels have been prominent in both our novitiate conferences and in the Gospel readings. The Wednesday Gospel, for example, is one in which the counsels really stood out to me even though they are hidden in the parable: the servants received an extravagant gift (one talent was about fifteen years' wages) that is unmerited (chastity), given to them in trust for another (poverty) to use according to the master's will (obedience).

In meditating on this, what came up was living these counsels in daily life. Not having taken public vows can seem to make living the counsels a lofty goal in the future; as a novice I am obliged to live the counsels now in a 'hidden' way, but my daily life (custody of the senses, material dependence on others, fulfilling my obligations and obeying superiors willingly) is that of religious life, of living the counsels in the ordinary actions of everyday life.

I also reflected on responsibility, that those faithful in small matters are to be entrusted with greater matters. In the human mind, responsibility is something to be earned, something given after trustworthiness has been proven. But what I had from this Gospel was a sense of divine pedagogy: we do not prove ourselves to God in order to earn gifts but rather he trains us for greater responsibilities through lesser ones. It is for our own sake, for our own growth that some things are withheld and others allowed, that growing pains occur before new doors are opened and we are given our food in the proper season.

Spiritual Thought: "Skandala"

After my daily meditation, there is often a thought that stays with me. Sometimes it is a clear message that came in prayer, sometimes it is a summary of what I experienced; a "spiritual thought" to take and carry through the day. Sometimes these are themes that surface repeatedly during a period of days, weeks, or months.

One of those recurring has been about skandala (obstacles) in the spiritual life. "My sins and faults are obstacles for me; they are not obstacles for God."

This is something worthwhile for meditation in moments of discouragement and failure; simply calling this to mind can allow me to access God's mercy and be reminded that humanity is an instrument not an obstacle for God.

Consider that temptations, faults, and sins are allowed by God as occasions of humility to remind me of my constant need for him and allow me to grow in my desire for him. This becomes an opportunity to enter into deeper prayer and be reminded that God is infinitely greater than my sins and limitations.

The Consummation of Love

Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

                                                                                                                                                   Luke 12:35-38, RSVCE

I was given a very interesting meditation on this Gospel from Tuesday mass this week. When reflecting on it, what seems most immediately obvious is an exhortation to servants to be responsible and be prepared for the master's return. But consider the master, who is Jesus, is returning from his wedding feast, his marriage to the Church; his marriage is an act of sacrifice, a sacrifice that continues after the feast.

There are numerous places in the Gospel that lend themselves to considerations of love and others to sacrifice, but I am finding that they are often connected in subtle ways like the above example. Considering what love looks like in my life and how God is calling me to grow took me back to a conversation earlier in the year when I was speaking to friends about love and sacrifice, and sacrifice rather than pleasure as the consummation of love. It struck me again deeply how these are inseparable. 

It is possible to have pleasure without love; it is not possible to sacrifice without love.

True Humility

In Scripture are the words, "I humbled myself, and the Lord hastened to rescue me" (Psalm 114:6); and these words are there instead of "I have fasted," "I have kept vigil," "I lay down on the bare earth."

Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 25: On Humility


Prudence in the ascetic life has been an important area of spiritual awareness for me over the past year, and the past few months in particular. It is also significantly connected to the major theme of my retreat last week: discerning true humility from false humility.

The humble heart is turned to God and acts for love and longing for the Beloved; the proud heart is turned inward on itself and acts for its own insatiable appetites. The difference shows in their attachment to their activities; the humble heart, open to God, is willing to renounce mortifications as well as pleasures, and the proud heart may cling to either or to both but is equally unwilling to let go of them, because it holds them for its own sake rather than for God's.

Saint Teresa of Avila on Wedding Garments

Mention of the rough garment of offenses in Saint Cyril's catechesis brought to mind another prayer of repentance. Saint Teresa of Avila felt the need to repent for time lost in her vocation, time in which she had been insincere and sought comfort rather than serving God.

In my life, I have experienced that no time is lost to God; when at last we turn to him, there is a grace to see that he was leading us all along and that the "time lost" was time he used for formation and teaching, to turn this loss to gain. Repentance is a continual process that is first the awareness of our need for God and his desire for us to receive every grace he wants to give, even the smallest of which contains him in his fullness.

O my God! Source of all mercy! I acknowledge Your sovereign power. While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain. Miserable as I am, yet I firmly believe that You can do all things. Please restore to me the time lost, giving me Your grace, both now and in the future, that I may appear before You in "wedding garments." 
Amen.