Eusebius of Caeserea: God's Presence in the Wilderness

Last week I shared my preparation for Advent: prayer that centered on a spirituality of the desert, an echo of the beginning of the Gospel of Mark we heard today. This theme was also present in the Office of Readings in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and a commentary by Eusebius, bishop of Ceaserea.

My prayer with the Office brought me back to God in the wilderness, my "interior desert." This means tuning out distraction and seeking solitude, leaving everything of the former life to start again, but above all it means coming to a place of brokenness and need, the place where I cannot deny my insufficiency and become totally dependent on God and trust that he will transfigure my brokenness into a refuge where my trust in him is deepened.



The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. The prophecy makes clear that it is to be fulfilled, not in Jerusalem but in the wilderness: it is there that the glory of the Lord is to appear, and God’s salvation is to be made known to all mankind.

It was in the wilderness that God’s saving presence was proclaimed by John the Baptist, and there that God’s salvation was seen. The words of this prophecy were fulfilled when Christ and his glory were made manifest to all: after his baptism the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove rested on him, and the Father’s voice was heard, bearing witness to the Son: This is my beloved Son, listen to him. 

(Full text of the commentary in the Office here).

Hugh of Dorche: Repentance and the Purgative Way

John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

Mark 1:3-4

Carthusian emblem: the Cross stands while the world is turned

Although this purgative way seems puerile to some, especially in regard to the subsequent two ways, nevertheless unless the mind passes through this way, being careful and attentive in its approach to engaging in divine matters, it will never in the present life be able to ascend, in practice, unto a knowledge of divine matters or of God; nor will it be able to ascend unto the fervor of unitive love, nor will it be able to be separated from those lower objects that consume those who possess them.

Therefore, the soul ought to humble itself in such a way that, first, it recalls its sins in some private and very hidden place  (especially in the secret silence of the night).

Let the soul recall its greater sins succinctly, lest the devil expose it to delighting in that thing for which it was supposed to obtain medicine.

Raising its face toward Heaven, let it, as best it can, enumerate before God (as if speaking to Him) its greater sins (up to ten or twelve); and, in enumerating, let the soul sigh, exalting God in every respect and disparaging itself in every respect, and saying as best it can:

“Lord Jesus Christ,” (or phrasing it in whatever manner it prefers) “I am the most worthless, most miserable sinner, more wretched and more abominable than all others. I have offended against Your majesty and mercy by means of so many and so grave wrongdoings that I am unable to count them – even as the sands of the seashore, because of their multitude, cannot be counted.”

And let the soul sigh and groan as effectively as it can. For just as a file brings it about, in the case of a piece of iron, that with each single rubbing some rust is removed, so each sigh and groan removes some of the rust of sin – the rust which remains even after the outpouring of grace.

And in this way the soul, purifying itself more and more, is elevated more and more by divine assistance – elevated unto perceiving things that reason does not investigate and that intellect does not behold.

Hugh of Balma (13th-14th Century): Mystical Theology, Via Purgativa, 3

Asceticism and Mysticism: Origen on the Kingdom of God

Asceticism and mysticism are essential elements of every spirituality, yet these words are widely misunderstood and therefore feared by many. Among Roman Catholics in particular, they are thought of as extremely unusual, confined to either the eccentric or the elite.

But they are simply the two facets of the spiritual life: asceticism is striving to reach the perfection attainable by human nature (human virtue), while mysticism is receiving the gift of what is beyond human nature (divine virtue).

This is illustrated by the second reading of the Office for the Solemnity of Christ the King, which addresses both the unmerited gift of the kingdom of God in us (the indwelling of the Trinity conferred by sacraments and actual graces) and the impetus for human nature to be completely subjected to it (by mortification and discipline).  

Second reading
From a notebook On Prayer by Origen, priest

Your kingdom come

The kingdom of God, in the words of our Lord and Savior, does not come for all to see; nor shall they say: Behold, here it is, or behold, there it is, but the kingdom of God is within us, for the word of God is very near, in our mouth and in our heart. Thus it is clear that he who prays for the coming of God’s kingdom prays rightly to have it within himself, that there it may grow and bear fruit and become perfect. For God reigns in each of his holy ones. Anyone who is holy obeys the spiritual laws of God, who dwells in him as in a well-ordered city. The Father is present in the perfect soul, and with him Christ reigns, according to the words: We shall come to him and make our home with him.

Thus the kingdom of God within us, as we continue to make progress, will reach its highest point when the Apostle’s words are fulfilled, and Christ, having subjected all his enemies to himself, will hand over his kingdom to God the Father, that God may be all in all. Therefore, let us pray unceasingly with that disposition of soul which the Word may make divine, saying to our Father who is in heaven: Hallowed by thy name; thy kingdom come.

Note this too about the kingdom of God. It is not a sharing of justice with iniquity, nor a society of light with darkness, nor a meeting of Christ with Belial. The kingdom of God cannot exist alongside the reign of sin.

Therefore, if we wish God to reign in us, in no way should sin reign in our mortal body; rather we should mortify our members which are upon the earth and bear fruit in the Spirit. There should be in us a kind of spiritual paradise where God may walk and be our sole ruler with his Christ. In us the Lord will sit at the right hand of that spiritual power which we wish to receive. And he will sit there until all his enemies who are within us become his footstool, and every principality, power and virtue in us is cast out.

All this can happen in each one of us, and the last enemy, death, can be destroyed; then Christ will say in us: O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory? And so, what is corruptible in us must be clothed in holiness and incorruptibility; and what is mortal must be clothed, now that death has been conquered, in the Father’s immortality. Then God will reign in us, and we shall enjoy even now the blessings of rebirth and resurrection. 

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 Gregory the Great on Compunction

I spent some time today searching for Pope Saint Gregory the Great's teaching on compunction, a seminal work of early medieval spirituality, but was unable to find it online. However, I did find some secondary sources that summarize his teaching here and here, and I think it is worthwhile to share. What I think is most important in the teaching where he picks up from John Cassian is that compunction is a work of God in us that stings the conscience and often leads to sorrow, but the purpose is a desire for repentance and desire for God that lead to greater joy. (This is very reminiscent of how Saint Ignatius of Loyola later describes the action of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a sinner in his rules for the discernment of spirits).


"In its original profane use, the word 'compunction is a medical term, designating attacks of acute pain, of physical illness."
"Compunction is an act of God in us, an act by which God awakens us, a shock, a blow, a 'sting,' a sort of burn. God goads us as if with a spear; He 'presses' us with insistence (cum-pungere), as if to pierce us.The love of the world lulls us; but, as if by a thunderclap, the attention of the soul is recalled to God."
"It is God Himself who is working in us by His mysterious action; compunction is a gift beyond our power to understand. It induces, therefore, a purification which can be called passive. The Lord accomplishes it in us; our part is to consent to it."

We have seen already a bit of how the hugely influential Christian philosopher/educator Boethius Anicius developed that theme of earthly and heavenly desire in his allegory of Lady Philosophy. Now we turn to arguably the most influential Father for the medieval period after Augustine: Gregory the Great. Jean LeClercq, modern author of The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, has called Gregory “the Doctor of Desire.” Carole Straw calls his popular writings “an encyclopedia of spiritual experience.”

Gregory’s chief contribution to the tradition of heart religion was his formulation of the virtue of compunctio (“compunction”). Often thought of as a kind of godly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:10-11), the Latin word literally means “piercing.” It is rooted in Acts 2:37, which tells how Peter’s hearers at Pentecost were “pierced to the heart.” Cassian, Benedict, and others had followed up this clue by closely associating compunction with conversion, but it was Gregory who made it a central value in Western spirituality.

Gregory’s teaching on compunction emerged from his “deeply felt sense of the radical insufficiency of all terrestrial goods in relation to those of the heavenly world.” (As Augustine had said, the fact that we desire something that earthly things cannot satisfy indicates that we are made for a spiritual fulfillment.) Not just simple sorrow for sin, Gregorian compunction refer to “the whole of the Christian’s attitude toward present existence in relation to the underlying desire for the stability and joy of heaven.” Compunction certainly involved tears, and sometimes it might involve a terrifying fear of God. But though those sorts of negative feelings might come chronologically first in our lives, they provided a doorway to a higher emotion: “the compunction of love”—or more simply, desire for God.

Gregory deepened and elaborated Augustine’s simple experience of restlessness leading to rest. Our desire for union with God operates in a kind of cycle, never to be fulfilled on this earth. Every time we come closer to God, our desire for him is amplified; in the very fulfillment of the desire, there is planted a deeper yearning to experience more of the beloved. “‘Love’s power is the mind’s machine, drawing it away from the world while it lifts it on high.’” We sense the beauty of God. We desire him. We experience him, yet immediately desire him more.

Gregory says that God gives us two wounds of compunction. “First, he strikes the flesh, wounding the elect on the outside in order to bring interior renewal (Deut 32:39).” This is very closely related to asceticism – and I will argue that the affective and the ascetic are symbiotically related in medieval spirituality. Second, God wounds us within, “‘striking our mind’s insensibility with desire for him.” When our hearts are undisturbed by this restless desire, says Gregory, then we are “healthy in a sick way.” But in compunction, we are “wounded to be healed.” His “barbs of love” renders us “sensitive.” Gregory concludes by quoting the bride of the Song of Songs, who says, “‘I am wounded by charity [that is, by the love of God].’” And when we are so wounded, we “‘burn with the desire of contemplation,’” which his wounding stirs to life. That desire “‘burns, it pants, and it already longs to see him whom it [formerly] fled.’”

I do wonder how most moderns would understand this sort of desire for the hereafter today? As a sort of psychological maladjustment, I suppose! The important thing to see here is that although God starts by making us sorrow for sin, he does not stop there. He draws us into a deeper commitment to God and to the whole Christian life. Compunction is the voice of the Holy Spirit, of which Gregory said, “to hear [it] . . . is to rise up into love of the invisible Creator.”

McGinn lists a number of dimensions of this complex experience. It involves “sorrow for sin, religious awe before the divine judge, detachment from the world, intense longing for heaven, contemplative self-awareness, and even the sweet sorrow that accompanies the necessary descent from the heights of the immediate experience of God.” This last note about the “necessary descent from the heights” reminds us of Lewis’s observation that our experiences of joy (sehnsucht) are themselves experiences of longing—there may be some fulfillment in them, but they always move us back into further longing.

Also important is that Gregorian compunction was not purely an inner, private experience – like some sort of spiritualizing self-indulgence. “Compunction too is meant to nourish our concern for our neighbor, especially in the case of the clergy.” When we get to the late-medieval lay mystic Margery Kempe, we will see how powerful this Gregorian teaching about compunction would become for medieval Christians—and we will also see this neighbor dimension, even in a layperson.

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.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem on Repentance

Saint Cyril's best-known works are his catechetical lectures, which are addressed to those who had not yet entered the Church but are also valuable to those who have. In this catechesis, he is speaking of Baptism but it equally applies to Reconciliation, calling sinners to leave aside the rough garment of sins and be clothed with salvation.

This is something I have spent much time reflecting on during the first month of novitiate. It is a time of prayer, which always involves purgation, time to set aside the old self in order to put on Christ.

Disciples of the New Testament and partakers of the mysteries of Christ, as yet by calling only, but ere long by grace also, make you a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek. 18:31), that there may be gladness among the inhabitants of heaven.

For if over one sinner that repenteth there is joy, according to the Gospel (Luke 15:7), how much more shall the salvation of so many souls move the inhabitants of heaven to gladness.

As ye have entered upon a good and most glorious path, run with reverence the race of godliness.

For the Only-begotten Son of God is present here most ready to redeem you, saying, Come unto Me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28).

Ye that are clothed with the rough garment of your offences, who are holden with the cords of your own sins, hear the voice of the Prophet saying, Wash you, make you clean, put away your iniquities from before Mine eyes (Isaiah 1:16): that the choir of Angels may chant over you, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered (Ps. 32:1).

Ye who have just lighted the torches of faith, guard them carefully in your hands unquenched; that He, who erewhile on this all-holy Golgotha opened Paradise to the robber on account of his faith, may grant to you to sing the bridal song.

If any here is a slave of sin, let him promptly prepare himself through faith for the new birth into freedom and adoption; and having put off the miserable bondage of his sins, and taken on him the most blessed bondage of the Lord, so may he be counted worthy to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Put off, by confession, the old man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit, that ye may put on the new man, which is renewed according to knowledge of Him that created him (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:10).

Get you the earnest of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 1:22) through faith, that ye may be able to be received into the everlasting habitations (Luke 16:9).

Come for the mystical Seal, that ye may be easily recognised by the Master; be ye numbered among the holy and spiritual flock of Christ, to be set apart on His right hand, and inherit the life prepared for you.

For they to whom the rough garment of their sins still clings are found on the left hand, because they came not to the grace of God which is given through Christ at the new birth of Baptism:  new birth I mean not of bodies, but the spiritual new birth of the soul.

Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313-386): Catechetical Lectures 1, 1-2.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux on Sin

I have had the intention of writing several posts for the whole month of October but have been caught up in the business of life and not done anything beyond think about it. However, I have found several things of interest worth sharing and I have at least enough time to share one of them now.                                                                                             St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor Mellifluis, is one of my favorite sources for spiritual reading and while the writings I usually select are mariological, today I used one of his sermons on sin for meditation.

Sermon 63.6b on the Song of Songs, The Fox in the Vineyard (my formatting)

If this cold once penetrates the soul when (as so often happens)
the soul is neglectful and the spirit asleep and if no one (God forbid) is there to curb it,
then it reaches into the soul’s interior,
descends to the depths of the heart and the recesses of the mind,
paralyzes the affections,
obstructs the paths of counsel,
unsteadies the light of judgment,
fetters the liberty of the spirit,
and soon – as appears to bodies sick with fever – a rigor of the mind takes over:
vigor slackens,
energies grow languid,
repugnance for austerity increases,
fear of poverty disquiets,
the soul shrivels,
grace is withdrawn,
time means boredom,
reason is lulled to sleep,
the spirit is quenched,
the fresh fervor wanes away,
a fastidious lukewarmness weighs down,
brotherly love grows cold,
pleasure attracts,
security is a trap,
old habits return. Can I say more?
The law is cheated,
justice is rejected,
what is right is outlawed,
the fear of the Lord is abandoned.
Shamelessness finally gets free rein.
There comes that rash leap, so dishonorable, so disgraceful, so full of ignominy and confusion;
a leap from the heights into the abyss,
from the court-yard to the dung-heap,
from the throne to the sewer,
from heaven to the mud,
from the cloister to the world,
from paradise to hell.