Showing posts with label Vocations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vocations. Show all posts
Thursday, August 25, 2011
12:34 AM
"Boo!" M. shouted at me as I left the barn. I stopped and clutched my heart with a gasp, though I could not give him the same satisfying yelp that I had the day before. He and his sister, taking me by the hand, had told me that a dragon was slumbering in the cellar of the farmhouse.
'Naprawdę?' I asked, eagerly accompanying them. Alas, I shall always be more keen on childlike games of make-believe then adult pastimes such as cards. The light had been beginning to fade, and the cellar was appropriately black and dark, though at the end of the corridor, I could see our hardy traffic directors laying down their sleeping places for the night. 'Er, I don't think I should come in here,' I told O., her brother having disappeared, 'This is a room for the men.'
'The dragon is in here,' she said, gesturing towards an alcove on the left. I obediently put my head in, ready to conjure in my head my own image of scaly creature avariciously clutching its bed of gold with two slender threads of smoke rising from its nostrils....'BOO!' Well, instead of my imaginary dragon, I was greeted with a real boy, and he was rewarded with a genuine yelp on my part. From that day, we had our game of 'boo' where M. or O. would cry it, and I would feign shock, which later became fainting. Surely that's not a wicked distraction?
It was going to be another light day, a little over 16 miles, and I made sure to tell Cl. Krszysztof that if he had a free moment, I would love to hear the end of his conference whenever he had a free moment. I also had a question for him. The call to leave presently came, and again I departed with tea still warm in my tin cup. As we left, a farmwife opened the gates of her stable and a team of fine, heavy horses, honey-toned bays with golden manes and tails, came trotting out in a dignified prance. Looking neither to the left, nor the right, they made straight for the pastures. 'They know where to go,' one sister pilgrim commented as we admired them together.
'If only the children of men could be like that,' I thought automatically, then chided myself. Many sons of Adam and daughters of Eve had surpassed the animals in obedience and humble cooperation, such as St. Lawrence, whose feastday's vigil we had celebrated that morning. The Offertory now sounded again in my mind:
Oratio mea munda est: et ídeo peto ut detur locus voci meæ in cœlo: quia ibi est judex meus, et cónscius meus in excélsis: ascéndat as Dóminum deprecátio mea. (Job XVI: 20)
Then I thought of the 'New City' on the river, which would be our second stop for the day. I longed to again see the church where Blessed Honorat Koźmiński had done his great work (and to buy a new scapular from the religious articles shop across the street). How divergent were the destinies of saints, one roasted on a spit as a witness to mankind, and the other secretly labouring to save souls from the cell of a confessional.
The weather showed signs of more varying fickleness throughout the day. Shade actually brought shivers to some, while the sun was suitably sweltering. We left our second stop in that sun though with smiles on our faces. Well, I was determined to smile anyhow. I just had spoken with a man from another group, a congenial economist with broad-minded views, and had learned that the Biało-Czarno-Czerwona group had the reputation that I should have (from experience) expected a traditional group to have : smutna grupa (sad group).
That pricked me, for although I have known many traditionalists who qualified as gloomy extremists, no one in our group fit that bill in the slightest. In fact, some of us weren't traditionalists, and those who were were the evangelical sort. E.g., the moment I chose to wear the veil at all Masses (including the Novus Ordo), I made it my endeavour to always look very cheerful, so as not to scandalize the more 'mainstream' Catholics into thinking tradition was something gloomy. The same could certainly be said of the other pilgrims in our group. The beautiful ladies did not wear sacks on the pilgrimage. The children walking with us were not browbeaten, and the men were hardly domineering (Piotr, one of the traffic directors, only told me to pick up the pace once this year :). And if we often sang Ad mortem festinamus, we also sang Czarno Madonno...so there!
We turned off the main road and towards the woods. Today we had the Way of the Cross, but our way was remarkably easy on the asphalt when compared to the deep, loose sand of the route the year before.
This time, I did not meditate on the Stations of the Cross in my own missal, but tried to follow the prayers which the group employed as a whole. To this day I have not found the form employed that afternoon, but perhaps
next year I shall have enough Polish to understand it perfectly.
When the Way of the Cross was concluded and we were off at our natural pace again, Cl. Krzysztof found me and took up his sermon on vocations again. In the warmth of the sun and his optimism, I found myself revisiting that cold day in Kraków again.
(Thank you, Anita K. for the picture! ;)
That wintry morning in Poland's old capitol, I had run as fast as I could to the Wawel Cathedral for the Latin Mass. There was a narrow window of time before my train would leave for Radom, and what's more I only had my old Roman Missal, so I would not have understood the Scriptures read in a Novus Ordo Mass. Sadly, when I arrived panting at the entrance, clutching a painful stitch in my left side, I saw that the schedule I had read on the Internet disagreed with the actual time. Mass had started some time ago and was too far progressed for me to take Holy Communion.
Many may smile at my irrationality, and in retrospect, I laugh at it myself, but I was furious and hurt. Being thwarted in attending Mass is a disappointment that my nature always takes very personally, now I would have to strike out and find another where I would not understand the readings of the Bible. I looked down from the battlements of the Wawel over that fair city--so cold, grey, and hard in the icy grip of January. Some moments can seem so insignificant to an outsider, but this was the moment (prepared by both what I had read and learned with experience), the precise moment where my faith in personal providence withered. It was as if an abyss was yawning before me, and a clotted talon of a demon was pressing itself into the flesh of my heart. I had shaken my head and determined to ignore it, but from that day on, an unwilling agnosticism had taken up its abode in me.
But this day was not cold, and the seminarian spoke words that I loved and wished dearly to be true. However, my impertinent reason was not yet moved, and when he asked whether I had a question, I put a dilemma before him. It had been one of my own, but was abstracted from my particulars into a universal problem, and it had been a situation to which I was sure there was no answer.
He pondered a moment, and then he began to speak. Anyone who has jarred a glass of water sitting in a ice-box will note that the freezing transition is so immediate it dazzles the mind. Thawing of ice is much slower, yet when the salt of Heaven touches a glacier, the collapse of that edifice may well be more awe-inspiring than the freeze which created it.
I had not anticipated that Cl. Krzysztof's words would so identically mirror the still, small voice that had so often spoken to me. That his words could be so pertinent to me in particular was stupefying, and that I found a part of my soul begin to wake again, was too much. It was if the road to Częstochowa had unveiled itself as the road to Emmaus and the fair-headed seminarian in black next to me had been revealed as the dark Rabbi in white. May God bless his vocation!
The day gently declined, and we weary travellers soon found ourselves at the campsite. No barns tonight. I was laying down my mat when a sister pilgrim asked me a question, to which I responded in Polish, peppered with English for each word I could not articulate. I turned around and saw a new face that had been unpacking next to me. She smiled. 'Are you Rachel?'
'Yes.'
'Hello, I'm Maria! Our friend in common, Piotrek L., told me about you.'
'Oh, Heaven only knows what that means,' I thought, but the communiqué could not have been too bad, as Maria and I were soon getting on splendidly. She is Slovakian and blessed with enviable linguistic skills, so communication was certainly no problem.
We determined on setting out for the river to bathe (though seeing how devoid of cover the bank was, we ended up taking our washing bowls into the forest). The way back to camp was under a gloriously illumined sky, and the pilgrims were again blessed with a most splendid sunset. I remember admiring just such a twilight the year before.
Supper was also special, with even a desert of gingerbread and cinnamon cookies after the fact. Maria and I were both wondering what the occasion was, when Father Grzegorz took the
And thank you Marzena!
microphone and informed us that it was Cl. Krzysztof's birthday.
Had no one known that Father Grzegorz, Krzysztof, and Adam Ś. were brothers, they would certainly have seen the fact within minutes. The priest's praise of his younger brother, the seminarian's humble anguish at being praised, and the layman's good-natured wisecracking were as evident a display of the bond of kinship as an illustrated family tree.
Darkness came, as did the time for Compline. As the air grew colder, I felt chill down my spine at the verse we read. Such a frightening one in many ways, yet it is one of my favourites, especially as it is the first Pope quoting Christ directly:
Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world. (I Peter V: 8-9)
Reading that chapter again, I also see now how the two preceding verses spoke to me (and who knows how many others) in the most intimate way
that day:
Be you humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation: Casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2011
I awoke happy to find that none of the storm had leaked through the barn roof onto my sleeping bag, but not so happy to not find my scapular around my neck. Sitting up with a start I began undoing my plait to see if it was entangled in my hair, wondering with a panic what I had done with it. Had I taken it off when washing? Oh yes, I had! I scampered over to a shadowy corner in the barn that the ladies had made into an improptu bathing closet, but my old, brown scapular was not there. 'Condemnation!' I hissed, as I were a convalescent with a fractured vertebrae who could not find her neck-brace.
I set to packing, hoping it would emerge somewhere amongst the things I was stuffing into my big bag. I shook my sleeping bag and mat and dissected the straw I had placed under it for a mattress. Nothing. 'May it bless whoever finds it,' I forced myself to whisper, all the while moaning in my head about how wretchedly foolish I was for having lost it and (I had not yet had my tea) how stupid the world was for having let me lose it. After all, it is an Aristotelian's prerogative to attribute vitalist motives to everything in existence, so something had to have it in for me.
When we were on the road again, I felt rather like the wedding guest who arrived without the proper garment. Indeed, my inward sense of self-consciousness could not have been much stronger.
'You have but to purchase a new one, and you'll be able to do that tomorrow.'
Tomorrow? 'Well, I'll just have to pray hard until tomorrow,' I thought, sipping my cup of earl grey.
Father Grzegorz announced that Matins would presently commence. I threw out the remainder of the tea and dove into my backpack for my breviary.
The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception followed. After the initial hymn, the cantor intoned the prayer. I did not understand every word of it in the Polish, but I was eased by the gist:
Holy Mary, Queen of heaven, Święta Maryjo, Królowo niebieska,
Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, Matko Pana naszego Jezusa Chrystusa
and Mistress of the world, i Pani świata,
who forsakest no one, która nikogo nie opuszczasz
and despiseth no one; i nikim nie gardzisz,
look upon me, O Lady, wejrzyj na nas, Pani nasza,
with an eye of pity, łaskawym okiem miłosierdzia swego
and entreat for me, i uproś nam
of thy beloved Son, u Syna swego miłego
the forgiveness of all my sins odpuszczenie wszystkich grzechów naszych
that as I now celebrate with devout affection abyśmy, którzy teraz
thy holy, Immaculate Conception, święte Twoje Niepokalane Poczęcie
so, hereafter, nabożnym sercem rozpamiętywamy,
I may receive the prize of eternal blessedness, wiecznego błogosławieństwa zapłatę w niebie otrzymać mogli
by the grace of Him Whom thou co niechaj da Ten, któregoś Ty o Panno,
in virginity didst bring forth, porodziła, Syn Twój,
Jesus Christ our Lord: a Pan nasz Jezus Chrystus,
Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, który z Ojcem i Duchem Świętym
liveth and reigneth, żyje i króluje
in perfect Trinity, God, w Trójcy Świętej jedyny, Bóg
world without end. na wieki wieków.
The temporary deprivation of my scapular would do me no harm. A mile later, I looked up and there was the statue of the Sacred Heart at the entrance to the pheasant farm. We were nearing the ruined manor again! Alas, though, why must the pedestal of His statue be pink?
As we made our way to our green resting place, the treat of real coffee was awaiting us on a small table. Granted, by the time I got to it there was but a gulp left, but it was still theobrama! I caught amazed whispers that the java was 'electric' (the Polish term for spiked), but if it were, I am sure it was but for purposes of fortification.
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| Thank you, Marzena! |
'It must be,' Ola told me, 'A priest comes here to say Mass every now and then. The manor is ruined, but the chapel is still in use.' I felt shivers down my spine as she spoke. The ruined manor and the living chapel, a fitting metaphor for Christendom itself.
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| Thank you again! |
We had the pleasant green shade to ourselves, as the other groups were to pass on for Mass in Przybyszew, and we were to have ours at the day's destination. Of course, it meant a longer walk before the next break, but doesn't every pilgrim prefer alternate fasting and feasting to a comfortable, unvarying mediocrity?
It did make lunch all the more delightful by the time we arrived, and little O., with her honey-coloured hair flowing well past her waist in errant wisps, was smiling to greet us with a large bag of plums. Soup and pasta followed--the second rest.
M. had also approached me in the meanwhile, proudly informing me that the Evangelist Luke had painted the image we were to visit along with more interesting facts about the Black Madonna. I listened to his lesson with pleasure. It is important to allow children to be teachers, especially boys, and I genuinely appreciated his concern that perhaps my questionable grasp of Polish warranted things being repeated to me slowly and simply in that tongue.
Someone else had the same thought. Father Grzegorz's brother, a seminarian named Krzysztof, kindly approached me towards the end of the break and asked if I understood the conferences that were being given while we marched. I blushed and had to admit that abstract homilies and sermons were still beyond my reach. He offered to deliver one of his to me personally. I eagerly assented, hoping the occasion would be useful practice for his linguistic skills as well as edifying for me. Then came the topic of the conference: vocations.
I stiffened inwardly, yet I did not want to tell this warm cleric that I had grown unwillingly skeptical of the idea that every soul on earth served as a thread in a luscious tapestry, each with a purpose to perform in the story being told. While I knew there was a purpose to each life, I was not convinced that each soul had a destiny.
Still I wanted to hear him. I am generally agnostic even in my skepticism, and whether I could take Cl. Krzysztof's thesis to heart or not, it would still be a lesson in humility to listen. Thus, I told him sincerely that I would gladly take his instruction. However, as the group's traffic directors herded us together for departure, my mind momentarily drifted from the heat of the summer sun that day and back two and a half years to a frigid stay in wintry Kraków and to the thoughts encircling me at that time.
Having reached definite conclusions regarding my profession, not all of them the most uplifting, I had turned my thoughts in earnest to discerning a vocation. As I read through saints and scholars on the issue, I was sent a sermon (written by a very trustworthy priest) concerning the matter. This would be the work that would greatly shake my belief that God had a unique plan for my life.
In this essay, the priest asserted those who were waiting for a divine call or looking for signs as to their state in life were in fact indulging in the heresy of Quietism. 'Discerning one's vocation is this simple,' he stated, 'The married life is higher than the single life, and the religious life is higher than the married life. These are our only rules, and whenever possible, one should encourage a searching soul to the higher calling. One must not passively expect God to endow him with understanding as to some situation He means for him. We have free will and God expects us to use it. One is not meant for way of life or the other; it is a choice.'
Was that all then? Was there to be no guiding light, burst of feeling or steadfast joy to indicate the mode of life where a soul may best serve God? Both the orthodoxy of the priest and the fact this world is a 'vale of tears' gave me great cause to ponder whether my life may very well be more desultory than I had hoped. Old doubts reawakened, and while my reason oscillated between pessimism and realism, my heart, if not my soul as well, fell into the grip of a sort of agnosticism. I tried to will myself to believe otherwise, but no number of visits to the confessional could release me from that conviction that there was no path set out for me to follow, merely a tangled thicket through which I must haphazardly hack.
And yet, paradoxically, there was still a small voice inside of me saying that my grim supposition was mistaken, and one day I would be proven wrong. Still, I had not embarked on the pilgrimage this time for any answers, only to obtain the peace to stop asking and to listen instead. I could not have guessed that this prayer might actually be answered nor could I have expected what I would hear from Cl. Krzysztof the next day (our lesson being postponed as he encountered acquaintances of his en route).
We arrived swiftly in Michałowice with plenty of time to wash clothes and let them air in the sun. Mass was sublime with the choir singing from the renovated loft, and the church itself was half finished! Many pilgrims from Warszawa came to join us, swelling our ranks.
and again!And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth. And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, my bow shall appear in the clouds: And I will remember my covenant with you, and with every living soul that beareth flesh: and there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all flesh. (Genesis: IX, 12-15)
Saturday, January 23, 2010
...and suffer the loss of his own soul?
While to shirk the call of Love may not doom a life, the act does greatly inhibit a soul's capacity for happiness, which is simultaneously, her capacity to fulfill herself. To be unhappy is to have a grudge against something, against some part of reality. Non-being cannot make a soul unhappy. Though deprivation may trouble her a moment, it cannot make her miserable as deprivation in of itself proves that what she needs does exist somewhere.
No morbidly depressed soul can enter the Kingdom of God, because to do so, she must love its Lord. To love its Lord, would be to love reality, for He is Being Itself, Essens, not a particular essentia. Knowing myself as well as I do, and knowing how wretchedly guilty I have been of wretchedness, I can only beat my breast and beg God to give me the Love which will move my gaze outside of my little self to the one who justifies my existence. It is so difficult to participate in His life to the full at this time, though. I have not heard my calling; my earthly vocation is still a mystery.
I do expect my vocation to fulfill my happiness, but not necessarily in the pleasant sense. Happiness is not a reaction to pleasurable, interesting, or charming things. Otherwise we would never see smiles on the face of children fighting cancer, religious working amongst the poor, or married Catholics forced into celibacy by their spouses' abandoning them. Happiness is an exercise in finding traces of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. If we never move beyond the infant, passive happiness, that which is aroused in us by nice things, then we shall be forever stunted in our capacity for joy, and our contment will be the most vulnerable possession we have in this world.
Riches, fame, beauty...all these passing things are inferior to the interior peace and joy that arises from falling God's calling unto Himself. It is not only because these possessions may be snatched by the Fates' fickle hands at a moment's notice, but because they are like tasteless paste spoonfed to a babe, rather than the succulent, nourishing food that require effort on the part of the eater. True happiness--following one's vocation--requires such active, spiritual effort.
We don't often see many examples of this. Some people sneer at the religious and marital vocations as the 'routine' or normal thing to do for someone who cannot excel in a rigorous profession or much admired career (not to say that married and religious people have not excelled in such spheres, but even so, these spheres were/should have been secondary to their vocations). The world admires the talented and ambitious that do not allow themselves to be pinned down by other committments, and it is usually horrified when such persons choose the 'same' route that any obscure villager might have taken.
Already, headlines reading: 'so weird you can't make it up' (http://www.faniq.com/article/Oakland-As-prospect-Grant-Desme-leaving-team-to-become-a-priest-1962246) are popping up. Some accompanied with grotesque comments and petty jibes, these articles concern the decison of Grant Desme to leave a budding career in baseball (the game and pastime honoured very highly in his country) for priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church:
I'm doing well in baseball. But I had to get down to the bottom of things, to what was good in my life, what I wanted to do with my life. Baseball is a good thing, but that felt selfish of me when I felt that God was calling me more. It took awhile to trust that and open up to it and aim full steam toward him ... I love the game, but I'm going to aspire to higher things. (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/A-s-prospect-leaving-baseball-for-call-of-the-pr?urn=mlb,215238)
It's so beautiful, so good, and it is so true! So much so that, yes, one could not have made this up.
No morbidly depressed soul can enter the Kingdom of God, because to do so, she must love its Lord. To love its Lord, would be to love reality, for He is Being Itself, Essens, not a particular essentia. Knowing myself as well as I do, and knowing how wretchedly guilty I have been of wretchedness, I can only beat my breast and beg God to give me the Love which will move my gaze outside of my little self to the one who justifies my existence. It is so difficult to participate in His life to the full at this time, though. I have not heard my calling; my earthly vocation is still a mystery.
I do expect my vocation to fulfill my happiness, but not necessarily in the pleasant sense. Happiness is not a reaction to pleasurable, interesting, or charming things. Otherwise we would never see smiles on the face of children fighting cancer, religious working amongst the poor, or married Catholics forced into celibacy by their spouses' abandoning them. Happiness is an exercise in finding traces of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. If we never move beyond the infant, passive happiness, that which is aroused in us by nice things, then we shall be forever stunted in our capacity for joy, and our contment will be the most vulnerable possession we have in this world.
Riches, fame, beauty...all these passing things are inferior to the interior peace and joy that arises from falling God's calling unto Himself. It is not only because these possessions may be snatched by the Fates' fickle hands at a moment's notice, but because they are like tasteless paste spoonfed to a babe, rather than the succulent, nourishing food that require effort on the part of the eater. True happiness--following one's vocation--requires such active, spiritual effort.
We don't often see many examples of this. Some people sneer at the religious and marital vocations as the 'routine' or normal thing to do for someone who cannot excel in a rigorous profession or much admired career (not to say that married and religious people have not excelled in such spheres, but even so, these spheres were/should have been secondary to their vocations). The world admires the talented and ambitious that do not allow themselves to be pinned down by other committments, and it is usually horrified when such persons choose the 'same' route that any obscure villager might have taken.
Already, headlines reading: 'so weird you can't make it up' (http://www.faniq.com/article/Oakland-As-prospect-Grant-Desme-leaving-team-to-become-a-priest-1962246) are popping up. Some accompanied with grotesque comments and petty jibes, these articles concern the decison of Grant Desme to leave a budding career in baseball (the game and pastime honoured very highly in his country) for priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church:
I'm doing well in baseball. But I had to get down to the bottom of things, to what was good in my life, what I wanted to do with my life. Baseball is a good thing, but that felt selfish of me when I felt that God was calling me more. It took awhile to trust that and open up to it and aim full steam toward him ... I love the game, but I'm going to aspire to higher things. (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/A-s-prospect-leaving-baseball-for-call-of-the-pr?urn=mlb,215238)
It's so beautiful, so good, and it is so true! So much so that, yes, one could not have made this up.
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About Me
- Jacobitess
- Warsaw, Poland
- Domine, spero quia mundum vicisti. Lord, I trust that Thou hast overcome the world. Panie, ufam, żeś pokonał świat.