The Wild Tears Fall

Carefully tiptoeing amongst the fair sleepers in the military tent (the barns having had no space for the ladies to bed down in), I made my way quietly enough to the truck. It was time for one of my favourite tasks--one which I loved for it could always be accomplished.


Teachers are often frustrated when their logical syntheses do not take root in their students. So are writers, when constant practice does not enable them to shape the lovely thoughts in their minds into equally precious words on paper, and still more discouraged are Christians, when they wearily observe that good habits and steady observance have not yet made them into saints.


Yet, outside that world of rebellious wills and faltering resolve, is the cosmos. Devoid of appetitive spirit, it adheres perfectly to the laws set down for it by God. We all know that however our pupils, skills, and souls may disappoint us, if we mix the right ingredients in the right ratio, our cakes will always rise. If we put our elbows into our scrubbing while using the right liquid, the dishes will always come clean. 


And so they did. This task being done, I glanced at the other pilgrims at the table preparing breakfast itself.


'What's this, Amerykanka?' a familiar voice asked. Piotrek L. had just joined us on the pilgrimage, 'Looking for a rest are you?'


'No,' I replied (teasingly imitating his British intonation and probably earning myself a good decade in Purgatory for that), 'I'm looking for something else to do.' 'After all, I have an American Protestant work ethic,' I added inwardly. Cucumbers swiftly provided me with something to occupy it.

Thanks Marzena once more!

As we hurried with making breakfast, preparations for Mass were carried out beautifully, with the Maltese crosses serving as a vibrant backdrop for the altar of the Paschal Lamb. Under the blue dome, surrounded with brown pillars of moss and bark, we were surely in a sanctuary that the day's patroness, St. Clare of Assisi would approve of.

The rest of the day entailed walking through the natural world she loved, over the glossy sheen of emerald grass, and through the powder of grey-brown earth, with mankind's asphalt lanes only interjecting themselves intermittently. 


This day's conference (split into two parts) was by our deacon, Sergiusz, who spoke to us of O Męce Pańskiej ('About the Passion of Our Lord'). Figuring vividly in my memory was what he had to say on virtues, cardinal and theological. Ola had sweetly offered to translate these conferences for me, and I was amazed at how readily she did so. Her words were nearly simultaneous with his, and they came in such a polished, erudite fashion. Later she joked that she was actually making it up as she went along; she also graciously told me that translating helped the conference take deeper root in her own mind. I am glad that she received this reward in the act of mercy she worked for me.


On one of our rest stops, as I lay half across a bed of moss and half on my poncho, I was going over something the deacon had said. Concerning the natural virtues, there are boundaries of excess and dearth, and in the middle, a Golden Mean that must be striven for. In the supernatural virtues, we are to strive without ceasing. There is no limit of attainment. 


Perhaps this is where the charisms of Dominicans and Franciscans diverge. Whereas the former resides in the lapidate pinions of the cherubim, the latter is uplifted by the carmine wings of the seraphim, the knowers and the lovers. Yet, while loving is first in terms of worthiness, knowing is always prior to loving.  While the Dominicans took all the wisdom of man to light the Golden Path, eruditely expounding on such themes as the cardinal virtues, Franciscans cast themselves headlong into upwards infinity, straightway making for the theological virtues.


Grace is of course performed upon the individual, not the calling, and who is to say when a Dominican has loved most from his knowing or a Franciscan known well from his loving? This seems to have been St. Clare's way of seeing God--simultaneously, in an act of love:

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation. So that you too may feel what His friends feel as they taste the hidden sweetness that God Himself has reserved from the beginning for those who love Him. _St. Clare of Assisi to St. Agnes of Bohemia

Thank you Marzena!

The paths we trode that day continued to weave through the loveliest groves. It was one of the easier days (only 14.6 miles), and it did not seem long before we arrived at the homestead of the year before, this time happily bereft of mosquitoes and the ground cleared of fallen apples.


'You should think of mice and spiders,' O. told me, when she saw several girls as well as myself bedding down on a pile of hay. 'Oh, mice are better than rats, and I like spiders,' I laughed. In any case, that night was to give me the best and warmest sleep I would have on the pilgrimage. No amount of critters that I didn't like could have held me back from it.


Later, M.'s, O's, and my game of 'Boo' escalated. I had been trying to tell them to wait for their opportunity of frightening me, namely when I wasn't expecting it. They refused to cooperate, and having a strict dictum to never patronize children, I stopped feigning fear at their exclamations. I simply collapsed to the ground in a heap. Their reaction, simultaneously horrified and gratified, was delightful, as well as their tests to see if I lived (it would seem my feet are not ticklish anymore). Granted, that made the game more difficult for the duration of our journey, but who would have it any other way?


Day declined, fading gently into a swirling, periwinkle velvet, from which the full moon emerged like a silmaril, glowing with the best of gold and silver. The blessed moon was full for most of the pilgrimage, just as if it were the face of Our Lady turned upon us. I asked a priest who visited us that evening (alas, I did not see him again) if he thought it would be strange to have such an image of the moon in one's house, and to use it as if it were an image of the Virgin Mary. He shrugged and said he saw nothing wrong in that at all. I hope he did not think I was joking, and responded with a joke himself, for his approval would be too wonderful to part with.


Compline followed later, then bed, and throughout our sleep, I know that perfect mirror of the Lord's light kept her loving vigil.

Returning to the man who hated God, yet loved His mother, one is again baffled. The fact is as mad as preferring the sun to the moon. The latter sustains no life by virtue of her luminous beams; her light is not even her own, but a reflection of the self-sufficient radiance of the sun. The sun is the very force binding the system of man's world together-his only protection against the cold, sterile world of space without. Yet, many people do say they prefer the moon.

The reason given is often that her light does not hurt their eyes. Her beauty is soft, gentle, and mysterious. She does not burn, nor does she blot out the brilliance of other heavenly bodies, and the stars shine at her side. The moon does not give life, but she soothes it, though not even doing so of her own power, and for that reason she is preferred. There it is. Is it rational? No, but it is held.

And it is true that Our Lady does not hurt us, as she demands nothing for herself, whereas Our Lord demands everything little thing our small selves can give. It is the same case when some married people prefer their friends to their spouses, and this is also unsound. A woman's confidante may pat her hand, understand with all sweetness the trials of her inner life, and counsel her in ways that a woman's husband could not (or could not in a way that she would heed), but she is still only the lady's friend. The fruit of their intercourse can only be ideas and feelings, but the fruit of man and wife is miraculous. It is another body, endowed with a soul. Another creature, it is procreation. Friendship is sterile; marriage begets and conceives.

But then, a lover is so demanding! A woman can merely smile at her friend during a festivity, embrace her, drop a word of fondness, and consider her obligation as a friend fulfilled. However, the man who loves her wants to dance with her. The more intense his devotion, the more turns he wishes for. When his love is disappointed, he is pained, and the more ardent his temperament, the less he can hide it. And the sight of pain is so disagreeable! Even more so when one is expected to repent for having caused that pain.

The lover proves even less reasonable in that he would actually prefer his beloved to be alone with him, and expects her to leave behind the gay company of others to be at his side. It would be pleasant to laugh with and engage with other people at a feast, but there is that earnest lover entreating fervently (and rather embarrassingly at your elbow) 'How long will you keep putting Me off?' (Sister Faustina Kowalska's Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul).

Scripture and Saints have said again and again that Our Lord is a Divine Lover, and how hated does that fact make the Catholic Church in this age. Before her, it was the prologue of this Love that caused the Hebraic people to be so despised by their enemies. Why would they not simply sacrifice to the local gods in their places of exile? Why could they not just pacify maniacal rulers by patting them on the head and humour them with the affirmation that they were divine? No, they had to put their stubborn feet down and say that their jealous Lord would not allow for their hearts to be devoted to any other thing, even an imaginary one.

Nor would He even allow for an exterior show of honour to false deities. A woman can lie with a man without loving him, but a true husband will not stand for his wife prostituting herself, whatever the reason. The Hebrew God was not a distant force into which a man could tap for his personal welfare, nor a capricious superhuman who would in turn be bored or interested by the inferior creatures scurrying below his throne on Olympus. Nor again was He the figurehead of a philosophy-not actually existent, but the culmination of a very fine principle which one ought to adhere to for the sake of one's own virtue. He instead presented Himself as both an omniscient, omnipotent Being and a pitifully desperate Wooer.

If a king leapt from his throne to throw himself at the feet of a lowly woman in the crowd, he might find his people, and her, bewildered and scornful enough to knock his crown off. The person of his gentle, beautiful mother is not likely to bear any of this ill feeling. Her crown is thus often left in tact.

Returning to the wilful young woman and her devotee, it is not necessary that any of the resentment arising in her at her admirer's demands should apply itself to his gently tempered mother or sister. This does however depend on her loving them to begin with. The iconoclastic soul who cannot move past the phase where she envies the gentle soul that has known her beau longer than she (and knows better how to please him) is not the soul being discussed at present. This soul has moved past pettiness and grown to love that dear woman who has been with her beloved one all his life, the mother whose love for him has moved her maternal heart to invite this soul into her affection as well.

Yet, as time wears on, the young woman may find it easier and easier to love her wooer's mother, and discover it to be harder and harder to wax in affection for him as she ought. Selfishness does not prevent gratitude, but it does inhibit the growth of fervour and the submission of one's own will. If the girl casts the young man off, she may find herself regretting more the loss of friendship with his mother than with him-at least, at that short-sighted moment.

Such is the case with souls that had once embraced Christ in His Church. In the dawn of His light, they erect a throne for the magnificent Lover, the first streams of Grace being sweet to their parched souls. Some of these converts may at first meet with suspicion the other souls attached to Him and in devotion to Him, e.g. his foster father, Joseph, his chief apostle, Peter, but most especially His spotless mother. Yet, in the humble, loving soul, a creature so perfect and so devoted to the Lord they both love can only finally win a prominent place in their affection.

However, as man is matter and matter wearies, either in the individual soul or in the coming generations of nations, rebellion may seed itself in the heart of man. Who is this distant God that not only demands the adherence of one's intellect, but also the intimate devotion of his heart? No ruler asks his subject to abstain from gluttony at meals, no teacher pries so deeply into his student's volition as to expect inward affirmation, and no friends believe they have the right to know a man's innermost thoughts, much less the right to command them.

Forgetting that he owes his very being to Christ the King, man's selfishness is all too keen to topple His crown when it so pleases him. Forgetting the original sweetness of faith either in his own soul or in the ages before him, he plants his insolent mallet in the image of his Lord. When he turns from Christ's crown to the mother's, his hand may find itself restrained. Why demolish any devotion to that harmless creature, with no power of her own, who offers only love, and does not ask that anyone should come to her to seek forgiveness for she judges no one? With either a patronizing sneer or a grudging nod of decrepit piety, she is left alone.

And so we have nations whose rulers and peoples who do not attempt to live by His law. The Kingship of Christ is a dirty phrase, even amongst those who profess to house Him in their hearts. Yet, in the strangest places, at the oddest times, an undertow trips the feet of powerful in the world. Pragmatic Ireland fights to keep abortion from staining her land, and the fight goes on in the rudderless Americas to dam that tide of blood. Accommodating Poland wears the mark of Our Lord upon her sleeve, and refuses to let the direst of ungodly acts within her borders. Why? What have these nations in common? On the soil of Erin, there is a queen in Knock. Over the Americas waves the tilma of a Lady. Circling the higher tower of the basilica in Kraków is the golden crown of Regina Poloniae.

Man's eyes must grow very owl-like and dim, and his acts must sink to the blackest depravity to hate the light of the Moon. As he is matter and ever changing, man will either decline or rise throughout his course. It is a most likely event then, that he who truly loves the light of the Moon, will yearn for that light's Source again.

In the compelling history of the Curé of Ars, one may chance upon a story about a woman who desired the spiritual welfare of her husband. He was not simply a man of animal appetite (weak in the flesh, though willing in heart to form his will unto a nobler end), but one full of active resistance and even hatred towards God. This malevolent sentiment contaminated his feelings towards all forms of life. Hatred of Being will beget hatred of things that be, and this unhappy passion culminated in suicide.

On hearing that her husband had ended his life by leaping from a bridge, the new widow went weeping to the rectory of the village's revered priest. It is likely that St. John Vianney did not wait for her knock, but burst open his door, flooding the dark street with his lamp's glow and taking his spiritual daughter by the hand, said these words: 'Be not grieved. Between the gable of the bridge and the break of the water, he repented.'

Why? The saint gave the credit of his repentance to the grace afforded by his habit of saying an occasional Ave with his wife. He hated God, but he could honour the Madonna. Christ's own love for His mother is so intense, that apparently He did not withdraw His flow of grace unto this soul. Rather, it flowed so much the more that even in the act of ultimate ungodly despair, he forsook gloom and gazed up to the Sun-before the moment of Choice came.

How odd. Who would know of this obscure Virgin, born in an insignificant town in the Mideast, whose only glory is in her relation to the God-man, would still be loved and revered even when He is not? One may put it down to the chivalry instinctive and indestructible in some men. There is an example in the good, but erring, character of Richard Carstone in Dickens's Bleak House. Carstone's benefactor, Mr. Jarndyce, has been called the kindest man in literature by some; though Carstone himself fell out with him and staunchly objected to that fact up to his deathbed. Many have complained that Carstone's enmity against Jarndyce should have bled into his relations with all the people who admired the man, namely Esther Summerson and Ada Clare. G. K. Chesterton defended the credibility of Carstone's unwavering affection for two women devoted to the man he despised thusly: 'A clumsy journalist would have made Rick Carstone in his mad career cast off Esther and Ada and the others. The great artist knew better. He knew that even if all the good in a man is dying, the last sense that dies is the sense that knows a good woman from a bad; it is like the scent of a noble hound.' (Appreciations and Criticisms).

The above is a tender notion, and it is from the pen of a man who admired women with a dear passion. But men and women are composed of individual souls, not pieces of consciousness cut from the same cloth, and there is no reason to suppose that all men are like Carstone or Chesterton. History has said enough to let this point rest.