Heaven's Song by Christopher West

Ever since I got a taste of Pope John Paul's Theology of the Body through listening to the CD's Naked without Shame I have wanted to read and study more so I finally picked up Christopher West's book Heaven's Song. It focuses on several talks given by John Paul on the Song of Songs. Here is a brief summary of the book. I highly recommend it.

Before sin entered the world eros (human, erotic love) was infused with agape (divine, sacrificial love). We were able to love as God loves. Wine is a symbol of divine love poured out. In the beginning we were inebriated with God’s wine. But original sin made it so that the wine “ran out.” Lust was the result. Lust is eros cut off from agape. However, Christ restored the wine in superabundance and when we drink from this wine we again are empowered to love as God loves. We receive this “wine” through the grace we receive in the sacraments.

It is important in the spousal relationship to understand that we have a common Father.

"This experience of common belonging – of being ‘brother-sister’ in the same humanity –provides the foundation of their unity as spouses in ‘one flesh’. Left to this fallen world, the mere sexual urge would not recognize the woman as ‘sister.’ And for lack of such recognition, it could not recognize her properly as ‘bride.’ She would be for him an object of appropriation –that is, an object to be grasped, possessed, used."

Human begins become an image of God not so much in their moment of solitude but in their moment of communion. Because we are persons, we are never to be mastered as objects or a dog, because that goes against our dignity as human beings. (Someone may want me to want something, but no matter what they do, no one can force me to want what they want. God gave us free will.) Rather, we find our true purpose in life, in the giving of ourselves to one another. This reflects the trinity.

This is linked together to our sexuality. If a right understanding and use of our sexuality is integrated into who we are, our bodies should reflect what is true inside of us. And so, in the Song of Songs when the writer talks about opening the gate to their lovers garden, there is a very strong connection (as it foreshadows) our opening ourselves to God. It involves complete trust, a forgetfulness of self and therefore a true giving up of one’s self.

When this happens, on a lower level, it can be seen through desiring what is best for our spouse and having them desire what is best for us. And on a more profound level, it can mean willing God’s will as he knows what is best. It is trusting in his giving us the right gifts, feeding us the right foods that are best for us. It is in this way that the term “mystical marriage” can fit into the language of talking about our relationship with God.

This opening of the garden gate to God can be seen most clearly in the life of Mary.

"If we are to meet Christ in the Mystery of the Incarnation, nay more if we are to be formed into “other Christs” we must pour ourselves, mystically speaking, like molten liquid into Mary’s womb; we must have to courage to enter mystically behind the veil into her ‘enclosed garden’ – the perfect mold that formed the God-man."

Mary is the new Eve. Whereas Eve didn’t trust in God’s gifts for her and tried to take them before they were given to her, Mary trusted in God’s goodness and love. "Let it be to me according to your word."

Pope Benedict describes eternal life as “the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality.” It will be “like plunging into the ocean of infinite love … a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.”

In this life, however, the purpose of eros is for it to be lifted up to its highest potential by agape. This involves it’s being disciplined and purified.

Liturgy means “work of the people” and it is through the liturgy that God wishes to transform his people. He does this through the sacraments. Marriage is a sacrament because it points to something bigger. On the cross, when Christ died for our sins, many mystics describe it as a marriage being consummated. Through our gift of self to our spouse, we can see the marriage bed as a sort of alter where we offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God as we unite our sacrifices to the Sacrifice of Christ.

When we participate in the Eucharist, we are given the grace to become divine. We become more and more like Christ. We become one. Through this grace, we are then able to bring the agape back into the eros of our relationships.

Making Sense of Suffering by Peter Kreeft

I just finished a book called Making Sense Out of Suffering by Peter Kreeft While it isn’t on my book list, an understanding of suffering is important in understanding many of the authors on my book list, such as St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Thérèse of Lisieux. This was made more apparent to me during out theology and donuts session after the mass this Sunday. Brother Ignatius, a deacon at our church, spoke on both St. John of the Cross and Thérèse of Lisieux and the idea of the dark night of the soul.

There are a few "flowers" that I would like to pull away from the book for my own spiritual bouquet. (Refer to my post on making a spiritual bouquet, if you do not know what I mean by this.)

First, in Francis de Sales book Introduction to the Devout Life the reader is asked to ponder what life was like before he was born and then to reflect on how God brought him into existence out of nothing! The point is that our very being is a gift from God. And even further, his maintaining us day after day so that we are not run over by a car or struck with some deadly illness is also a gift from God. This is a point that Kreeft also makes. It leaves us with only one appropriate response - gratitude.

Second, in the very beginning, when Adam and Eve were tempted in the garden they brought into the world a terrible sickness - namely death! God has given us a cure to that sickness. It is Christ's blood! But also part of that cure is suffering. It helps bring us into true reality and it gives us the opportunity to offer up our sufferings with Christ. Through Christ, suffering has been made redemptive!

Third, Buddha's way of eliminating suffering was to desire nothing. If we desire nothing, we are never upset when we get something we do not want or when we do not get something we do want. At the same time, if we desire nothing, we cannot desire what is good. We cannot even love! But if we keep our desires but transform them to be like Christ's, then we will only desire God's will. Like Mary, if we say "yes" to God, "thy will be done," then whatever suffering that comes our way will be acceptable, because through it all, we can rest in knowing that it is God's will. There is great freedom to that!

Here are a few of my favorite quotes of Kreeft’s and quotes of quotes found in his book that I found very thought-provoking. Many of them say what I have just summarized above, but they communicate it much better! I felt like I was uncovering some of the deepest secrets to life! I have italicized my favorites.

“The cross is the gift God gives to his friends,” St Philip Neri

“St. Teresa says, simply, that everything is grace. Therefore suffering too is grace… We know what God is like. Jesus. God is infinite, eternal, pure, absolute, unqualified love. Everything he does, therefore, is love. Everything that comes to us, therefore, is his kiss. Sometimes his kiss is full of tears.”

“The way to perfect joy is incredibly simple. It is simply to die – to die to self-will and self-regard – to say to God, ‘They will be done,’ and mean it. To put God first, to consecrate everything – everything – to him.”

“here is how fiat, ‘thy will be done,’ transforms suffering. To die to self and what self wants is the essence of suffering. If I want x and I get y instead, I suffer, both because I do not get x, which I want, and also because I get y, which I do not want. But if I want only God’s will, I do not suffer, because I always get God’s will. We suffer to the extent that we are out of line with reality, ultimate reality, God’s will.”

“Purity of heart is to will one thing” Kierkegaard

“Gratitude is rooted in ultimate reality.”

“what have we got to be thankful for? God, given to us eternally, that’s all. Infinite joy, heaven, purchased by Jesus at an infinite cost, that’s all. No, that’s not all. Earth thrown in too. And self. To whom was the gift of self given at our conception? To no one, to nothing; we are pure gift.”

“the saints speak of our ultimate destiny and joy as ‘the spiritual marriage.’ In marriage the two become one. In the spiritual marriage we share God’s very life. What is that life? The God we get married to is a Trinity of personas each of whom eternally empties himself, dies to self. Father loves Son, not self; Son loves Father, not self; Spirit is that love between them. Spirit reveals Son, not self. Son reveals Father, not self. Father begets Son, not self. Father and Son process Spirit, not themselves. Each one dies to self eternally. This is at least akin to suffering (rather, suffering Is akin to it).”

“Christ by his incarnation incorporated or in-bodied humanity into his divinity, so that,when we are incorporated into his body, his divinity is incorporated into our humanity.”

“the eucharist is the solution to the problem of suffering. For it is the taking up suffering into sacrifice. Human punitive suffering, the mark of mortality and sin, becomes one with divine redemptive suffering, the mark of eternal life and grace.”

Also, Brother Ignatius recommended John Paul II’s letter Salvifici Doloris, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering which I think is another must read. You can find it here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html

Also for more information on Peter Kreeft, you could go to his website: http://www.peterkreeft.com/home.htm.

Making a spiritual bouquet ...

Francis de Sales wrote in his book Introduction to the Devout Life about how the Holy Spirit reveals instruction and truth in a variety of ways to his servants. Francis calls these various arrangements of truth a bouquet as each varies in the ways in which they are arranged. He also talks about taking from your reading, prayers and meditations a spiritual bouquet - just a few flowers of truth that you wish to remember and reflect on throughout the day.

I will think of this blog as a place to record the spiritual bouquets I pick up from my readings.