Confluence of theological concepts ala Anne Rice

I am reading Anne Rice's Of Love and Evil. It is interesting to see her turn back to her fascination with the darker things after having returned to Christ. In previous posts I think I commented on missing that element in her works on Jesus' life.

This title makes it clear that despite leaving the Church, her faith is still strong and still strongly Catholic, with some interesting twists including perhaps a touch of the charismatic.

I'm not finished with it yet, but it is essentially a tale of redemption from past evil. A man experiences some attributes of heaven before being brought back to earth to help restore unbalanced situations and to grow in love through acts of heroism. I think she might be playing with the idea of how purgatory works, perhaps coupled with reincarnation. The hero isn't actually reborn, but the concept is similar.

One interesting question if this IS a conceptualization of purgatory is the spiritual temptation that continues to plague him while on missions. Clearly not a Catholic concept.

The book seems to be written with plans for a prequel. I'm looking forward to it. While not high literature, it is theologically thought provoking in an easily digestible format.

Day 4: Back to the waterfall

This morning while approaching my waterfall, I remembered something I'd meant to write about a few weeks ago.

Usually when I go through the pounding water, all my clothes are stripped away so that I approach Him naked, the way He sees me anyway. On days when my sin is particularly apparent, the water also strips away the sins which have latched on to my flesh like ugly black leeches. Sometimes I enter with scabs covering the sore places where I've ripped them off myself, and the scabs are sloughed off and the soreness healed.

But one day, as I entered, I was not able to let a certain area of sin go. It connected to me and trailed off behind me like a thick rope, traveling back through the waterfall, and tugging on me as I tried to move forward. I stood naked before Him, simpering and posing, trying to hide the chain of sin behind me and trying to move toward Him. But the cord was pulled as tightly as it could be stretched, and I could move no further unless I let go.

How silly I was to try to hide it, to pretend prettiness before the One who knew my every action, my every ugliness. How silly to carry my sin in to Him, to reach for Him with one hand while gripping my sin with the other.

That day I never did let go and climb up on His lap. I couldn't seem to.

And that, my friends, is purgatory. Standing in the presence of God and holding on to our sins, until the beauty and fire of His presence burns off our desire for anything but Him.

Consuming fire, come.

On prayer for the dead

A formerly Baptist friend asked me about the Catholic practice of praying for the dead. I passed along some info on this ancient Jewish and Christian practice, but concluded with the following, describing the concept of being saved as by fire as St. Paul educates us.

I have a vision of this state of purification as being in his presence but at a distance because the heat and light are too great. And as my attachment to sin is burned away I am able to move closer and closer and closer until I can stand before him, face to face. That process of purgation, of being saved as by fire, is a stage of heaven, one of the rooms in his mansion. The heat of his light and love are the fire which purifies. And the pain of the purification process is the pain of the distance which remains, until that distance is no more.

I just adore the concept of purgatory; it is so very beautiful.

I want to go home...

I was on retreat this past weekend. I'm not sure how the other women manage to return home energized and refueled because I seem to come home worn out and heartsick. Part of that is from being on the prayer team, but not all of it.

Here are some thoughts from my priest on retreating:

Retreating gives us a chance to see ourselves as we are at that moment and it's often not a pretty sight… initially. At first the silence screams and the soul retreats into activity - mental and physical activity. We run away from the bright light of solitude.

But if we don't run from the penetrating silence we will see what needs to be seen. We will experience the redemption that will come with listening contemplation. We will receive the embrace of self-acceptance and the rest of God's embrace, or maybe it's first the rest of God's embrace and then the embrace of self-acceptance.

When preparing for retreat, try to get in touch with your desire for a more intimate communion with yourself and with God, for a freer and richer interior life. It's the difference between living in a bachelor's pad and dwelling in a richly and elaborately decorated old mansion with lots of fascinating and mysterious rooms that have still to be discovered.

It was not a silent retreat, but God still used the time away to communicate with me viscerally, just as He did at the last one. Once again He put me in touch with the ache of being separated from Him. Last year the pain was that of a separated lover, with the strength of mourning. This year it was more like the pain of a young child away at camp for the first time; my soul cried out to go home. It was tinged with a sense of abandonment, a bewildered hurt at being intentionally left behind. My heart begged "Please come and get me, please take me home..."

He made me look at myself in bright light, and I didn't like what I saw.

I feel abandoned to my own weakness.

Playing at being a saint (II)

I have been thinking about martyrdom, and my desire to die in some glorious way for God.

And I laugh at that desire given that I am so quick to shrug off the crosses He has chosen for me. The idea of a quick death, by fire or stoning or evisceration, is one I can imagine gritting my way through in the knowledge that His glory lay before me, so very close at hand.

But this long drudgery of life is something else altogether. This cross of love which lasts perhaps for the entirety of my earthly habitation, I am eager to forgo.

Maybe that is why it was especially designed for me. Quick martyrdom would perhaps not be the purging fire my spirit needs. It may be that my stiff necked-ness requires a more sustained and lengthy purification.

Lord give me the humility to accept it.

Desire as Purgation

I've been thinking about the idea of desire as purgation. Some of the mystical accounts of purgatory describe the state as the pain of being near enough to God to feel wretched from the distance which remains between you. I'm wondering if the experience of unfulfillable desire in this world could be that process beginning here and now. And I'm wondering if part of my mission is to help spread this understanding.

Oh to be immaculate...

Last night I thought more about Mary and the Holy Spirit after the annunciation, imagining her greeting Him who her heart knew and loved.

And I realized that only an immaculate conception could allow her soul to open like Lawrence's anemone to receive Him. Even the faintest hint of sin such as I carry would have rendered her incapable of such a greeting; she would have been crushed by the weight of her unworthiness.

This morning's reading from Joshua (3:1-13) tells us that the people needed to be sanctified in order to be present when God's wonders were performed. How much more so do we need purification before standing in His very presence?

How joyous her purity must have allowed her to be in receiving Him...