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A Pilgrim’s Memory of St. Anthony of Egypt

Many years have come and passed
Since before your smile in inner mountain fast
Stepped my bare feet out on bare forest last,
To that living unshod joy in your greeting past!


Was it by flesh or faith that your face shone
In brightness, to lift from skin to bone,
In light against sin’s darkness to atone,
In radiance to live that life of love alone? 



Reminiscences of that New Eden contain 
Solitude’s vestiges that join the strain 
Of my own existence dissipated but in refrain
From those idols who, by Life’s death, are slain.

What tolling silences with thunder peel 
amid the interior cacophony unreal
of my own thoughts to rekindle and to heal 
that longing to long too long neglected still?


Is all the empty service that I halfway render 
Any more pleasing than what saving secrets engender
In prayer, that power to conceive and not to hinder
His surrendered love, so true and tender?


Anthony of Egypt, in the battle of faith, you shine,
Against all spiteful spirits, your own words still bind
The discouraged believer in the Word to find
Hope’s new beginning and in love’s discipline, a living sign.

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“You Are the Christ”

In today’s readings, Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah.  This episode in the Gospel of Mark happened in Caesarea Philippi.   Peter’s profession indicates that he understood Jesus to be the one who would fulfill the promises associated with the restoration of Israel.  The same story, as related in the Gospel of Matthew relates that Peter also declared Jesus to be the Son of the Living God.  Jesus confirmed this declaration as a truth revealed by God.  


Does the context shed light on the significance of Peter’s profession?  King Herod had built over the headwaters flowing out of Mt. Hermon a statue to Caesar which honored the emperor as a son of god.  The placement of this monument would have associated Caesar with Pan, a fertility deity to whom the abundance of life-giving water in that place was attributed.  In other words, Caesar was honored as a source of life.  And so he seemed to be.  All the political, financial and military honor and glory were undeniably his.  Those who were his friends flourished.  Those who opposed him seem to be opposing the very powers of heaven.   Indeed, all the kingdoms of the world were in one way or another bowed down before him.  

It would have been as difficult then as it is now not to be dazzled, not to look at this temple to Caesar as somehow iconic for the aspirations of mankind, worthy of submitting all of one’s life energy to serve.  But political systems and ideologies promising salvation have always had this effect on us: they always make a claim for an absolute allegiance of our lives and resources that really ought only be given to God.  Ironically and revealingly, in this case, there is nothing left of this monument today except for niches cut into the cliff around the cave where these waters once flowed.  Who could ever have imagined that things would change, and that this site would be an almost forgotten footnote were it not for the discussion Christ had there with Peter and the Apostles?  Philip’s declaration concerning Caesar, based on what he could observe and what seemed to make sense in the world as he imagined it to be, proved to be false over time.  But what of Peter’s declaration?

Against the pageantry and glory of Rome, Peter declared instead Jesus and the Christ of Israel as the Son of the Living God.  When he did this, he placed in opposition to the overwhelming political power of his day a poor unknown barbarian teacher from an obscure province with no political, military or financial influence.  Following the way of this Christ was the source of true life.  The Lord confirmed that this profession of faith was not proposed by any mere man (as was the declarations concerning Caesar) but rather from God himself – whom Jesus reveals as the Heavenly Father. 

Then, irony points to paradox. After Jesus tries to explain to disciples what it means to be the source of life, Peter opposes Jesus.   Jesus declared that he would have to be rejected, suffer and die.   This would be the complete opposite of what Peter believed he was professing only moments before.   Titles that should indicate divine power, restoration of lost glory, and vindication against injustice; Jesus now interprets in terms of vulnerability, humiliation, and even ignoble suffering unto death.  Peter attempts to interceed with him, to get the Lord to change his mind.  On this point, Jesus is severe with his disciple, revealing the true meaning of Peter’s opposition.  He admonishes Peter, the one to whom he had just attributed a revelation of the Heavenly Father, as Satan, an adversary.  

How paradoxical this mixture of good and evil in the human heart and what an important reminder for all those the Lord has chosen to follow Him, for all those who aspire to serve Him!  Encountering the Lord in our own prayer means exposing ourselves to his judgments and revisiting our true motives.  We often have that painful realization that there are parts of us that are not godly, that are severely limited by our own broken human perspective.  This poverty, this brokeness is why the real adversaries of the Church are not those from without who persecute or reject the faith, but those from within who fear where our faith leads: the glory of heaven is revealed in humiliations, rejection and all kinds of trials which pull the Christian beyond all the natural capacity for love – it is here where every human hope dies that a deeper hope, divine love triumphs.


Christian prayer ponders how Jesus not only fulfills the promises of the Scriptures, but also fulfills the needs and longings of every people.  How did the Romans know that humanity needs to be understood in relation to the divine?  That they saw the need to hold up for worship someone who connects the heavens and the earth suggests that in the hearts of men and women of every culture and historical period there lives some kind of awareness that human existence is meant to be governed by something more than human, something above nature, something divine.  Because it speaks to this awareness, Peter’s profession is, in a certain sense, the beginning of the evangelization of not only Israel but the whole world.  To be fruitful, however, we must not oppose Jesus in prayer.  We must follow him by the way not earthly power and influence, but by way of the Cross, and the Cross alone.

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The Grace of Baptism and the Jordan River

On our pilgrimage last summer, we went to the Jordan River, a spot north of where John baptized Jesus. While we renewed our baptismal promises, other Christian groups from around the world came for baptisms. It was so beautiful. Christian prayer leads to and flows out of the grace baptism bestows. This is why for Catholics our prayer begins and ends with the sign of the Cross we recieved at baptism. This sign of our faith, this sign of our baptism, reminds us of our promises by which we are bound to the Lord and at the same time, it reminds us of God’s promise, the Gift of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God dwelling in us as in a temple. This means through our faith and by the action of the Church at baptism, each of us becomes a place where God is known and loved in such a way that he can be given true spiritual worship through our very bodies when we offer them – and everything we do with them – as a sacrifice to God.  This gift animates Christian prayer to make it effective and it transforms Christian life to make it acceptable.

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Elisabeth of the Trinity and The Church of Saint-Michel in Dijon, France

St. Michael the Archangel
is the patron of the home parish of Elisabeth of the Trinity, the 19th Century
Carmelite of Dijon. It is in this parish of Saint-Michel where she went to
daily mass. In fact, she lived just blocks away and at the time, the Carmelite
Monastery was also in the same neighborhood.

Elisabeth of the TrinityThe Church of Saint-Michel in Dijon, France

It is at this parish
that Elisabeth had her first experiences of contemplative prayer.  By
this, I mean, she in some sense felt the Lord dwelling inside her heart.  Elisabeth
was an award winning pianist, and when asked about how she could perform with
so much composure, she explained that as she played, she would think of
“Him.”  She was astounded at how much God loved her – the love
was so excessive and dynamic she was constantly drawn to it.  
Elisabeth’s view after receiving Communion at St. Michele
She enjoyed attending to
and searching for the loving presence of the Holy Trinity in her heart. This
grace seems to have begun with her First Communion, but continued to grow as
her prayer deepened. She wanted to consecrate her whole life to the loving
service of God. After reading Therese of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul,
she decided to do this as a Carmelite nun.

In the months before her
death in 1906, Blessed Elisabeth wrote her sister, a young wife and mother, a
series of daily reflections so that she, too, could enter into the same
kind of prayer.  In the very first paragraph, she explains to her sister
that the Holy Trinity, the Bosom of the Father, is our true home, the place
where our heart is most at rest.  She exhorted her sister to turn her
attention to this reality dwelling in her heart, that by seeking the Lord’s
presence, especially in the painful and broken parts of ourselves, the transforming
power of God’s love, the power of the Cross, is unleashed in our lives – and we
learn to become the praise of God’s glory.   This series of reflections is
known as one of her major works “Heaven in Faith.”
Click here  for my podcasts at DiscerningHearts.com based on Elisabeth’s “Heaven in Faith” reflections.
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St Marie-Madeleine à la Sainte Baume – France

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher
When one goes on pilgrimage, a certain web of grace connects people and places in surprising and unexpected ways.  One of the great surprises of our pilgrimage was in St. Baume, France, at the purported cave of Mary Magdalene.   She is known in the Scriptures as the woman whom Jesus delivered from seven demons, and is also identified as a witness to the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord.  Although she disappears from scriptural tradition after she proclaims the resurrection to the apostles (she is called the Apostle to the Apostles), it is a pious belief that she continued to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus for the rest of her life, even in the face of persecution.  It was even believed that she and her friends were put adrift at sea as a form of execution, and that God saved them and guided them to southern France.   This is how a cave in a remote region of France came to be connected with the initial proclamation of the Gospel. 
Those who climb the mountain at St. Baume find a cave where the Magdalene is said to have lived out a life of quiet penance and contemplation.  A small crypt contains what is believed to be her remains.  Historically, royalty and other government officials came here as an act of penance.  A small plaque indicates Blessed Charles de Foucauld was also drawn to this place as part of his conversion and that intellectuals like the 19th Century Dominican Lacordaire identified this cave as a place of spiritual renewal.  Today, the cave is filled with pilgrims, generally young people, at prayer or at least wanting to pray.  
As for my family and me this summer, we experienced a certain kind of grace that drew us into prayer.  We hiked from the quiet retreat center just below tree-line to the cool dark cave which is just above it.  A certain peaceful silence overtook us as we entered the holy grotto.  Each of us went off by ourselves to be alone in different parts of the cave.  Something in this cave drew us  to prayerful solitude and reflection.

When I came to the reliquary honoring and perhaps containing her remains, I could not help but think of Golgotha and the empty tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where we had been less than a couple weeks before.  Something about this cave and that empty tomb drew me to contemplate the reality of the resurrection, and the kind of life we want to live when we encounter the Risen Lord.  What if it were true that she who had recognized the Risen Lord had been here?  Would not such a person spend the rest of her life proclaiming the Gospel to the very ends of the earth and praying for the salvation of the world?   After seeing his resurrected eyes gazing on her in love, would she not devote her life to intimacy with him and to making up in her own body what was lacking in his sufferings for the sake of the Church?  If it was not her who had lived in this cave, then it must have been someone like her, for the grace of deep prayer flowed in that cave like the water that dripped from its cracks.  It was the kind of grace which left me wondering whether there might really be something to the highly unlikely but pious scenario connecting St. Baume to Jerusalem.  

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The Bells on Mt. Tabor

Some of our pilgrims on Mt. Tabor

I started describing our pilgrimage from this summer – what we did each day from when we left on June 12 until our return on August 3. Unfortunately, memory follows its own chronology and the following event is out of sequence. But of our time in Israel, the memory of one moment is so strong, I need to write about it. In fact, it speaks to a certain aspect of prayer that is often overlooked. Prayer is sometimes greatly helped by symbols – not just signs seen, but also holy things heard and felt, sacred symbols like the music of church bells.  Obviously, a symbol points to something beyond itself, indicating a reality greater than it can contain.  A cross symbolizes Christ’s work of redemption and the conquest of good over evil.  And although symbols are generally thought of in terms of things we see, when it comes to prayer, all creation takes on symbolic proportions, including sound and especially music.  So I plead your patience while I tell you about the bells of Mt. Tabor, which we did not hear on the second day of our pilgrimage but rather on the third.

Mt. Tabor is the place where the transfiguration of Christ Jesus is traditionally believed to have happened. The very large hill overlooks the Valley of Megiddo, a place of biblical, historical and eschatological battles. Jesus ascended this mount with Peter, James and John. As he did this, light and darkness covered the mountain just as happened to both Elijah and Moses in their encounters with God. What is more, Elijah and Moses appeared with Jesus and they spoke together. Peter asked Jesus whether he could build three booths – perhaps a reference to the Feast of Tabernacles – the September feast by which Israel remembers that God had us live in tents when he brought us out of the Land of Egypt, the feast on which Solomon dedicated the Temple – God’s dwelling place, the feast on which pilgrims would journey to the Temple to hear the law, the feast which according to Zechariah the Messiah would make universal for all peoples – the judgment day.   Jesus does not respond to Peter’s request.  There was no need to build another earthly tent.  Jesus himself is a new dwelling for God and Man.  The messianic meaning of tents in the wilderness and the Temple of Solomon were fulfilled in Him.  The whole theophany revealed a great Christian truth about prayer: it is to Christ Jesus we go to know the will of God.  The voice of God came out of the bright cloud surrounding Christ and said, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.”

The Church of the Transfiguration is beautiful and so are the views from atop Mt. Tabor. Yet comes to my memory most vividly was not what I saw but what I heard: the explosion bells just as we began to descend the front of the church. The deep beautiful tones pealing over head physically resonated deep in the heart. Everyone stopped and let the tolling role right through them. It was an incredible moment of prayer.  It was the Angelus. Each resounding toll was a symbol of the voice of God, that voice echoing out to Peter, James and John – His voice that takes away fear and leaves one’s heart in peaceful silence and adoration.

I was reminded of this experience today when I read this from Romano Guardini’s Sacred Signs (Michael Glazier: Wilmington, DE (1979) pp. 89ff.):

“News from afar, news of the infinitely limitless God, news of man’s bottomless desire, and of its inexhaustible fulfillment. The bells are a summons to those “men of desire” whose hearts are open to far-off things. The sound of bells stirs in us the felling of distance. when they clang out from a steeple rising above a wide plain and their sound is carried to every point of the compass, and on and on to the hazy blue horizon, our wishes follow them as long as they are audible, until it comes home t us that there is no satisfaction of desire in far distant hopes, or indeed in anything outside ourselves. Or, when the pealing bells of a mountain-built church flood the valley with their clamor or send the sound straight up to the zenith, the listener, straining to follow, feels his heart expand beyond its usual narrow limits. Or again, the bell tones in some green glimmering forest may reach us faintly, as from a great distance, too far off to tell from where, and old memories stir, and we strive to catch the sounds and to remember what it is they remind us of. At such moments we have a perception of the meaning of space. We feel the pull of the height, and stretch our wings and try to respond to infinitude. The bells remind us of the world’s immensity and man’s still more immeasurable desires m and that only in the infinite God we can find our peace. O Lord, this my soul is wider than the world, its longing from depths deeper than any valley, the pain of desire is more troubling than the faint lost of bell notes. Only thyself canst fill so vast an emptiness.”

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The Pilgrimage Continued… still on the first day!

The Copula of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth
– built over the place where the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary

Roman Aquaduct north of Caesarea

Up to the last post, I was sharing about our pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  The first day we set off to Caesarea then Haifa where Mt. Carmel is, then Cana and finally Nazareth.  It was a true whirlwind and when we finally got to our hotel in Tiberius, everyone was exhausted.  Everyone agreed that it was almost too much to take in: the history, the beauty, the culture, and the deep spiritual meaning of each place.  We were submerged in the Scriptures – like a living Gospel, the Holy Land was its own witness to the presence of God in human history and in each of our hearts.

Our group enjoying a view of Haifa
Haifa 

Part of the spirituality of a pilgrimage is learning to be patient with different kinds of hardships.  This particular hardship was disguised.  We were catered to all day, went to some wonderful places of prayer (I will get back to those in the next post), learned a lot from our Arab-Israeli guide – Sami, and ate well.   Before we left, I had explained to everyone that going on a pilgrimage requires a lot of patience.  Now everyone teased me because they felt more spoiled than anything else – they had all expected more spectacular hardships.  At the same time, there was a little sensory overload and, whenever anyone goes into an unfamiliar culture, there are a host of small inconveniences that, even if unnoticed, are a little draining.   So the fatigue was to be expected, and having a little quiet time and personal space welcomed.  No one really complained.

The altar at Cana

There were fourteen of us – mostly friends and family, and some who became friends as we journeyed on our way.  That night, we got together on a terrace overlooking the Sea of Galilee and recounted our favorite adventures.  The experiences were as diverse as the number of pilgrims – so that even if a few mentioned the same place (like the Orthodox Church of Mary’s Well), they recalled it for different reasons. Different kinds of moments of prayer touched us all in different ways – and somethings that did not mean much to one pilgrim were very meaningful to another.  Sharing these helped us all pick up on details we missed and more deeply appreciate the gift God was giving us.   There were also experiences that could not quite be articulated, but that we shared in common nonetheless.

Nazareth

There is an analogy here with praying over the Scriptures.  A whole group of people can have the same Biblical passage read and explained to them, but still have their own experience of what God is speaking to them through the Bible.  That is because the Word of God is inexhaustible: both communal-ecclesial and personal – that is it is addressed to the whole Church and at the same time to each of us in ever new ways.   One of the great blessings of going on a pilgrimage with a group is that we experience this same ecclesial and personal grace through the sacred geography disclosed in Scripture and Tradition.  Such graces have the character of a little exchange of love between God and us, and with one another.

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From Caesarea to Carmel

Our pilgrimage continued from Caesarea to Carmel – where there is a Church honoring Elijah in Haifa at the Stella Maris Carmelite Monastery.  Although the monastery only dates from the 19th Century, Carmel has been considered a special place for meeting God even before prophets Elijah and Elisha lived there during their ministries.   For more on this, check out: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03352a.htm.

It is at Mt. Carmel where Elijah challenged and defeated the prophets of Ba’al as told in 1 Kings 18:20-46. Inspired by Elijah’s zeal and intimacy with the One true God, a group of crusaders and pilgrims became hermits on the mountain with the blessing of the Patriarch of Jerusalem.  Each hermit lived in a grotto, similar to the one the Church is built over.  These men eventually became known as the Carmelites, a religious community with a special gift for prayer, contemplative prayer in particular.  They were driven out in 1291, but the community never forgot its connection with Carmel even as it spread through Italy, Spain, England and France.  They came back to Carmel in the 19th Century.

Because of their gift for prayer, the Virgin Mary has always been a special patronness of the community.  Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is honored in the Stella Maris church.  In fact, Stella Maris is an ancient title for Mary.  It means “Star of the Sea.”  It is the experience of each of us individually but also of the Church historically that sometimes we struggle to follow the Lord.  This is because the Lord tests our hearts to purify them so that we might see Him face to face.  Mary was given the title Star of the Sea with the conviction that just as sailors look to the stars to find their way, Christians can look to Mary, her Scriptural example and maternal concern for each follower of her Son, to find the Lord.  The monastary in fact looks out over the ocean on  the side of Mt. Carmel.  The Church itself is built over the grotto where Elijah is believed to have lived according to tradition.  

This gift of prayer is also related to Elijah.  After confronting the prophets of Ba’al, Elijah despaired of his life.  But the Lord nourished him and prepared him for a special encounter on another mountain, Mt. Horeb south of Israel.  There, like Moses before him, he experiences a theophany, a manifestation of God’s presence.  Theophanies have a contemplative character, and this is especially true of Elijah’s experience.  This kind of prayer is at the heart of his prophetic mission.  Carmelites seek a similar life of prayer.

“A mighty hurricane split the mountains and shattered Rocks before the Lord.  But the Lord was  not in the hurricane.  And, after the storm, an earthquake.  But the Lord was not in the earthquake.  And after the earthqake, fire.  But the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire, a light murmering sound.” (1 Kings 19: 11-13)

Contemplative prayer involves two essential moments – it is first of all a listening for the voice of the Lord, an attending to the slightest murmer of the Lord in our hearts.  Moses and Elijah are connected to one another by this experience and their mission to Israel that flows from it – namely, to help Israel know the Lord.  To achieve this kind of attentiveness to the Lord, a secondary moment is necessary, a moment of struggling for and suffering the truth.   In this moment, every falsehood and fantasy must be put to death.  It is a matter of on going repentance – that is thinking with the mind of God rather than clinging to a merely human perspective.  Ba’alism represents a religion based in fantasy and convenient falsehoods.  It provided a sort of social order by providing a kind of myth that helped everyone relate to one another.  This kind of religion, however, is ultimately degrading.  Human dignity requires the truth.  Only the truth raises the dignity of the human person and makes it possible to hear the voice of God.  In other words, to listen to the voice of the Lord requires a spiritual battle, a fight against evil that can be exhausting.  But in this fight, if we are faithful to the end, the Lord provides us the nourishment we need and blesses us with a special gift of friendship with Him.

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Our Pilgrimage Began in the Holy Land

We began our journey in Caesarea Maritime, on the coast of Israel.  There we found the remains of the ancient Roman city built by Herod to honor Caesar Augustus and to establish his kingdom as a center for trade and entertainment.  He built the port with both inner and outer harbors to attract trade and the shipping industry.  His plan worked.  The port became an important rest stop for ships voyaging back and forth from Alexandria and Asia Minor.  It was also the secular capital of Herod’s kingdom.   Jerusalem, where he built the Temple, was a much smaller religious center.  The picture shows an entrance into the ancient theatre.

At the site, one finds sarcophaguses with ancient Christian symbols on them like the Alpha and Omega or the fish pattern.  A living fish in Greek is Ichthus and each of the Greek letters of this word signify the heart of Christian belief – Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior.  These are the vestiges of a once prestigious center for Christianity.   Philip and Paul preached here and, Peter baptized Cornelius, the first Gentile convert, and his whole household.

Because of its connection with the apostles, and their missionary journeys, the Church in Caesarea was important in post-apostolic times, and a center of learning even while the Church was persecuted.  Origen, a great patristic authority, founded a school of theology there and a priest, St. Pamphilus was martyred there in 309.  One of the school’s leaders and a student of Pamphilus was Eusebius of Caesarea  In 313, Eusebius wrote the History of the Church, the first historical account of the Church since apostolic times.   In the Byzantine period, the city had an octogonal Church built over the site of a pagan temple.  Christians were persecuted again in the 6th Century as the power of the Byzantine Empire began to decline in the area and in the first part of the 7th Century Caesarea was under Islamic control.

Caesarea was captured by the crusaders in 1101 and pillaged.  It really was not until the French King St. Louis fled there in 1228 that it was rebuilt and fortified as a fully functional port city.  Many of these 13th Century fortifications still stand.  But in 1291, Muslim forces captured and completely destroyed the port.

This city was really the first “See” of Peter and Paul, a sort of prototype for the Church of Rome.  Although there is no functioning church to pray in, this was once a great place of Christian worship, life, architecture and culture.   There is however the presence of the Lord in the ocean and in the architectural remnants of the Christian community that was there.  As a pilgrim, I took some time to be mindful the Lord and to read the  account of Paul’s imprisonment in Acts where his preaching nearly convinces the Roman leaders to become Christian.  As is normally the case when one reads the Bible in its geographic location, a sort of awareness of the concrete historicity of the mystery of our faith became overwhelming.  It was as if I were hearing the preaching of Paul, as if I too were present to listen to his witness.  This experience deepened my awareness of the Lord and what He has done for our sakes – and whenever someone recieves a grace like this, prayer flows like breathing.  The fact is, apostolic preaching makes Christian prayer possible.  Because there are preachers, we know to whom it is we call out to when we call out to the Lord.

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On Pilgrimage

Starting a few weeks ago, I went on pilgrimage with my family to Israel and France. We are now in Italy and will be continuing to Germany and Poland. There is something about taking up a journey of faith with your family and making prayer the center of it. I cannot say that this has been easy for any of us – occasionally we have had the adventure of being cramped in rooms much too small for a family. There are other moments when we have clearly gotten on one another’s nerves or have had to deal with disappointed expectations. But despite all these little hardships, there have been many great graces for us, little unexpected things that could never have been planned for, that reassure us as we continue that we are in the hands of God. For the readers of this blog, those who are struggling like me to begin to pray, I want to encourage you to step out in faith this summer, and to try to do so with your family if you have one. Those of you who already are doing something like this – you are so blessed! Do not be discouraged by the trials. I am discovering that even in these, God’s Providence is revealed if we are vigilant. Christian prayer has this important dimension – it is always an act of trust in the Lord who journeys with us, it is an act of trust that we never make alone, an act that is meant to be made with those the Lord has entrusted to us. May your summer be filled with beautiful blessings!

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