Poverty of Spirit

 Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

While she is aware many saints sought actual poverty, Leseur says, "This is not my vocation." As the wife of an upper middle class professional, and one with severe illness, she wasn't free to choose it. There is nothing in the essay about solidarity with the poor or any particular insight into actual poverty. She does say that as far as is compatible with her "state in life" she will practice "a little poverty," by which she seems to mean certain self imposed penances. The insight here is not profound.

She distinguishes between Poverty of Spirit, which she defines as detachment from all that is purely human, and Poverty of Heart, which she defines as cutting oneself off from every attachment that cannot last eternity. Leseur addresses poverty of spirit sharply, but it bleeds into her previous writings on renunciation, detachment, and humility. There are no new insights, and it isn't her best piece.

Compared to the radical poverty of Francis, the active solidarity of Vincent de Paul, her writings on this subject sound weak, vague, and self centered.

I've always been haunted by the admonition to "live simply that others may simply live..."  I don't always do it well, but I've tried to store up my treasure where neither thieves nor moths can get to it. In our over rich culture, when people die for lack of clean water, adequate health care, and sufficient food, we can't afford ivory tower concepts of poverty. I don't know that I do any better than Leseur actually did.

Still the point is face poverty of power and rely on God, poverty of grace and ask for it, poverty of virtue and throw ourselves on his mercy, to walk in joy no matter what God gives us or takes away because His will is always to our benefit and His ways are not our ways.

Obedience

When I faced burnout in May and gave myself the summer off from all my writer blogs, I didn't intend to include this one. Alas, it too fell by the wayside. A quick review of Leseurs sixth and seventh monthly resolution, however, makes me suspect I also ducked them. Neither was any more difficult for the soul than, say, humility, but they were both rather mushy concepts and hard to wrap straight forward words around.

The sixth month? "To meditate on, serve, and love our crucified Savior." I actually did focus on the sorrowful mysteries that month, and work at this one. I just had nothing to say about it

The seventh month is "Detachment of soul." I wasn't seeing how this differs from many of her other ones. It is yet another way of saying "I must decrease and He must increase."

That brings me to last month's resolution, Obedience. Leseur resolves to practice it first of all and most obviously toward God. She goes on to say her body ought to be in obedience to her soul, an instrument to be used. Saint Francis called his body "Brother Ass." The point is that the body must be fit and disciplined enough to carry out the responsibilities of one's vocation, but not coddled.

When she turns to her "superiors," she lists first of all church authorities in descending order: Pope, bishops, priests, and—lucky her—her spiritual director. She talks about joyful, humble obedience. I decided some twenty years ago to be an obedient and submissive daughter of the church. It hasn't always been easy. Only a fool would deny there has been and still is corruption in the Vatican, weakness in some chancery offices, and not all priests are worthy. Those things matter to the life of the church and are cause of great sorrow, but they do not let me off the hook. Church discipline is above my pay grade. My job is to be a sabbath keeper, a rule follower and a humble obedient servant of the church. 

All this is particularly striking to me because I have been reading "traditionalist" literature at the request of a family member. I try for humility and an open mind, I pray before reading, and I seek the fruits of the Holy Spirit in what I read. I'm finding turmoil, arrogance, and defiance.  It isn't that all of the specific content is wrong, it is that there is little concrete dogma/ideas to get my arms, things that can or  be worked on lovingly in faithful obedience to the church. Most of it is clearly delineating between "us" and "them" and defined all that is true as "us." Much of it is convoluted justification for disobedience. It discourages me, but it challenges me not to mistake my own opinions for absolute truth.

Leseur goes on to list her "temporal superiors," her husband, her mother, and all to whom she owes respect. Last but not least she speaks of obedience to her own resolutions. That's a hard one, especially for me when I insist on biting off more than I can chew!

That brings me to September. Later...

Souls

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
                                                              John 13:34

I resolve to love souls for the sake of Jesus Christ.
                                                            Elizabeth Leseur

Ok. So I got to Leseur's fifth month and this time her language feels truly awkward. Love souls? Not people? One another?  Puzzlement.

She goes on to talk about resolving to know souls and to go out and seek them. She speaks of welcoming everyone who comes her way.  She seems to mean that she will try to see all people with God's eyes, loving them, and with knowing them as they are to him. By loving she means looking to their greater good in God's eyes.

To pray, "let me see everyone I meet today as you see them and love them as you love them," is terrifying if I pray it like I mean it.

A week ago I visited Times Square. A seething mass of thousands of diverse people are there night and day. Some are downright peculiar. Some are attractive. Many are not. With Leseur's fifth resolution in the back of my mind it occurred to me that God had made every one of them and loves every one of them. I can choose to pray for them all and offer such general care, but I can't relate to them. I suspect she is talking about rising above our limitations in this regard.

If we try to relate to each person as beloved of God it would alter our relationships with those that come our way, enable us to do the good in front of us, and help us look past conflicts, even the ones that hurt the most, the ones with our near and dear.

Dear God, I can't do this without your grace. I ask for it.

Renunciation

 Renunciation of self is perhaps the most difficult of all.
                                                      Elizabeth Leseur
 
It is month four and Leseur is getting really serious.  She is treading in some dangerous territory! If I were a contemplative nun, I might understand renunciation and how it applies more clearly.  I'm wondering if I'm up for this. Perhaps I'm making it harder than it is.

This Lent I coordinated a program once a week after 10 AM Mass in our parish. What I didn't realize was that that particular Mass is the one most frequently used for funerals. Today I want to my third funeral for a perfect stranger in six weeks.

As is often the case I found my mind wandering, fantasizing about my husband's funeral. That isn't quite as morbid as it sounds. He is chronically ill. The first time I almost lost him I was forty, almost thirty years ago and I started planning the funeral as a sort of black humor. My thoughts run not only to hymns and readings, but to imagining who might travel here, what sort of gathering we might have, and what toasts I might make.When distracted in church I've learned to give it over in prayer. The Holy Spirit (object of our Lenten studies) came back with two thoughts. The first had to do with my fantasy of all those we love from our entire extended family gathered in my yard. I realized with delight that what I actually imagined was heaven, the ultimate family reunion. Our destination isn't the funeral celebration, it is God who will gather us all to himself.

I tried to sidestep the second thought, but it kept coming. Why Greg's funeral? What about mine? The inevitability of death isn't a new thought, but it has become more profound in my soul. All of this, whatever "this" is today, is temporary. That, my friend, is renunciation. I can accept that. It puts all things in their proper place.

But what about the meantime? I went back to LeSeur's list.

• Renunciation of evil. Check. At least I think so. "Of all things that might make me tend toward evil," is a bit dicier and I'll have to rely on the Spirit to point those out.
• Renunciation of the world. She says "those things that are solely of this world and have no place in the afterlife. She goes on,"I resolve to live for God alone, and for souls and for friendship..." Friendship! It is one of the things that goes on.  She notes also that she "lends" herself to the world to perform the duties of her place in life and of charity. She makes it sound manageable when she puts it that way, but I have work to do.
• Renunciation of self, she says is perhaps the most difficult of all. Yet, I already know that I can't be filled with Christ if I don't empty of self. Tough, but clear.
• Renunciation of human desires. She says that can be either for the sake of others or in a spirit of mortification.  I think this means actually embracing every opportunity to let another choose—dinner, which movie to watch, what to do on Saturday, and when to enjoy the blessings of the marriage bed.  Knowing it and remembering on time are two different things.
• Renunciation of spiritual joys and consolation. I wanted to whine, "That's not fair!" Actually I had just read two passages in The Imitation of Christ that said the same thing. If we cling to the gift instead of the giver we're going to fail.

Leseur recommends obtaining these things in prayer. It's the only way. I was right at the beginning this is hard. It is at least becoming clearer. I'll have to be satisfied with that.

Humility

Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart

Matthew 11:29                                                                             

 Leseur's third month resolution, humility, is, she says, one of the foundation pillars of the spiritual life. She holds up Jesus as the exemplar of the virtue. He who is greatest is the most humble. That presents a paradox that challenges us. We are incapable of mastering it; only the Holy Spirit acting in us can manage it. Perhaps that is the greatest humility.

Reading chapters from the Imitation of Christ as Leseur recommends daily just reinforces her focus on humility.  I've begun to think that virtue is not only the key to sanctity but the key to a long and happy marriage. I think she would agree.

Control and power sharing swirl around marriage and the temptation to turn the relationship into a tit for tat arrangement in which all activities, tasks, and opinions must be divided "fairly" is a trap. The very challenge presents an opportunity to learn and grow.

It seems to me there are two ways an individual can practice humility in marriage. The first is the more obvious. It involves silence, biting your tongue when offended, and submission to the other. It is contrary to our modern views on the necessity of "fulfillment" for each individual on the surface of it. Done freely, however, this kind of behavior is healthy. The one choosing silence or choosing submission is in control of his or her own decision to give freely out of love and without rancor. Done by force either from the other, out of passive aggressive spite, or from some misguided sense of obligation, it can become an ugly, cold thing. Only love protects you from that. Nor is submission a gender obligation. Beloved once told our prayer group he had no less obligation for submission in marriage than I did. As we've gotten older, the value of submission is clearer to me every day.

The other way of humility, however, is assertive. To say without anger or aggression, "you hurt me when you did that" takes great humility. Such an act puts the importance of the relationship, the love between the couple, at the center. Such an act requires that you put aside fear of rejection or conflict and even control over the ultimate outcome in order to say "we must fix this for both our sake." Such a conversation must not be confused with bickering, arguing, or attacking. It is the tougher form of humility.

Human beings being the complex self-centered creatures we are, there are pitfalls all around. The temptation to take power, the temptation to self righteousness about our own virtue, and the temptation to even take pride in humility all remind us what foolish beings we are. That is precisely why it is a foundation stone. Only when we accept our inabilities and throw ourselves utterly on the mercy of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit do we have any hope of real growth.

Mortification

The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.

       Mark 1:15                                

As her second month of reflection. Elizabeth Leseur offers mortification. Really? Repent, yes, but mortification? I can't get excited about it.

She quotes Mark 1:15 to show that mortification is a requirement, but I think that leaps over a few fences.  The gospel is adamant that repentance is an absolute requirement. There is no question about that.  That does not equate to mortification, at least not directly. Repentance, penance, and mortification are three different things. Some definitions might help.

Repentance is the action of repenting; sincere regret or remorse, a change of heart. It is generally described as a turning away from sin and worldly values and turning your face (and heart and soul) to God. It is foundational. You can't give yourself over to God without it. So repent if you would call yourself a Christian.

Repenting brings consequences: restoration and reconciliation. If you steal and you repent, you still have to pay back what you stole. "I'm sorry" doesn't cut it. Hence the need for penance. Penance is
voluntary self-punishment inflicted as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong. It may include dealing with those you've sinned against. Sometimes that person is God himself. Traditional forms are fasting. abstinence, and alms giving in recompense to God.

So far so good. That brings me to mortification. The very word sounds Victorian if not medieval and makes me shudder, thinking of hair shirts, flagellation, and other forms of artificially imposed pain. I'm not so sure Leseur had that sort of thing in mind at all, and when I dig more deeply I begin to have an to get a glimpse of why it might be important.

The word mortification comes from the Latin word for death and refers to the necessity of death to self in order to experience life in Christ. It is the practice of asceticism or penitential discipline designed to overcome desire for sin/worldliness and to strengthen the will.

What attracted me to Elizabeth Leseur in the first place is that she generally doesn't see the need to go to heroic, artificial, and sometimes egotistical lengths. In fact she gives the caveat: unless it is harmful to my health. The idea is to empty out self, to dominion of soul over mind and body. There are plenty of opportunities daily, she says to mortify yourself. Accepting the foibles, demands, and thoughtlessness of those around me without complaint is the biggest one. Disciplining my body's eating habits, my mind's erratic thoughts, and the kinds and amount of information and entertainment I consume offers me plenty of opportunity to die to self. Last but not least Leseur would add accepting illness and weakness, of which she suffered more than her share. In my case it is more a matter of accepting the indignities of an aging body than a sick one. She adds at the end of her list the importance of hospitality and making herself accessible to people.

I'm still not particularly at ease with this concept, but I have an inkling. Maybe when it cycles around again, I'll have a better handle on it. And maybe I ought to pray for help with it. 

                                      

One Bread, One Body

…each of you is saying, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?

1 Corinthians 1:12-13

It was distressing to hear those words proclaimed during a weekend of unprecedented division and conflict. Not much has changed in the 2000 years since then.

Two of my least favorite words are liberal and conservative, which have become code words in the culture wars. It is one thing when they are applied to a specific idea and quite another when they are used to describe a person. They are pronounced by pundits and speakers as if they can sum up a human being's entire body of thought and belief with one word. So and so is a liberal. Conservatives hate women. Liberals want to ruin the country. Some people talk as if "conservative" means virtuous and "liberal" means depraved. Some people talk as though "conservative" means racist bully and "liberal" means reasonable broad minded person. They are even worse when they are preceded by a pejorative adjective or used as an adjective followed by a pejorative noun. ("Liberal asswipes" is my current least favorite but "conservative clown" is about as bad)

The words are used as handy packages of policy opinions, as if a person has to accept one set if ideas or the other. I never fit in either box. My father saw me as a screaming liberal, and it is likely many of my in-laws do too. My high-school and professional friends find me excessively conservative. I believe in free-trade and limited government, but I make exceptions and would happily see health care heavily regulated and pharmaceuticals subjected to price control. I believe strongly in a woman's right to the sanctity and control over her own body, her right to decide when where and how to have sex, to say no, and to have law enforcement take her seriously. All women, especially pregnant ones must have access to good health care. But I support the rights of the unborn and oppose abortion. I would defund Planned Parenthood as long as they perform them. 

I also oppose the death penalty,  support common sense gun control, believe a nation of immigrants has to continue to admit people fleeing oppression. I believe it is my duty to care for people in poverty and support policies that address entrenched poverty. I love my country and consider myself patriotic. Low life types who wrap their patriotism in xenophobia and racism tread on my rights as a citizen to express my love of country as I please.

These words infest church matters as well. We argue about how to arrange the furniture in the sanctuary. We attack each other over the tension between compassionate toward sinners and firm on definitions of sin.

So am I a liberal or a conservative? I hope I'm a Christian. I believe in Christ and Him crucified and try to live accordingly. There are some in my church who have so convinced themselves they must be one-issue voters that they have sold their souls to one particular political party and look the other way on all other issues. I don't.

I wonder if Paul was writing today, I wonder if he might write, …each of you is saying, "I'm a Republican," or "I'm a Democrat," or "I'm a Conservative," or "I'm a Liberal" and not "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was any politician crucified for you?

I think rather, Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread. (I Corinthians 10:17)

We might try listening respectfully to start. We might read the gospel and try to live it out.

Silence

Silence is good for the soul, essential to recollection, and conducive to humility. Remember Our Lord's silence throughout His life and during the hours of His passion.

Elizabeth Leseur           

I discovered Leseur's writing only recently and was struck by the simplicity of her spirituality. She begins a series of "retreats," each with a resolution, with Silence. She has a resolution for each of twelve months. The beginning of a new year struck me as a good time to consider them one by one.

When I see the word silence, I tend to think of it in terms of shutting out noise. Turn off the TV. Shut out the news.  Retreat to a spot where there is no sound. Avoid social media. Get off the Internet. Quiet your insides. Those are all things to do. That isn't what she means.

Leseur writes about being silent. Her emphasis is on not talking, and particularly about not talking about herself. For years I've grappled with something that skirts the edges of her thought but misses the heart of it. I have tended to focus on listening, being attentive to God and learning how to do that by learning to be attentive to Greg first of all and all others as well. My mantra has been listen don't talk in prayer, in social life, and in business. It's my mantra because I'm not very good at it. My natural instinct is to blurt out every thought.

How is that different from what Leseur writes? I realized that by focusing on listening I'm in expectation of receiving something. While it can and should open me up to compassion and care, it is in the end an openness to receiving, not giving. Leseur sees keeping silences as a value in and of itself; it is part of her great emphasis on humility, the emptying out of self. That wasn't a value to me in my twenties. As I age I see the emptying as the absolute necessity of the spiritual life and I know it for the virtually impossible challenge it is. 

So. Silence. She talks at length about all of the things about which she won't speak: the petty, the mean, the material, but also her own interior life, her spirituality and blessings granted her. She leaves it all between her and God. She does write about it so perhaps I can be excused for keeping this journal.

Her final resolution is, I resolve to hide my spiritual life, and, to great extent my sufferings, interests, and material or personal occupations under a veil of silence.

Wow. Perhaps I can take baby steps in that direction.