I have been largely absent from this blog this year for several reasons, most of which involve my writing having gone other places. But I'm back, not really as a New Year's resolution, but as a sort of resolution all the same.
I'm randomly going to compare two translations of the prayer used in today's liturgy, for reasons that have nothing to do with opining about translation work, but really to talk about the content of it, delivered in starkly different ways.
The closing prayer from Lauds and Vespers:
All powerful God, may the human birth of your Son free us from our former slavery to sin and bring us new life (We ask this through, etc)
The Collect from Mass:
Grant, we pray, almighty God, that the newness of the Nativity in the flesh of your Only Begotten Son may set us free, for ancient servitude holds us bound beneath the yoke of sin. (Through our Lord, etc)
It struck me hard today how dorky the former, old translation is. Like someone had been up translating far too late in the night and was just slopping down any old thing. The "human birth"?
I read the collect first (got stuck in the snow on the way to Mass, and had to turn around and get back home, so did not hear it prayed today). I was actually struck by how eloquently it reminded me of St. John of the Cross' teaching on union with God. Then, comparing to the other version, I was reminded of why this teaching is so clouded over and misunderstood. And that's really my point in writing this.
To quote my favorite book of all times The Impact of God: Soundings from St. John of the Cross by Fr. Iain Matthew, OCD, where others talk about holiness or sanctity, John prefers to speak of union with God as the ultimate end of man. Sorry, humanity. Get with the 21st century. Ok, I'm not actually quoting since this isn't the John of the Cross research paper I also need to be working on. But here's the gist of my point: We are praying, as God's children, baptized, covenanted, redeemed and forgiven, and we are asking to be set free. Set free from what? We speak of ancient servitude which holds us bound beneath the yoke of sin. Now, which is it? Are we members of God's family, or are we bound? And the answer is, yes.
This used to bother me as a new Catholic. We pray several times during the Mass to be forgiven for our sins, for mercy. And it used to seem like, either we were praying for the whole world and not us personally, or we were just really unsure that we are in right relationship with God and just have to keep asking because if we ask enough times, He'll finally hear and save our souls from hell, even though we sign ourselves with holy water in remembrance of our baptism when we go into the church. It just seemed like no one was quite sure where we stood with God with all of these contradictions.
But there's no contradiction, just perhaps a poorly understood reality.
Baptism is the door to new life in Christ; it's our initiation. Confession and Eucharist complete the initiation -- they complete our first steps. We then... grow in union with God. We pray and we live a life of virtue, but this is so that we grow in union with God. This growth includes freedom from our passions, freedom from our compulsions, freedom for loving and giving and exercising our gifts in virtue and charity. Freedom to relate to other human beings in a full and functional manner. Freedom to know God by prayer. Of course, these are all tempered by what our bodies and brains grant us capacity for. An elderly person with dementia, a profoundly autistic child, a young parent operating on three hours of sleep a night, and a monk in a monastery all have the same human capacity, but it will be expressed differently, and it is likely that the first three have an advantage over the fourth. The path to union with God in Christ is going to be individual, but there will be commonality as our humanity is one. Jesus Christ entered into our human suffering to be there with us in it, regardless of its shape or appearance. Perhaps we pass through every purifying fire possible while on earth and are filled to the brim with the love of God, so that our passing into death is like a mere sigh over into glory. Perhaps we die in covenant with God but also highly in need of purifying. Either way, Jesus is our salvation, and He came to bring us to Him. Salvation isn't a mere transaction. He offers transformation through relationship. The point is that we say yes to Him and to the transformation He offers us, and then the timeline of our transformation begins to move forward.
So we ask to be set free, today, from what limits our union today. Yokes of sin move us in patterns of sin. Jesus asks us to take His yoke upon us and learn from Him instead. We have to "First John One-Nine" it: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 Jn. 1:9). So we need to regularly hand over our hearts, to ask the Holy Spirit to move in and take care of whatever needs taking care of, lather, rinse, repeat.
It isn't a question of whether or not "I'm saved." It's a question of how I am embracing what God has given me.
This quote from St. Hippolytus (early 3rd century) in the Office of Readings today was like icing on this cake, and I end my reflection here.
The saying "know yourself" means therefore that we should recognize and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in His own image for if we do this, we in turn will be recognized and acknowledged by our maker. So let us not be at enmity with ourselves but change our way of life without delay. For Christ who is God, exalted above all creation, has taken away man's sin and has refashioned our fallen nature. In the beginning God made man in his image and so gave proof of his love for us. If we obey his holy commands and learn to imitate his goodness, we shall be like him and he will honor us. God is not beggarly and for the sake of his own glory he has given us a share in his divinity.
Note to self: What am I going to do about this?
I am going to acknowledge to myself that I am a work in progress. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit for purification. I'm going to trust the purification already in process. I'm going to honor that this means I will see weaknesses, struggle, faults in myself, and without beating myself up about them, I'm going to pick these bits up and bring them back to the purification hopper. And I'm going to thank and praise God for His excellent work!
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