Stephen Morris's Blog, page 15

“Peace Shall be a Pathway for His Feet.”

A Byzantine icon of Christ as the Great High Priest, seated on a bishop’s throne (cathedra), as the donor and his son kneel in supplication. Christ’s hand is raised in blessing, typically accompanied by the greeting, “Peace be unto all.”



Christ depicted as a bishop at the Eucharist, giving Holy Communion to the apostles; St. Paul leads those approaching the chalice while St. Peter leads those approaching from the other side. The assembly of the apostles is typically a depiction of the Church assembled in peace as the Body of Christ, in which all peoples can be reconciled.

“Righteousness shall go before him, and peace shall be a pathway for his feet.” (Psalm 85:13)

On the most straightforward, historical level, peace was the pathway for the Gospel insofar as the pax Romana made it possible to preach the Gospel from Syria to Great Britain, from Egypt to the North Sea. Apostles and missionaries were able to travel the system of Roman roads–many of which still exist–which were kept safe by the Roman soldiers and the sheer number of people travelling on the roadways. Although it was safe to travel from one end of the empire to the other, it was expensive. Apostles and missionaries needed financial support from their home parish or would stop and work to support themselves as they made their journey.

The peace and stability of the Roman empire not only enabled the growth of the Church but made it possible for letters and communication to be shared. It was the re-establishment of the “Roman peace” that the many kingdoms of western Europe during the Middle Ages aspired to.

Peace is also understood to be the pathway for Christ to meet the worshipper at the celebration of the Eucharist. Each person who approaches the altar, walking towards encountering Christ in the Holy Gifts of the Eucharist, must first make peace with their neighbors either by exchanging the Kiss of Peace or by heeding Christ’s admonition to “leave your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother has anything against you; go, be reconciled and then come to offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). Peace and reconciliation between Christians was the road that had to be built or repaired to make Christ’s arrival possible.

Christ himself was also understood to be the peace of God; in Constantinople, the church of the Holy Peace is nowadays sometimes called St. Irene’s but which was always understood previously to be dedicated to Christ, the Peace of God.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace.” (Ephesians 2:14-15 )

(The great cathedral of Hagia Sophia was also understood to be dedicated to Christ, the Wisdom of God, rather than the woman-martyr St. Sophia.)

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“Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14)

Saint Peter (c. 1468) by Marco Zoppo, depicting Peter holding the Keys of Heaven and a book representing the gospel, bound together with his epistles.

“Turn from evil and do good: seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:14) This verse can be paired with Psalm 37:28: “Turn from evil and do good, and dwell in the land forever.” God promises his people that if they turn from evil, i.e. repent (literally, “change direction”) and seek to do good, embracing peace, then they will dwell in the Promised Land forever. Embrace the relationship with God and dwell in his land of plenty; refuse to repent and experience exile and expulsion from the Promised Land just as Adam and Eve experienced expulsion from Paradise.

“Seeking peace” and “doing good” are poetic equivalents in these two verses. If we seek peace with our neighbors, especially those who disagree with us, and try to live in harmony with all creation then we will be doing good. Seeking peace necessarily involves seeking the welfare of our neighbors: feeding, visiting, caring for those in need. We express this liturgically by sharing the Kiss of Peace at the Eucharist; we express this at other times by serving at a soup kitchen or helping someone vote or giving a lonely–difficult?–person a phone call.

A few verses later in Psalm 37, we also read: “The righteous shall possess the land and dwell in it forever.” The righteous are those who repent, the ones who turn from evil. The righteous are not the people who never make mistakes; the righteous are the people who admit they have “missed the mark” and change direction in order to try again.

The apostle Peter refers to this verse from Psalm 34 in his first epistle:

“He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking guile: let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” (1 Peter 3:11)

The apostle quotes these lines as he concludes urging his readers to have compassion and brotherly love for one another. There is no other way into the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God. Having entered the Kingdom, there is no other way to remain there but to keep changing direction and realigning ourselves with the peace, compassion, and harmony that is Divine life.

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Daughters of God

At left, Mercy and Truth as women, veiled with wimples, labelled MISERICORD and VERITE, stand facing, grasping each others hands. At right, two women kiss, Justice, wearing hat, holding sword with right hand, and Mercy, wearing hat, and holding casket with both hands. They flank Gabriel, back-turned, raising scepter with left hand, kneeling, looking up toward Trinity in arc of Heaven. (Book of hours (Ms. Pierpont Morgan Library. M.73) (Paris, France, ca. 1475.)

“Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring up from the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.” (Psalm 85:10-11)

These four virtues–mercy, truth, righteousness, and peace–are often referred to as “the four daughters of God.” The virtues come to be seen as personifications, four celestial women, similar to angels or archangels. The most important contributors to the development and circulation of the motif were the twelfth-century monks Hugh of St Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux. (Christian thought might have have been inspired by an earlier eleventh-century Jewish Midrash, in which Truth, Justice, Mercy and Peace were the four standards of the Throne of God.)

The four daughters might sometimes be thought to be gathered around Christ on the Cross as they–all four–are manifest in differing ways by the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. The verse, “Truth shall spring up from the earth and righteousness … look down from heaven” might also be associated with the Nativity of Christ and his–Truth’s–springing up on the earth and being laid in a manger while Righteousness–the other persons of the Holy Trinity–look down on the scene in Bethlehem. The association of the four daughters with the Incarnation is underscored because they also appear in two sermons by St. Guerric of Igny on Luke 2 “for February 2:

“In this gathering [of the Virgin Mary, Christ, St. Joseph with SS. Simeon and Anna] finally mercy and truth have met … the merciful redemption of Jesus and the truthful witness of the old man and woman. In this meeting, justice and peace kissed when the justice of the devout old man and woman and the peace of him who reconciles the world were united in the kiss of their affections and in spiritual joy.” (Sermon 16.6)

“Rightly then are compassion and truth or faith joined together, since in all our ways–unless compassion and truth meet–it is to be feared that sins will be increased rather than purified…. [There is no forgiveness] if compassion is lacking faith or faith, compassion.” (Sermon 18.5)

The motif of the four daughters of God was influential in European thought. In 1274-76, Magnus VI of Norway introduced the first “national” law-code for Norway and makes prominent use of the allegorical four daughters of God: Mercy, Truth, Justice, and Peace. These daughters have the important role of expressing the idea—which was innovative in the Norwegian legal system at the time—of equality before the law.

The motif changed and developed in later medieval literature, but the usual form was a debate between the daughters (sometimes in the presence of God):

about the wisdom of creating humanity and about the propriety of strict justice or mercy for the fallen human race. Justice and Truth appear for the prosecution, representing the old Law, while Mercy speaks for the defense, and Peace presides over their reconciliation when Mercy prevails. *Michael Murphy, ‘Four Daughters of God’, in A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, ed. by David Lyle Jeffrey (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), pp. 290-91. )

This psalm is also often suggested in traditional prayer books as a preparation for receiving Holy Communion. The communicant prepares to join the fellowship of the daughters of God by receiving the Body and Blood of Christ.

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St. Francis Takes Refuge in the Cleft

St. Francis, with the wounds of the stigmata visible on his hands and foot, kisses the foot of Christ on the Cross in this detail from a 13th century image in the Arezzo basilica of St. Francis.

St. Francis of Assisi is known for many things. Several episodes in his life have become part of popular culture, some still associated with his name while his connection to others has been forgotten: how many remember that the Christmas manger scene–the creche–was “invented” by St. Francis in 1223?

“For in the day of trouble he [the Lord] shall keep me safe in his shelter; he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling, and set me high upon a rock.” (Psalm 27:7)

As I was reading the psalms last week, I was reminded of another incident in St. Francis’ life. In the autumn of 1224 (the year after he organized the first creche), St. Francis received the stigmata (meaning “brand” or “mark”)–the five wounds of Christ–although this was not generally known until after his death in 1226. The stigmata is commonly referred to as “the wounds of love” described by the bride in the Song of Songs 2:5. The groom then tells the bride, “Come, my dove, in the cleft of the rock…” (Song of Songs 2:13-14).

We are told by St. Gregory of Nyssa that this cleft “is the sublime message of the Gospel” and the person who loves God is not coerced to take refuge in the Gospel but must freely choose to love God and the Good News; St. Gregory points out that King David “realized that of all the things he had done, only those were pleasing to God that were done freely, and so he vows that he will freely offer sacrifice. And this is the spirit of every holy man of God, not to be led by necessity.” What is coerced is not love. Love must be freely given and freely received. Taking refuge in the rock is to freely give oneself to God and to be freely received by God.

The psalm refers to this same idea: the Lord will protect his friend, his beloved from danger by sheltering the beloved in the “secrecy of his dwelling,” the cleft “high upon the rock.” Readers–such as Augustine of Hippo–understood this psalm to promise freedom from sin to the beloved of God; the one who loves God would be kept safe from the danger of damnation even if slain by enemies.

Medieval poets often identified the “cleft in the rock” mentioned by the Song and the psalms with the wounds of Christ, especially the wound in Christ’s side made by the spear. Early Christian authors, such as St. Methodius of Olympus, preached that “Christ slept in the ecstasy of his Passion and the Church–his bride–was brought forth from the wound in his side just as Eve was brought forth from the wound in the side of Adam.”

The stigmata was the seal of St. Francis’ love for God and God’s love for Francis. It was in the refuge of this love that Francis found the safety to love the world which was in such need.

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“I Sleep, But My Heart Wakes”

The Queen of Sheba before King Solomon (1649-1647)
Pauwels Casteels / Public domain
King Solomon is traditionally considered the author of the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.

“I sleep, but my heart is awake” (Song of Songs 5:2) is one of the most interesting verses for the Patristic tradition and the tradition of the prayer of the Church. This is generally understood to be the sleep of the physical senses while the spiritual senses are active and aware; often, this verse was cited in connection with visions or dreams in which a person had a direct experience of God while otherwise incapacitated.

Jacob, in the Old Testament, dreamed that he saw the Lord atop a ladder that reached from earth to heaven; the angels were ascending and descending the rungs of the ladder. Solomon himself was visited by God in a dream and given the choice of selecting which divine gift he preferred; he famously asked for wisdom. The apostle Peter, in the Book of Acts, thought he was dreaming when an angel came and helped him escape from prison. The prophet Joel promised that authentic encounters with God in dreams would happen when the Messiah arrived.

A direct experience of God, either awake or asleep, is often considered a sign that the person has reached the third stage of spiritual growth. These stages—purification, illumination, purification—often overlap and retract while still going forward. They are never linear and self-contained. No one is ever finished with purification before beginning illumination or experiencing moments of perfection. These moments of purification can be spurs to continue the work of purification or illumination.

“For many of [the Church fathers], the Song of Songs should be viewed as the last part of a trilogy written by Solomon, whose first and second parts were Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Consistently with the tripartite ascent of the soul – or the Church – towards God that we find in the ascetic theological tradition of the Church, which consisted of the stages of purification-illumination-perfection (or union with God), these three books represented precisely this triad: Proverbs was seen as a work that represented moral purification, while Ecclesiastes reflected on the vanity of the transient world and thus was seen as a work of illumination through the contemplation of the world. The Song of Songs therefore, coincides with the third and final stage of the ascent of the soul or the Church towards God, and its symbolism of the union between the man and the woman symbolize the union with God.” (A. Andreopoulos, “The Song of Songs: The Asceticism of Love“)

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“Arise, Come, My Love… My Dove”

 Altarpiece depicts the Mother of God holding Christ while treading the serpent underfoot in St. Jürgen church in Gettorf (Schleswig-Holstein). In Genesis, God tells the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel” (Genesis 3: 14 – 15). Christians have always understood this promise to be made not to Eve, but to the new Eve, the Virgin Mary.
“He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” Scripture scholars over the years have debated regarding the word “he.”  Should it be translated he or she or even they? In other words, the he is generally understood to refer to the Messiah but can also be understood to refer to Mary and to the descendants of Mary, as well; i.e., Christ and the Church.

“Arise, come my love, my beautiful one, my dove” (Song of Songs 2:13-14).

“The bride hears this command,” St. Gregory of Nyssa explains, “and she is empowered by the word; she arises, advances, comes close, becomes beautiful, is called a dove. Now, how can you see a beautiful image in a mirror unless something beautiful has come near the mirror? So it is with the mirror of human nature: it cannot become beautiful until it draws near to the Beautiful and is transformed by the divine Beauty.”

The bride in the Song of Songs becomes beautiful because she comes close to the bridegroom, who is Beauty itself. Or, she has embraced the Beauty which has come close to her. The movement is twofold: bride and groom approach each other and the groom proclaims his desire for his beautiful bride, who becomes beautiful because she is close to him.

But this beauty is not a static presence. The bride becomes more beautiful the closer she is to the groom and the longer she remains there but if she were to pull away, her beauty would fade just as the reflection in the mirror fades if what is reflected is taken away. Her beauty is constantly growing or shriveling, intense and intensifying or fading and faded.

Many of us have heard the quote from Dostoevsky’s book The Idiot that “beauty will save the world”…. But we do need to read the whole conversation in the book to get the fuller picture, for this statement is soon followed by the question, “But what is beauty?” just as Pilate asked, “What is truth?”

St. Gregory tells us, “When our human nature lay fallen upon the earth, it looked towards the serpent and reflected it. But now our nature has arisen and looks toward the Beautiful, turning its back on sin and reflecting the Beauty which it faces. For now it looks at that archetypal Beauty… turning towards the light, it has been made into the image of light and within this light it has taken on the lovely form of the dove–I mean the Dove that symbolizes the presence of the Holy Spirit.”

Human nature has turned its back on the serpent and now reflects the divine Beauty, radiant and filled with light. The bride, now the beautiful one because of of the Beauty she reflects, is also the place where the Dove can be found.

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“Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes….”

This image of the Mother of God, “Health/Salvation of the Roman People,” dates from the 6th century and is kept in a chapel of the St. Mary Major basilica in Rome. The Mother of God is frequently identified with the bride in the Song of Songs; just as this image is reputed to bring health and salvation to those who venerate it, the fragrance which the bride shares with her companions also brings health and salvation.

“Even though one may gather every perfume and every flower of fragrance from all the different meadows of virtue and is able to make one’s whole life fragrant with the scent of all these virtuous actions … still one could not look steadily upon the Bridegroom, the Word of God, any more than one could look directly at the sun.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa is commenting on a verse from the Song of Songs:

“Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
    your name is like perfume poured out.” (Song of Songs 1:3)

St. Gregory goes on to quote St. Paul the Apostle, who said that he was “the good fragrance of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15). St. Gregory points out that the apostle “inhaled the fragrance of that inaccessible and transcendent grace, offering himself to others as a kind of incense for them to partake of according to their ability….” St. Gregory urges us to treasure this fragrance in our hearts, as the bride does in the Song of Songs. The bride makes a sachet of this fragrant perfume and keeps it between her breasts; the warmth of her heart enables all her actions to spread the beautiful scent of the perfume.

Some manuscripts specify that this perfume is frankincense or myrrh. In the medical theory of the ancient world, these scents strengthened and energized certain animals but acted as poison to others. The effect of these scents on humans, however, was the result of human choice: a person could choose to be energized and invigorated by the scent or to be weakened and debilitated by the scent.

The choice is up to us.

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“Daughters of Jerusalem:” the Children of Our Lady

Mary, the Mother of God, nurtures and is nurtured in glory by her Beloved, her Son; the eight angels reveal the mystery of the Eighth Day, the glorious Kingdom of God, which is manifest in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. At the altar, we enter into the eschatological reality of the Paschal Mystery, as we worship together— one Body of Christ, in heaven and on earth.

“Is he your Son, O Virgin of virgins? Is he your beloved, O most beautiful of women? ‘Clearly so… he is my Son, O daughters of Jerusalem (Song of Songs 5:9, 16). My beloved is love itself… and is found in whosoever is born of him.'”

In one of his sermons for the Nativity of the Mother of God, St. Guerric of Igny places these words from the Song of Songs on the lips of the Virgin Mary when he–the preacher–asks the Virgin to tell the congregation listening to the sermon about her Beloved, who is her Son. In this sermon, the “daughters of Jerusalem” are the monks and visitors listening to the sermon. These daughters of Jerusalem are also claimed as children of the Virgin as well: St. Guerric preaches that “she desires to form her Only-begotten in all those who are her children by adoption…. she nurtures them every day until they reach the stature of the perfect man, the maturity of her Son [Ephesians 4:13], whom she brought forth once and for all.” All those in whom love is found are members of her Son and thus her children by adoption and she nurtures them to share more completely in that Love which took flesh in her womb.

Just as St. Paul labored to give birth to Christ in his spiritual children (Galatians 4:19), the Mother of God is the mother of all those in whom Christ is born. “She herself, like the Church of which she is the type, is the mother of all who are reborn to life,” St. Guerric preached. What Mary gives the world, clothed with flesh, the Church gives us clothed with words, bread, wine, water, and oil. As the daughters of Jerusalem, we–no less than those who heard St. Guerric first preach his sermons–are privileged to nurture Love within us and among us as children of Mary, members of her Only-begotten.

St. Guerric of Igny (died 1157) was a scholar who became a disciple of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and took monastic vows to remain in St. Bernard’s community. But in 1138 St. Guerric was sent by St. Bernard to be the second abbot at the new monastery of Igny, near Rheims. As abbot there, St. Guerric became famous for the sermons he preached. His sermons for Advent-Christmas-Epiphany-Purification are especially stunning. Find translations of his sermons here.

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“I am dark and lovely:” Part 2

Our Lady of Montserrat at the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery on the MontserratMountain in Catalonia, dates from the 12th century. The famed image once bore the inscription ”Nigra Sum Sed Formosa” (Latin: I am Black, but Beautiful). I had the privilege of visiting Our Lady in the church of Montserrat outside Barcelona many years ago; my children wanted to skip along the sheer edge of the mountaintop and protested when I insisted they step away from the edge: “Daddy won’t let us be light-hearted!”

“Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has scorched me,” protests the bride in the Song of Songs (1:5). St. Bernard of Clairvaux–in his sermons on the Song–interprets this swarthiness caused by the scorching sun, as the virtue that comes as the result of hard work and effort. It is also the swarthiness that “is caused by the heat of persecution…. the zeal for what is right…. to be on fire with fraternal love, to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice, to be weak with those who are weak.” St. Bernard tells us, Just like the burning sun therefore, the ardor of desire [for both God and neighbor] darkens her complexion while still a pilgrim in the body….”

She who loves God most ardently and is most burnt by her ardor for God and neighbor is identified by the tradition of the Church as Mary, the Mother of God. She is burnt by the burning sun but, like the burning bush, not consumed by the flame of the Divine. She is zealous for what is right while rejoicing and weeping with those who rejoice and weep. One of the most popular images of the Mother of God as swarthy lover of God is Our Lady of Montserrat.

The image is one of the Black Madonnas of Europe, hence its familiar Catalan name, La Moreneta (“the little dark-skinned one” or “the little dark one”). Believed by some to have been carved in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church, it is more likely a Romanesque sculpture in wood from the late 12th century.

Legend has it that the monastic community that developed on the mountain could not move the statue to construct the monastery, choosing to instead build around it. The statue’s sanctuary is located at the rear of the chapel, where an altar of gold surrounds the icon, and is now a site of pilgrimage.

The hymn to the Virgin of Montserrat, known as “el Virolai” and sung at noon each day by the Escolania de Montserratboys’ choir, begins with the words: “Rosa d’abril, Morena de la serra…” (Rose of April, dark-skinned lady of the mountain…). Therefore, this image of the Mother of God is sometimes also known as the “Rosa d’abril” as her feast is kept on April 27.

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“Kiss Me With the Kisses of Your Mouth”

An illumination of Christ kissing the bride in the Song of Songs.

In the Song of Songs, the bride begs the groom, “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth.” (Song of Songs 1:3) In the plain text of the Old Testament, this is the beginning of an erotic love song; I remember as an undergraduate, a roommate was writing a paper about the “four loves” as they appear in the Bible and was frustrated that there seemed to be no text that illustrated Eros. He was shocked and delighted that he could finish his paper once I introduced him to the Song.

But the Song is so much more than simply an erotic encounter between a bride and groom. It has been read as an encounter between God and the Church as well as a personal encounter between Christ and the believer. (In theology, an “individual” is always cut off from others, grasping and striving only for himself, isolated and alone. Lost. Damned by their own choice. But a “person” and everything about them that is “personal” is in communion with others, is reaching out to encounter the Other. A person is growing and is in the process of being saved; an individual is frozen, static, dead.)

Many have preached on how this “kiss” might be understood in the context of an encounter between Christ and the believer. Bernard of Clairvaux says that God’s “living, active word (Hebrews 4:12) is to me a kiss… an unreserved infusion of joys, a revealing of mysteries, a marvelous and indistinguishable mingling of the divine light with the enlightened mind, which, truly joined to God, is one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:17). He goes on to say that “the mouth that kisses signifies the Word who assumes human nature; the nature assumed received the kiss; the kiss however, that takes its being from both the giver and receiver, is a person that is formed by both…. A fertile kiss is not a mere pressing of mouth upon mouth; it is the uniting of God with man.”

This communion of divine and human is the goal of theosis, salvation understood as deification, coming to be by grace everything is Christ is naturally (2 Peter 1). The kiss is the beginning and the goal of this uniting of God and human, the Uncreated and the creature. In the kiss we move from being a collection of individuals, each in their own isolated desert, and become persons who are united with the divine Lover and each other, becoming what we were created to be: a communion of persons who find salvation in our experience of the Other.

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