Catholic Thought discussion
Mariette In Ecstasy
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Part 3
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Mariette accepts her fate with a saint-like serenity. We see glimpses of this before when she discovers her letters to Pere Marriott have been intercepted. Wouldn't one expect anger, hurt, betrayal? It is as if these "mundane" details are of little importance. She has a knowledge, a reservoir of faith that goes beyond the ordinary.
That's so eloquently expressed, Kerstin. Thank you.
Manny, would you please let me know when you think it would be ok for me to give Ron Hansen's thoughts on the meaning of the story? I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone.
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Kerstin you've hit on a few of the themes. Yes, the convent, full of religious people, who have a supernatural event happen right in their midst, but they refuse to see it for perhaps several reasons but one certainly because their routines are now in chaos.
And yes, Mariette accepts her fate without resistance or tears. It's more than saint-like. It's Christ -like, and I think that's what Hansen was striving for.
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Mariette walks a toweled broom along a hallway by Sister Virginie’s cell and then kneels below a horrid crucifix that she hates, Christ’s flesh-painted head like a block of woe, his black hair sleek as enamel and his black beard like ironweed, his round eyes bleary with pity and failure, and his frail form softly breasted and feminine and redly willowed in blood. And yet she prays, as she always does, We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. And just then, she’ll later tell Père Marriott, she is veiled in Christ’s blessing and tenderness, she feels it flow down from her head like holy oil and thrill her skin like terror. Everything she has ever wished for seems to have been, in a hidden way, this. Entire years of her life are instantly there as if she could touch any hour of them, but she now sees Jesus present in her history as she hadn’t before, kindness itself and everlasting loyal, good father and friend and husband to her, hurting just as she hurt at times, pleased by her tiniest pleasures, wholly loving her common humanness, and her essential uniqueness, so that the treacheries and sins and affronts of her past seem hideous to her and whatever good she’s done seems as nothing compared to the shame she feels for her fecklessness and indifference to him. And she is kneeling there in misery and sorrow when she opens her hands like a book and sees an intrusion of blood on both palms, pennies of skin turning redder and slowly rising up in blisters that in two or three minutes tear with terrible pain of hammered nails, and then the hand flesh jerks with the fierce sudden weight of Christ’s body and she feels the hot burn in both wrists. She feels her feet twisted behind her as both are transfixed with nails and the agony in both soles is as though she’s stood in the rage of orange, glowing embers. She is breathless, she thirsts, she chills with loss of blood, and she hears Sister Dominique from a great distance, asking “Are you ill?” when she feels an iron point rammed hard against her heart and she faints. (p. 157-158)
The delineation is in objective third person point of view. These events happen to Marriete, and so we can tell they are not a hoax. The first stigmata was off stage, so to speak. The second stigmata is in front of the reader to see. We can also state that it goes beyond realm of credulity to claim that they are a result of psychosomatic phenomena. As I’ve stated in one of my previous comments, psychosomatic stress can cause ulcers, aches, heart problems, grey hair, but there is no possibility that in three minutes of time it could cause flesh to burst out into hemorrhaging and at the five wounds of Christ. Hansen is clearly intending this to be a supernatural event.
Though the mystery has been unlocked for the reader, it remains a mystery for the rest of the characters. So is Hansen just writing a religious mystery to titillate readers by keeping the validity of the stigmata ambiguous as long as possible? I would say no, because there is a religious theme that is central to the novel. One has to ask, if it is a real stigmata, why does God not make it clear for everyone? But then we could ask that about any religious event. Why is God not front and center to the world so that there is no ambiguity to the true faith? Père Marriott quotes Isaiah to Mariette during a confession, “Truly you are a hidden God,” and he quotes Christ, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (p. 81). In the end, God has clearly forsaken Mariette. But it is Mother Saint-Raphaël at her final scene where she expels Mariette.
When she and the postulant are alone, Mother Saint-Raphaël shifts a chintz pillow and pats a sofa cushion beside her. She stares impassively at Mariette as she sits. She says, “That was simply political, what I said—that you disappoint me. I personally believe that what you say happened did indeed happen. We could never prove it, of course. Skeptics will always prevail. God gives us just enough to seek Him, and never enough to find Him. To do more would inhibit our freedom, and our freedom is very dear to God.” (p. 174)
Besides admitting to what I think is a grave sin, that she truly believes Mariette and yet carries out this injustice, she does articulate one of the central themes, that is, God never fully makes Himself certain. I don’t know if that comes from Thomas Aquinas but it certainly sounds like it. And so, Hansen is not just titillating the reader by hiding facts. It’s critical to the novel’s theme.
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Frances, now you can. I wanted to make sure it was clear to all that the stigmata was real before we learned it from outside the novel. Now there is nothing to spoil.
“Wondrous things do happen in life, but generally in the ordinary ways of faith and healing and love. Then there are phenomena like the stigmata for which there is no natural explanation and which seem so old-fashioned, as misplaced in our modern times as witchcraft and sorcery. Mariette Baptiste was, for me, the real thing, a stigmatic; but I inserted an element of questionableness because in my research that seemed standard even in those instances in which the anomalies seemed authentic and all medical science could do was scratch its head in puzzlement. (pages 177-78)“If the fruits of stigmata are the esteem of the pious, hollow talk, confusion, hate, and envy, one may indeed wonder why God would grace the world with them. I do have some possible reasons for it. We are so far away from the Jesus of history that he can seem a fiction, a myth — the greatest story ever told, but no more. We have a hint of his reality, and the shame and agony of his Crucifixion, in those whom God has graced with stigmata. Conversions of life have come from them. We are taught the efficacy of prayer, the joy that can be found even in suffering, and the enormous, untapped powers of the human body and mind. . . Cynics may find in stigmata only wish fulfillment, illness, or fakery, but the faithful ought to find in them vibrant and disturbing symbols of Christ’s Incarnation and his painful, redemptive death on the cross. . . “ (pages 190-91)
All quotations are from A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction, by Ron Hansen
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We tend to downplay how divisive Jesus is. Either you live your life according to his teachings or you don't. There are no grey zones, no wiggle room. From the very beginning people tried to "domesticate" him, as Bishop Barron puts it. Heresies sprung up almost immediately because we want him to conform to us. When Jesus truly enters your life everything changes. You leave for home by another way as the Magi did after meeting the Infant. With Mariette's stigmata Jesus forcefully invades the religious community and confronts each one of the nuns if they love him as much as she does. This is unsettling to say the least. By sending Mariettee home Mother Superior makes a political and safe decision. It is easier to keep Jesus at a distance than up close.
There’s much to ponder in your comments, too, Kerstin. I think Mariette entered the convent because, like many sincere, idealistic Catholic young women, she wanted to be close to God and believed religious life was meant to be her vocation. Ironically, each of the nuns probably entered with the same intention.
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We tend to downplay how divisive Jesus is. Either you..."
You are spot on this Kerstin. Yesterday's Gospel reading hits this on the head.
Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (Lk 12:49-53)
And He might add dividing Sisters against each other at the Sisters of the Crucifixion priory in Acadia,NY...LOL. Yes, they do get divided.
Our visiting pastor (visiting from India to help with the summer vacations) gave an excellent homily on this passage yesterday. By setting the world on fire, Christ means to purify the world, not burn it down. It's a spiritual fire and the division comes from the purification. This applies I think to another central theme to the novel, which I'll put together as I find the time. Great thought Kerstin.
I loved the final line of this novel.And Christ still sends me roses. We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.
What a great way to end Mariette's story, with Christ whispering "Surprise me".
BTW, are the "roses" that Christ still sends her supposed to refer to the blood of the stigmata or is he using that image as St. Therese o f Liseaux used it (since reading her story is what got him going on this novel)?
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And Christ still sends me roses. We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kind..."
It was beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes. From what I thought I understood, she no longer receives the stigmata, only the pains in the five locations. I took it as a slight allusion to Thérèse of Lisieux, though it can be taken I think as just a general metaphor.
By the way I think I'm going to nominate Thérèse's Story of a Soul for our next read. I've never read it. Unfortunately probably most have already and will not vote for it. But it would make for a nice transition coming off this read.
Manny, when you read The Story of a Soul I think you may agree more with Irene's insight regarding the roses. I think it is a deep understanding. When we see statues or illustrations of Therese of Lisieux she is almost always holding roses, a reference to her promise, "After my death I will let fall from heaven a shower of roses." Hansen is a consummate artist and uses words with great care. See what you think, later.By coincidence, I read in today's paper that the local diocese of Canton, Ohio has petitioned the Vatican to begin the canonization process for a woman named Rhoda Wise whose "legend as a Christian mystic has blossomed with time. . .
"Late in the summer of 1939, crowds of people started showing up at Wise's house next to a city dump in Ohio after she let it be known that miracles were occurring in her room. . . Eight decades later, people still make pilgrimages to the wood frame bungalow at the edge of Canton, Ohio, seeking their own miracles. . . They stood in lines around her bed when she appeared to suffer stigmata -- bloody wounds on her head, hands and feet like those Jesus suffered on the cross -- until Wise implored the church to take her off display. . . "
Perhaps other members of the group will come across this story in their newspapers. I hadn't heard of Rhoda Wise until today.
I have not heard of this mystic and I don't live all that far from Canton.
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Edit: You can read her Wikipedia entry here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoda_Wise
She healed Mother Angelica at one time.
Irene, try this: Google: Miracle House Canton, Ohio. Information will come up. I just looked at Wikipedia and there is an entry for Rhoda Wise (1888-1948), "an American Catholic stigmatist and mystic from Canton, Ohio. . . now part of the Diocese of Youngstown."I hadn't heard of Rhoda Wise or anything about her until I saw the story from the AP in today's Detroit News.
??
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OK. I will. I hope it wins the voting. Have you all read it before? Maybe you'll want to read it again?
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I'm surprised you ladies haven't come across Rhoda Wise before now. She's been in the Catholic news.
What's really surprising to me is the connection to Mother Angelica. When Wise's daughter, Anna Mae, died in 1995, she willed the family home to Mother Angelica and EWTN.Ron Hansen may have had a brilliant intuitive understanding of the reason for the appearance of stigmata. (Please see Message 9, above, the second paragraph)
Wow. Manny, the Catholic Book club just finished with Story of a Soul in June.
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Oh darn. I guess I will have to nominate something else. Unless there is a ground swell for it. Anyone who would want to vote for it, let me know.
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Ron Hansen may have had a brilliant intuitive understanding of the reason for the appearance of stigmata. "
Do you mean this, Frances:
"We are so far away from the Jesus of history that he can seem a fiction, a myth — the greatest story ever told, but no more. We have a hint of his reality, and the shame and agony of his Crucifixion, in those whom God has graced with stigmata. "
Yes, exactly. I will vote for the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux. Regardless, Manny, you’ll want to read it. It’s one of the important pieces of Catholic literature.
I have read The Story of a Soul. If it is voted in, I will probably sit it out. There are just so many books I want to get to. It is not a comment on the worth of that book.
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“Was he dishonest in his description?’
“I have no opinion, Reverend Mother.”
“Was he duped then?” (p. 31)
Now go to the examination scene where when she puts her hands in the water the wounds disappear.
She tells him, “Christ took back the wounds.”
She expects her father to stare at her with fear and astonishment, but he is, as always, frank and unimpressed, as firm as practical as a clock. “And your feet?” he asks.
“I have no wounds.”
“Even that is miraculous!” Père Marriott says.
Dr. Baptiste smirks at him and then at Mother Saint-Raphaël. “You have all been duped.” (p.173)
There’s the word twice, “duped.” That certainly wasn’t an accident. I’m now convinced that Irene was right at the beginning of our discussion. Dr. Baptiste is anti-religious. What I think is central here is that Mariette “expects her father to stare at her with fear and astonishment,” but he does not. There are two opposing world views here coming into opposition: the supernatural Catholic and the empiricist modern. It is also interesting we get the supernatural Catholic world view not so much from the Sisters at the priory but from the readings they read as a group. There are several writers they read. I can’t remember exactly but I think St. Augustine, St. Benedict, and especially Blessed Julian of Norwich. The Julian of Norwich readings actually foreshadow Mariette’s experiences.
That’s such careful reading, Manny. Thank you. Do you and Irene think that Mariette’s father was meant to be representative of Bertrand Russell, for example: a figure of calm, lucid logic, scornful of religion?
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Hmm, it's possible. The empiricist David Hume is mentioned somewhere in the novel. Hume and Russell may have been cut from the same cloth.
I am not sure if the father is supposed to be anti-religion or anti-extraordinary signs. I did not come across (that I can recall) anything that indicated that he opposed ordinary religious practices or the institution. He never puts down priests or refers to the Mass as mumbojumbo or criticizes someone for praying. But we are never told that he goes to Mass or taught his daughters anything of the faith. He seems to be a selfless doctor, covered with mud from his long travels to people's houses, always ready to respond to the call of a sick person, not complaining about the inconvenience to himself.
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(1) Even though his own daughter's hands were clearly bleeding and with wounds, and they supernaturally disappear, instead of objectively exploring (ironically like a real scientist would do) the nature of what was just in front of him, he leaps to the conclusion it was all faked.
(2) He doesn't go to his own daughter's spiritual wedding ceremony, even though he knows how much it means to her.
(3) He writes that letter to Mariette's sister about Mariette's experiences, in effect undermining her acceptance to the order. Yes there could be a selfish reason for it but there may be real antipathy for the experiences.
(4) When Mariette is preparing to leave for the priory for her spiritual wedding, her father hears her walking about upstairs. Here's the narrative:
Dr. Claude Baptiste stands at a kitchen window in red silk pajamas, drinking chickory in the sunrise, looking outside as if hate were there, hearing Mariette just above him.
(p. 9)
What are we to make of "as if hate were there?" Is it a projection of what he is feeling? Is he looking at the beautiful August morning and hateful of it? Or is the summer day a symbol of hate to him, which would suggest that he sees God as hateful? All possibilities and perhaps all what Hansen intends. It may all be a complex intertwined emotion where all is supposed to be suggested.
Again none of those four scenes is a definitive characterization of the father being anti-religious, but in total it's hard not to come to that conclusion.
On the other hand, two of his daughters turned out to be so devout that they entered religious orders, or in the case of Mariette tried to. You would think that a household of anti-religious sentiment would not produce such faithful women. But then it is 1906. If his eldest daughter was 37, he has to be at least 57-60 years old. He probably grew up with religion and was comfortable with it for some of his life. As the times changed and he lived his life as a doctor dispelling folkloric remedies he may have grown into an anti-religious person. His household may not have been anti-religious.
Some writers are minimalists, for better or worse, and some writers are maximalists (my word), for better or worse. Hansen at least in this novel is clearly a minimalist. He doesn't provide all the details.
Hey, what the heck is a chickory drink? I thought chickory was some sort of leafy vegetable.
I don't disagree with anything you wrote, Manny. But, I do think it is possible to be comfortable, even to view as a good, an institutional religious expression, to believe in God but to want that belief in God to be expressed in "safe" ways, to promote the role of religion in society and to shun extatic expressions of that religion. I don't see the antipathy toward Celine's religious life that I see toward Mariette's spiritual expression. Yes, he does not want to lose another daughter to the monastery, but there did not seem to be any tension between father and daughter when he visited the convent. And, as you said, he raised 2 daughters with sufficient devotion to enter the convent. Many people would be comfortable with Celine's religious expression, a life of quiet prayer, in which she uses ordinary gifts to serve her community, a life which bears suffering without complaint, but would be less comfortable with the more dramatic expression of spirituality found in Mariette. Could the father be one of these people?
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He does jump to a rather hasty conclusion in that examination scene and I can't get over the word "hate" on that page 9 scene.
I did a little search on chickory drinks and it's a legitimate health drink for a number of ailments that was probably known back in 1906. Perhaps the father has some sort of illness he keeps to himself. I'm reminded of one of those post expulsion vignettes at the end of the novel set a few years later where the father is in a wheelchair, taken care of by Mariette.
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Is Hansen suggesting the father is a poor country doctor?
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By the way, Hansen spelled it "chickory" instead of what comes up in the dictionaries as "chicory." i'm just following Hansen's spelling.
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(1) Even though his own daughter's..."
The father's behavior toward religion and faith isn't all that strange to me. My own father was very much like it. A life-long atheist to him all religious expression and fervor was irrational. He also lumped all religions together as being of the same idiotic impulse, a lingering relic from a time when we couldn't explain the world through scientific research. We are smarter than this today, so his thinking. Yet, he never stood in the way of mine and my sister's desire to practice our faith. He simply didn't get it. I think I wrote before that both my sister and I converted to Catholicism. We picked up the faith from our environment more than what was taught at home. In hindsight, even despite of it. We lived in the country where the Catholic faith was all around us.
The father's anger and hate, I think, is mostly the impotence towards an irrational and idiotic faith that has so much power over his daughters.
I thought of chickory coffee when I saw that reference. I knew that it was used as a coffee substitute when coffee was too expensive or when it was hard to get. I don't know anything about the availability of coffee in 1906, so I don't know if small communities might have commonly used chickery instead of coffee at that time.
Chicory coffee is very popular in Louisiana and you can find it on grocery shelves everywhere in the South (and Texas).
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And Louisiana has a strong French Catholic influence. Thanks Madeleine. I hope this discussion has made you want to read Mariette in Ecstasy. ;) I know you couldn't fit it into your current schedule.
Maybe I will. I have just gotten into Frances' Not All of Me Is Dust. Awesome writing and I love how she takes on the three Catholic vocations. Frances, I hope you have more novels in the works!!!
I mentioned Bertrand Russell because he was so prominent in twentieth century philosophy, yet his failures as a father were remarkable. Since Ron Hansen does nothing by accident, I thought perhaps he was modeling Mariette's father after a leading atheist. I thought Dr. Baptiste was terribly cold and cruel. Additionally, there was something a little creepy about his attention to Mariette. (Please see Page 97): "She hears a trickle and does not turn. She feels his eyes like hands. Enjoying her. She knows their slow travel and caress."
Madeleine, thank you so much. You made my day. You know, I had one story to tell. If I do anything more, it would be to add to that one. In this confusing, pain-filled world, in which some in the priesthood have let us down, we need Christ figures. For that reason, I would like to mention that on August 14 we celebrated the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a priest whom you know exchanged his life for that of a doomed prisoner in the death camp of Auschwitz. Speaking only for myself, I am more awed by that act of sacrifice than by stigmata, extraordinary and wondrous as those appearances are.
Before we leave Mariette in Ecstasy, I want to share a quotation by the author, Ron Hansen, on the importance of fiction. This is from his book of essays, A Stay Against Confusion (the title is taken from words by poet Robert Frost):“We look to fiction for self-understanding, for analogies of encounter, discovery, and decision that will help us contemplate and change our lives. And so it was for Jesus himself as he formulated his parables. Each of them is Christ’s symbolic way of telling us what has been revealed to him in prayer about the Mystery we call God, about Christ’s ministry in the world, and of the Father’s will for us all. . . Jesus offers the faithful proverbs and ways of praying and rules of right conduct and signs of his healing power. But his favorite method of teaching seems to have been in parables, because stories so well fuse the feelings of immanence and transcendence that are the two primary qualities of religious experience.”
Isn’t that wonderful?
Your writing is exquisite. I hope you give us more stories. Do you write poetry? That's what has poured out of my heart so far, but it's been long dry years since I've done much with that, though. And nobody reads it these days. I always wanted to do a novel but teaching and creative writing don't mix that well for me. Teaching high school theater used up what creativity I found time for!! You could call me a recovering academic! But I am loving your story. I feel like I know these people and places!
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I'm not done discussing Mariette. I'm still trying to put together my thoughts on what I consider its most important theme. Of which I will hold back for you to think on for now.
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I must say, Frances' novel is exquisite. Madeleine and I are not exaggerating. I think it's got all five star reviews both on Goodreads and on Amazon. I don't think anyone has not given it five stars. I'm not just saying this because she's a friend here. It really is that good.
I hope we pick it for discussion soon!
After her sister’s burial on Christmas Eve, Mariette is seen praying intensely in front of a crucifix. Moments later she comes forth bleeding from her stigmata wounds. And as the sisters try to care for her, she goes into a coma-like trance, her ecstasy. The priory runs with rumors of speculation, and Sister Saint-Raphaël, now the Mother Superior, writes to her Mother General of the shocking events.
Two days go by before Mariette comes out of her ecstasy, and now every sister’s reaction to Mariette has changed. Some are in awe of what appears to be a supernatural event and some are suspicious and skeptical. She is sent to Père Marriott where he questions her on her experiences. Marriott comes away believing her.
As the days go by the two camps (those that believe Mariette and those that don’t) become more convinced of their positions. Mariette has also become more and more a distraction, both to life inside the convent and the convent’s relation to the outside world. Everyone wants a glimpse of postulant. A formal investigation is started and led by Marriott, and witnesses, some from each camp, are called.
Mother Saint-Raphaël feels compelled to restrict Mariette’s activities. On the one hand she is intellectually skeptical of the genuineness of Mariette’s stigmata, and so has convinced herself Mariette is pulling a hoax, but on the other hand in the depths of her spiritual core she has an inkling they are real. But the disruption Mariette has created, irrelevant to the stigmata’s validity, requires she treat Mariette strictly.
By early February Mariette’s wounds are healed. On the feast day of the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes (Feb. 11th) while performing housework Mariette takes a moment to kneel before the crucifix and go into intense prayer. As before, her hands, feet, and side bubble out with blood of now a second stigmata experience. This only reinforces the already existing beliefs in the two camps, but now the skeptics force Mother Saint-Raphaël to have Mariette placed in a make-shift jail cell.
With her hands still fresh with the wounds, a doctor—her father—is called in to examine their authenticity. She is forced to strip naked in front of him and a panel of witnesses. As the doctor examines, he can’t quite discern the nature of the punctures and asks for some instrument to pick open the scab. But Mariette says to just put them under water, and she goes over to a basin and dips her hands in. When she lifts them out, the wounds are gone, and with that the doctor instantly declares it to all have been a fraud.
Mariette is expelled from the convent, and we see a series of vignettes of her isolated and disgraced life. Thirty years go by when she writes a reply to a letter from her old friend at the convent, Sister Philomène, who has now become the Mother Prioress. Mariette tells Philomène of the sadness and joy her life has been. She still receives from Christ pains of the stigmata and still feels His overwhelming love.