by CCW | 4 November 2022 16:00
November begins with All Saints’s Day just after the ‘revels’ of Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve. Hallow means Holy, as in the Lord’s prayer, “hallowed be thy name”. “Be ye holy as I am holy”, as God says in Leviticus. The ‘holy ones’ are the Saints, from the Latin sanctus. Shakespeare’s sonnet (#73) always reminds me of November and of All Saints: “that time of year … when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” For In the barren greyness of the dying of nature’s year, there is a gathering into the fullness of life. Such is the vision of the Communion of saints. It is about our lives as embraced in God’s love.
A vision of our redeemed humanity, All Saints speaks to our world of scattered souls which are like so many fallen leaves scattered on the wind. It celebrates instead the gathering into wholeness and blessedness of our fractured and fragmented selves. It is about our wholeness, our holiness, as found in God and in company with one another, a counter to our fractured and fragmented selves in a fractured and fragmented world. Such is the “Unreal City” of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, written exactly one hundred years ago just after the devastations and madnesses of the First World War.
All Saints offers a profound critique to a fragmented world in which we have turned ourselves into objects. The French author George Bernanos observed that “between those who think that civilization is a victory of man in the struggle against the determinism of things and those who want to make of man a thing among things, there is no possible scheme of reconciliation.” The Kentucky poet and environmentalist, Wendell Berry, remarks that “it is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.” To be a machine is to be a thing, where even our bodies have become objects, things, to ourselves, as the French philosopher, Michel Henry noted, things that we can manipulate as we see fit.
All Saints’ offers a very different vision crystallized in the Beatitudes which begin Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes are the blessednesses that speak to the spiritual charter of divine love which seeks the perfection of our humanity. Like the Buddha’s Fire Sermon, they correct our over-attachment to things. They are about a deep inward relation to God which properly defines us.
They form a complete picture of our redeemed humanity. The first and last Beatitude promise “the kingdom of heaven” as the true counter to pride and persecution. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”; “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs in the kingdom of heaven”. The poor in spirit are those who are not puffed up or obsessed with themselves; such is pride and, in our day, narcissism; the radical separation and isolation of the self in its illusion of itself as completely independent of the body and the world. The poor in spirit are the humble who alone are open to the truth and grandeur of God and his kingdom. That persecution is blessedness only makes sense if we are defined by something more than how others see us and (mis)treat us. This last Beatitude complements the seemingly impossible demand to “love your enemies”. It is about seeing one another not as ‘other’ but as ‘brother’ in the company of the blessed ones.
The second Beatitude is equally compelling. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted”. Sorrow and loss are not for ever. There is something beyond such experiences. What is it? Simply knowing one another in the embrace of God’s love. “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” The meek are the gentle ones who in the gentleness of wisdom know the world as God’s world of which we are all a part. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” reminds us of the proper quest for justice which is about nothing less than the Good for all and not simply for the privileged few.
The fifth Beatitude wonderfully reminds us of the underlying principle of all the Beatitudes, God’s mercy. “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” Mercy for mercy is the highest form of justice which frees us from the spirit of revenge and envy, from domination and destruction of self and others. It frees us precisely to the Good, to the quality of mercy alive in us which cannot be constrained or limited, as Portia reminds us in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. “Mercy seasons justice”.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” In contrast to our divided hearts and minds, there is the sense of wholeness and a clarity of vision. “Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God.” God’s peace is the peace which passes human knowing. The peace of God is our true peace and true blessedness but it is a peace purchased through the persecution of Christ on the Cross. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. And, as if to drive all of the Beatitudes into our hearts, Jesus concludes, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.” This, too, belongs to our lives in the midst of the wasteland of modernity. In the place of fragmentation and brokenness, we are offered a vision of holiness and wholeness. Such is our blessedness, especially, it seems, even now, in “that time of year”.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, Head of English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2022/11/04/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-4-november-2/
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