I’m in the middle of writing several other blog entries at the moment, so rather than spending time writing a brand-new entry for this Sunday’s Gospel, I’m going to recycle something I wrote a few years ago.
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,one of his disciples said to him,”Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:Father, hallowed be your name,your kingdom come.Give us each day our daily breadand forgive us our sinsfor we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,and do not subject us to the final test.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friendto whom he goes at midnight and says,’Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journeyand I have nothing to offer him,’and he says in reply from within,’Do not bother me; the door has already been lockedand my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’I tell you,if he does not get up to give the visitor the loavesbecause of their friendship,he will get up to give him whatever he needsbecause of his persistence.
“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;seek and you will find;knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives;and the one who seeks, finds;and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snakewhen he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked,know how to give good gifts to your children,how much more will the Father in heavengive the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” – Luke 11:1-13
Below is a reflection I gave on this same passage at a “Cheltenham In Prayer” service back in 2004…
Since beginning this series a couple of weeks ago, I have received a lot of positive feedback. This has come almost exclusively from the ladies. Well, let’s see how long that lasts… 😉
So far in my response to the question “Why doesn’t that nice Catholic boy ask me out?”, I have omitted a rather obvious possible answer: he doesn’t want to.
Occam’s Razor states, broadly speaking, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. So, if a gentleman doesn’t ask out a lady, the simplest explanation is that he’s not sufficiently motivated to do so. It’s tough, I know, but it’s a legitimate explanation.
On the whole, when someone wants something, he seeks it out. If he doesn’t, then the chances are that he doesn’t really want it enough. So, in general, if a guy really wants to ask a girl out, he will. If he doesn’t, then he won’t.
Friendship to Romance?
Why am I saying this and running the risk of offending my female readers?
I’m bringing this up because in the past when I’ve heard the fairer sex complain about a guy’s lack of romantic advances, I’ve sometimes felt that they were willing to accept any explanation other than the simplest answer. These lamentations have sometimes turned into complicated defenses for a guy’s apparent lack of romantic attention. Could it just be that he didn’t want to be more than a platonic friend?
Yesterday was the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. With that in mind, I’d like to share something that happened a few days ago. I was at Mass and, after communion, I was looking up at the large crucifix behind the altar. My eyes settled upon the sign above Jesus’ head and the thought crossed my mind:
“Huh…you know what?…I’m not really sure what ‘INRI’ stands for…”
How many thousands of crucifixes have I seen over the course of my life?!
Now, I wasn’t completely ignorant. I did remember the section of the Gospels where this sign is mentioned:
“Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS…and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek” – John 19:19-20
Hmm…so how exactly does “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS” get reduced to “INRI”? It turns out that these are the initials of the Latin version of notice:
Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum Jesus (of) Nazareth, King (of the) Jews
The meaning of this acronym is less obvious to us because, in the Latin translation, the words for “Jesus” and “Jews” don’t begin with the letter “J”, but instead start with an “I”. Since Classical Latin doesn’t have a “J”, an “I” is used instead.
So, next time you’re looking up at a crucifix and see the sign, you’ll know what it means. Behold your king!
“Here I stand, covered by grace Under the blood that was shed for me Here I kneel, before the King upon His throne Here I bow, to worship the Lord Enjoying his favour on my life today Knowing that we’ll never be apart” – Here I stand, Phatfish
Lewis then recounts “one of the most painful meetings” between a ghostly woman named Pam and a Bright Spirit, Reginald, her brother. The ghost is disappointed, expecting instead her son, Michael. Reginald tells her he’s far up in the mountains and explains that she would appear invisible to him at this point, but this would be remedied shortly: “As soon as it’s possible for him to see you, of course he will”. Reginald explains that the first step in this process is rather hard, that she will become solid enough “when you learn to want someone else besides Michael… the little germ of a desire for God that we need to start the process.”
Although rather annoyed at the thought of “religion and all that sort of thing”, she’s willing to do what’s necessary to see her son. Reginald explains this approach is futile, since she’s “treating God only as a means to Michael. But the whole thickening treatment consists in learning to want God for His own sake.” Pam replies that he “wouldn’t talk like that if you were a Mother”, but Reginald explains that she has reduced herself to being only a mother. She was “Michael’s mother only because you first exist as God’s creature”.
Pam then declares that “If [God] loved me He’d let me see my boy” and objects that God had let Michael die. Reginald explains that this was necessary, firstly for Michael’s sake since his mother could never make him truly happy, and secondly for her sake, in an effort to transform her “merely instinctive love…into something better… to love Michael as [God] understands love”. Since Pam’s maternal instinct “was uncontrolled and fierce and monomaniac”, God took him so that “in the loneliness, in the silence, something else might begin to grow.”
These critical comments about “Mother-love” are poorly received by the ghost, who declares it to be “the highest and holiest feeling in human nature”. Reginald responds that “no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.” Pam is adamant that her “love for Michael would never have gone bad”. But Reginald points out that she must have met mothers who are united with their sons in the Grey Town but who are still unhappy. She had indeed, but is convinced that this would never happen with her and Michael.
Reginald says that living only for Michael’s memory was a mistake, and this made her husband (Dick) and her daughter (Muriel) miserable. Pam protests saying they didn’t care, but Reginald refutes this. Becoming melodramatic, Pam indignantly replies “Oh, of course. I’m wrong. Everything I say or do is wrong, according to you.” With mirth in his eyes, the Spirit says that this is “what we all find when we reach this country. We’ve all been wrong! …There’s no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin living.”
Angry at the humour, Pam demands her son: “He is mine, do you understand? Mine, mine, mine, for ever and ever.” Reginald replies that “Everything will be yours. God himself will be yours. But not that way”. After pointing out that Michael was originally “an Accident”, Pam says “I hate your religion and I hate and despise your God. I believe in a God of Love.” Reginald points out that, she is the one who has love neither for him nor even for her own mother. When Pam thinks his feelings are hurt, the Spirit laughs and replies that she can’t hurt anyone in this country. Lewis tells us that “The Ghost was silent and open-mouthed for a moment; more wilted, I thought, by this reassurance than by anything else that had been said”
MacDonald leads Lewis away, saying that the conversation is likely to take a while, but that he can now see the choice that is presented to the ghosts. Lewis asks about natural feelings and MacDonald says that “There’s something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there’s also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly… And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse… It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil…”. He explains that “Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.”
They then see a Ghost with a little red lizard sitting on his shoulder, whispering things in his ear. The Ghost angrily tells it to shut up, but the lizard continues unabated. The ghost turns to limp away from the mountains.
The ghost meets and angel. The ghost says that the lizard refuses to be quiet, so he’s going home. The angel asks him if he would like to make the lizard quiet. When the ghost says he would, the angel steps forward to kill it, causing the ghost to retreat. The ghost downplays the issue. He says he was only thinking about silencing it. He procrastinates. He says he’s sure it’ll be quiet now and that the gradual process would be better. He complains of ill health. The Angel rejects all these excuses and repeatedly asks if he can kill the lizard. The ghost is convinced he’ll die and says the angel is already hurting him. The Angel replies “I never said it wouldn’t hurt you. I said it wouldn’t kill you.” The ghost complains that the Angel should have killed the lizard without asking, but the Angel responds “I cannot kill it against your will. It is impossible. Have I your permission?”
The Lizard starts chattering to the Ghost, saying that the Angel really can kill him and that, if this happens, the ghost would be all alone and that he promises to be good. Facing a life constantly harassed by the lizard, the ghost gives his permission. The Angel closes his hands around the reptile, the ghost screams and the lizard is flung with its back broken on the turf.
The Ghost begins to become more solid, “an immense man, naked, not much smaller than the Angel”. At the same time, the lizard transforms into a great stallion. The man flings himself at the feet of the Angel and then rises, leaping on the horse’s back and races off towards the mountain. Lewis says that “the whole plain and forest were shaking with a sound… the voice of that earth, those woods and those waters”.
Lewis asks MacDonald “…does it mean that everything… that is in us can go on to the Mountains?”. His Teacher responds that “Nothing… can go on as it now is… [it] will not be raised again if it submits to death… Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a Lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”
Lewis tries to understand how “this man’s sensuality proved less of an obstacle than that poor woman’s [excess of] love for her son”. MacDonald immediately rejects this, saying that “There was no excess, there was defect. She loved her son too little, not too much… it may well be that at this moment she’s demanding to have him down with her in Hell. That kind is sometimes perfectly ready to plunge the soul they say they love in endless misery if only they can still in some fashion possess it” MacDonald says that Lewis must draw another lesson: “Ye must ask, if the risen body even of appetite is as grand a horse as ye saw, what would the risen body of maternal love or friendship be?”
Questions
Q1. Why is the Motherly Ghost disappointed? What prevents her from growing solid?
Q2. Why are we told God took her son? How do you square this with “a God of love”.
Q3. What was wrong about Pam’s relationship with her son. Why does MacDonald rebuke Lewis for saying that this mother has “an excess of love”?
Q4. What was wrong about Pam’s relationship with her other family members?
Q5. How does this chapter relate to the material covered in “The Four Loves”? How can good things go wrong?
Q6. What does the lizard represent? Why does the ghost resist to its death? What excuses does the ghost make? Why is the ghost’s permission required?
Q7. How does the lizard attempt to argue for its own survival?
Q8. What happens to the lizard? What does this mean? What does MacDonald when he says that everything must submit to death in order to live in this world?
On 11th June 2010, I posted my first article on this blog. As hard as it is to imagine, that was ten years ago…
I began with a free WordPress blog over at thisrestlesspilgrim.wordpress.com, and then I upgraded to get my own domain. I started posting once or twice a week, but after a few months committed to publishing something every day. To date, I have posted a little over 3,600 posts…
Well, today things come to an end. As you may know, in a few months I’ll be getting married and entering a new phase of life. In light of this, while will still from time-to-time still write articles, I’ve decided to stop posting here every day. Since today is my birthday, it seemed like a good day to draw things to a close.
This new chapter in my life will require my full attention…and it’s going to be great 🙂
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
Notes & Quotes
1. The virtue related to sex is called “chastity”
2. “Chastity” is not the same as “modesty” or “proprietary”
(a) “modesty” is a social convention
“The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes”
“A girl in the Pacific islands wearing hardly any clothes and a Victorian lady completely covered in clothes might both be equally “modest,” proper, or decent, according to the standards of their own societies: and both, for all we could tell by their dress, might be equally chaste (or equally unchaste)”
(c) Language is in a state of flux
“While this confusion lasts I think that old, or old-fashioned, people should be very careful not to assume that young or “emancipated” people are corrupt whenever they are (by the old standard) improper; and, in return, that young people should not call their elders prudes or puritans because they do not easily adopt the new standard. A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems”
3. Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues
(a) It makes people think that Christianity is wrong
“Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong”
(b) But it looks like the sex instinct is the one which is out of kilter
“…if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function”
4. If we treated food in the same way we treated sex, we would think it preposterous
(a) We don’t have food strip-tease acts
“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act-that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?”
(b) Some might respond that this is a sign of starvation
“One critic said that if he found a country in which such striptease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving…”
(i) But we’d then need to see if much food was actually consumed…
“But the next step would be to test our hypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food was being consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a good deal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon the hypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one”
(ii) …and compare to previous generations
“…we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since Pagan times”
(iii) Besides, we know that appetites grow by indulgence
“Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations”
5. We have been lied to about sex
“…for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex”
(i) We have been told that sex became a mess because it was hushed up
But for the last twenty years it has not been hushed up. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not.
(ii) We have been told that “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.”
(A) If they are referring to sex itself, they are right
“Christianity says the same… Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body… Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion… If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once”
(B) But if they are talking about the current state of the sexual instinct, they are wrong
“I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips… we grow up surrounded by propaganda in favour of unchastity. There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us. Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales-resistance”
6. We can be cured
(a) But this first requires that we desire to be cured
Those who really wish for help will get it; but for many modern people even the wish is difficult. It is easy to think that we want something when we do not really want it. A famous Christian* long ago told us that when he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realised that while his lips had been saying, “Oh Lord, make me chaste,” his heart had been secretly adding, “But please don’t do it just yet.”
* St. Augustine of Hippo (4th/5th Century)
However, three reasons make this difficult:
(i) We think it “unhealthy”
“In the first place our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so “natural,” so “healthy,” and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them”
(A) This is a lie based on a truth
“Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth-the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is “normal” and “healthy,” and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal”
(B) It’s actually a conflict, not between Christianity and nature, but Christian principle and other principles
“…Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health… Every sane and civilised man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others. One man does this on Christian principles, another on hygienic principles, another on sociological principles… The Christian principles are, admittedly, stricter than the others; but then we think you will get help towards obeying them which you will not get towards obeying the others”
(ii) We think it “impossible”!
(A) We quit before we start
“…many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian chastity because they think (before trying) that it is impossible”
(B) We should at least try
“…in war, in mountain climbing, in learning to skate, or swim, or ride a bicycle, even in fastening a stiff collar with cold fingers, people quite often do what seemed impossible before they did it. It is wonderful what you can do when you have to”
(C) We need God’s help
“We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity…will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help”
(D) We need grace to persevere
“After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God… The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection”
(iii) We think it is being “repressive”
(A) Many people misunderstand what “repression” is
“…it does not mean “suppressed” in the sense of “denied” or “resisted.” A repressed desire or thought is one which has been thrust into the subconscious (usually at a very early age) and can now come before the mind only in a disguised and unrecognisable form. Repressed sexuality does not appear to the patient to be sexuality at all”
(B) Since those pursuing chastity are conscious of their resistance, they are the least likely to become repressed
“…those who are seriously attempting chastity are more conscious, and soon know a great deal more about their own sexuality than anyone else. They come to know their desires as Wellington knew Napoleon, or as Sherlock Holmes knew Moriarty; as a rat-catcher knows rats or a plumber knows about leaky pipes. Virtue – even attempted virtue – brings light; indulgence brings fog”
7. Christian morality doesn’t center on sex
“…I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the centre of Christian morality is not here”
(a) The worst sins are purely spiritual
“The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual”
(b) It is the diabolical, not the animal which is worse
“For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither”
Discussion Questions
1.What is the difference between chastity and modesty?
2. Either Christianity is wrong about chastity or the sexual instinct is misaligned. Why might we be inclined to think it is the latter?
Today I’m going to cheat a bit. 
Since beginning this series a couple of weeks ago, I have received a lot of positive feedback. This has come almost exclusively from the ladies. Well, let’s see how long that lasts… 😉
