Our sincere thanks to Dr Cullinan for his wisdom and guidance. If you wish to write to thank him, he is at the Maryville Institute, HERE.
Our thanks too to Father Abbot, Dom Cuthbert Brogan OSB, for his kind welcome and hospitality to the Brethren.
Please pray for the Church and for the Order during this period of rampant Evil, of gross immodesty and of shameless lies, that, in the words of the Grand Master, Fra' Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, "the Church will come out of this storm purified as the shining bride of Christ
our Lord."
Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us!
Our Lady of Philermo, pray for us!
THE DISMISSAL
We’ve reached the smallest room. Not in the house, in the Mass. The Dismissal. The end. The Way Out after the banquet.
In the Old Rite it’s positively tiny. ‘Ite, missa est’, whatever that meant originally. ‘Out you go!’ might be as good a translation as anything. The blessing by a priest that follows only came in at Trent. And Last Gospels and Prayers for Russia are not really part of the Mass.
In the New Rite the Concluding Rites, as they are called, are a bit longer. There may be ‘brief announcements’, in the hope that you’ll remember them better if they come at the end. Then a longer or shorter blessing. Then the words of dismissal. Added to by Pope Benedict XVI. You can now be invited to ‘go in peace’, or told to ‘glorify the Lord by your life’ or to ‘announce the gospel of the Lord’.
So why are we here at all? Why are we bothering with this tiny rite?
Small rooms aren’t always useless. They can be very important indeed. Holy Mass is very important indeed, but what happens in the rest of your day, or the rest of your week, is very important indeed too.
So I’m going to devote this last talk to the rest of your day, or the rest of your week, or the rest of your year after this retreat.
One of the important descriptions of the liturgy in Vatican II is that it is ‘the source and summit’ of the Christian life. It’s a beautiful phrase. And so not many people take it apart and ask what it means. ‘Source’ and ‘summit’. Two words pointing in opposite directions. So two opposite ideas being held together. Two otherwise antithetical ideas, perhaps. So one way to analyse it is to imagine each without the other.
One young man, Mr Pius Masser, always goes to Sunday Mass and Vespers at The Oratory. He finds a weekday Low Mass whenever he can. He has a huge Missal and follows everything. He spends much time in prayer. He has a comfortable income.
But he can’t abide tramps and soup kitchens and hasn’t a good word to say about Pope Francis. For him the liturgy is simply the summit of his life.
His cousin Mr Guy Trend prefers the informal Sunday Mass at the local Jesuit house. They even still have beanbags there, and it’s all over quickly with a bit of nice old-fashioned 1960s music. He’s far too busy to go to daily Mass or to say daily prayers because he has a tiring job working in the offices of a Human Rights Charity. He’s very busy in the SVP and goes to a night shelter once a week to help out. He can’t abide Latin and traddies and hasn’t a good word to say about Pope Benedict. For him the liturgy is simply the source of his life.
‘Source’ and ‘summit’.
We’re down from the summit now. We’re leaving the sacred banquet. So we need to see how it can be the source of our Christian lives for the rest of our day. I want to talk about two ways in which it can. Prayer and works. And specifically the works of a religious. A religious knight. And a hospitaller knight. And someone probably living alone.
But prayer has to come first. Especially as you’re bound to it. I believe you’re supposed to do a half an hour lectio divina each day.
I shouldn’t have to say much about why pray. Not to you. Anyway it’s much easier to realise we need to pray than to get round to it. But I’ll say something, for the record, as it were.
Several times in the gospels we read that Our Lord went away into a quiet place to pray. As we have done today.
Why? Why did he need to pray at all? He was God. He had the Beatific Vision. He had nothing to repent of. And yet so many times he prays. Why? To set us an example? Or simply because he was human. And so he prayed.
We pray because we are human. To nourish our soul. To find God. To find our way to God. To stay with God.
Oh it’s not quite like exercising. Even though it can be hard work. We don’t do it for the benefit. We don’t demand anything of God. Any more than we would of anyone we love. But what sort of healthy relationship is it if people never sit down and talk?
So we pray because we are human. We give time to talk to God.
I’m not a hospitaller. I’m not a knight. I’m not a religious. And I’m not very good at prayer. I’m a secular priest living alone. So it will have to be a few words from an outsider. And at a fairly low level.
I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to run up against the first rule of spiritual direction and tell you what I do myself. And that can be a dangerous thing to do. And not only because we’re supposed to be very careful about sharing intimate things with others. But because of the first rule of spiritual direction. Almost the only rule, in fact: don’t impose your own way and your own needs on other people.
We’re all different. Part of what it is to be a person is that we’re all different, all unique. And the Western Church has a sorry record of putting nature before person and forcing different people into sausage machine seminaries, novitiates, rules of life and methods of meditation.
So take or leave what I say. And if you don’t like it, ask yourself what would suit you instead.
We didn’t have a meditation period in my seminary. Previously they used to have what the Spiritual Director described as morning parade. But we didn’t. The theory was that you were being trained for presbytery life, where there is no easy time or place to pray, so you’d better learn to find a time and place for yourself.
It took me years to do that. And my time still isn’t half an hour, unless you count Rosary and saying the Divine office very carefully.
Actually the first thing is to find a place. It can be anywhere if it has to be, even on a quiet train, but there should be a usual place in your home. A place you can get used to.
Then there’s the time.
I’m not sporty. I never was. And just as so many people lapse from church in their teens, I lapsed from sport. I’d had too much compulsion and not enough encouragement and explanation. I’d be afraid to go near a gym now. I’d imagine everyone else was looking at me.
So I rather gave up on exercise. Until recently. Then two things happened. The Doctor threatened blood-pressure medicine. And one of my Anglican friends, with a very clean lifestyle, had a big heart attack. And after the operation, he was ordered to take up exercise. Every day. And he encouraged me to start exercising too. Even just a brisk walk up a hill. For 15 minutes every day. A modest beginning. But it makes a big difference. I feel better. And I’ve fended off the Doctor’s prescription!
‘You’ve just got to make time for it in your schedule’, my friend said, ‘just as you do for prayer.’
‘Just as you do for prayer.’ That hit the spot. A rather painful spot.
The main thing about the time is to be regular. To do it every day, even on days off and holidays. And that ten or fifteen minutes regularly is much better than half hours and hours taken up for short periods and then given up completely. And it’s miles better than nothing.
I recommend fixing a time before daily work begins. You can always make up the balance with Examination of Conscience and Night Prayer. But if you don’t force it into your schedule early, something big and nasty, maybe seemingly big and beautiful, will come along and drive it out.
Even retreats can be dangerous. They can lull you into longer times, indeed I hope they have, but not to the detriment of your regular period tomorrow and the next day. It might be wise to make a resolution not to try increasing your regular period for one week and then to review the increase later. Otherwise you may have a wonderful prayer life for the next few days and then when something comes up, out it goes completely. And the latter state will be worse than the former. So be very regular.
The next question is what you should do with your ten minutes, or half an hour. My answer would be: as little as possible.
Oh I know you’re bound to lectio divina. And I’ll say something about that in a moment. Because I do it myself.
But the great danger about a fixed time of prayer is that it becomes fixed. Fixed into a routine of saying prayers and spiritual reading. Fixed up into an elaborate kind of liturgy. Fixed up to keep silence away. And so to keep God away.
Prayer is the lifting up of the mind and heart to God.
That’s what the old Penny Catechism says. And it’s as good a definition of prayer as I’ve ever found. Partly because it includes both mind and heart, in balance. And mostly because it doesn’t say who does the lifting.
One crude distinction between meditation and contemplation might be that it’s meditation when we’re doing the lifting, and it’s contemplation when God does the lifting. When we’re lifted up.
But we won’t usually be lifted up unless we allow God time to act. Even for a few minutes each time. But for a few minutes each time. Time after time. For weeks and months and years.
We like to know when we’re being lifted up. But the time has to be given for God to act on us in silence. All unknown.
So by all means say prayers. And do do lectio divina. But allow time for silence. However uncomfortable it may be.
And when your prayer time has silted up too much with ritual and prayers, dredge it out again. Let the fresh waters of the Spirit back in again.
So what do I do in my fifteen minutes?
First I thank God for the last night, day and when it’s the day just before a new one, the last week, month, or year. I review briefly what I have to be thankful for and what I have to be sorry for.
If it’s the start of a week, month, or year, I look to see what I most need God’s grace for in the coming period.
Then I move on to praying for one particular intention each day: Church, friends, country, world, souls in purgatory.
This only takes a few minutes. So then it’s on to lectio divina.
I choose a gospel. And go through it verse by verse. Or word by word. I have just enough Greek to use it to slow me down but without turning into a language tutorial. So if you have some of a foreign language, why not read the gospel in it.
The danger with English is that you’ll go too quickly. Then it becomes spiritual reading and you miss the essence of lectio divina which is to chew at each word slowly and pause to ask what this might mean. What it might mean for me now. What God might be trying to say to me now.
It can take years to finish a gospel. I’ve been on Matthew for over a year now. I diverted last summer to go further into the genealogy by reading Genesis and Ruth. But since last autumn I’m only in Chapter 5. So go slowly.
The traditional four stages of lectio divina are reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. The reading leads to thought, which may lead to prayer, and then contemplation.
If you want aids to meditation, don’t forget the spiritual senses of scripture. For a pound or two you can download an app called ipietawith the Catena Aurea on it. So when you’ve spent a few days squeezing some juice out of a verse, you can read what the Fathers said about it. Or what Cornelius a Lapide thought it meant long before modern approaches to scripture. But don’t make secondary reading crowd out time for prayer and contemplation.
In fact don’t force yourself into meditation and prayer so as to avoid contemplation. Go gently into the night and allow time to be led.
Actually contemplation is the most important phase. But the Church got very nervous of it. Particularly for lay people. Contemplation, like religious sisters, could lead to all sorts of dangers and scandals if it were let loose in the world. So it was safer to enclose it safely behind walls. Just like what was done to religious sisters!
It was dangerous because people got ideas. Thought God was telling them something. And that caused problems for the Church. Or people thought you should abandon all willing and doing. That caused problems for the Church too.
So contemplation tended to get walled up. And seminarians and active religious were taught discursive meditation, which is safer but often harder and really not suitable for everyone. Personally I can’t stand discursive methods. Perhaps because it’s my job to do theology and prepare sermons and I want something different in the way of prayer.
So allow time for contemplation. And if anything strange or startling comes up, make a note of it and, if it’s important, discuss it with a wise person. So much can come up from our own doubtful depths and from spirits we don’t want to be in communication with. So discernment is needed. And discernment needs other people and, ultimately, the Church.
It’s not easy to share spiritual things with other people. But especially if you live alone you need to find a way to do it. I’ve reached the age where my spiritual director will no longer be of fatherly age. He may even be much younger than me. And I’m finding that a bit of a challenge. But we all have to have somebody to talk to.
On lectio divina, I can recommend a book called Sacred Reading by an Australian Cistercian called Michael Casey. He’s an expert if you want to find out more.
So it boils down to finding a place and a time. Being regular. And giving time for the Lord to act.
And so to the end. The last section. The last things I want to say. About mission. Because after dismissal comes mission. My last few words. And tentatively, just as I did with prayer. Because I’m not you.
I’m a secular priest living alone and doing a paid job. But in a Catholic institution. And I’m not a religious, a knight, or a hospitaller. So a few more words from outside.
I’m told you’re the last military religious. As opposed to friars and monks. So in one sense your mission is unique.
But you’re certainly not the only people with a mission to be in the middle of the world. Nor even with a primary mission of hospitality.
The West may be bad at some things, but it has a diversity of orders and movements that is really wonderful and ever new.
The amusing thing about this diversity is that it can mean several different groups doing the same thing but in splendid isolation from each other. Almost like the worst kind of espionage, where several different and mutually detesting intelligence agencies cause chaos by having different agents in the same place, in complete ignorance of each other’s activities.
The Opus Dei have, I think, led the way in bringing a spiritual mission into the secular world. They profess the consecratio mundi: consecrating the world by doing ordinary work well first, and bringing faith to those they can. They live like religious but would hate to be called religious because they think that religious profess the contemptus mundi. And they generally don’t live alone. But I think you might find much in their writings that might be helpful.
I’m sure monks profess the contemptus mundi. And friars. I’m not so sure about Jesuits. Or knights. Perhaps you should profess the conquest of the world for Christ?
It seems to me that it’s much easier to do a secular job well for Christ than to know when and how to bring the faith to those around us. I’ll say more about this in a minute.
But there’s one other strange parallel between being a knight hospitaller and what another group are doing.
I work at Maryvale Institute in Birmingham. Where we are blessed to have a community of Bridgettine sisters. Fully inhabited, I’m glad to say. They sing the Office and pray during the day. They also do the cooking and housekeeping. Their main ministry in the world is actually hospitality. They run guest houses, some in very unusual places like Cuba, and combine quite a strict religious life with hospitality. I don’t know how they share their faith with their guests, but they certainly witness to it by their way of life.
What you have in common with them is a vow of religion. A kind of consecration. Which the Opus Dei and secular priests like me don’t have. And that vow consecrates your good acts. And your persons. Something too many religious orders have forgotten.
Which leads me to the nub of the problem. What good acts should you do? And what of mission?
Mission. In a world that’s allergic to religion and very suspicious of it. Particularly when mission is accompanied by good works.
One obvious solution is to concentrate on the mission rather than the works. And that may work in some places and with some people. I do think we need more direct apologetic mission, in modern media, like the old Catholic Evidence Guild. Apologetics to give an account of the hope that is in us. And ‘to love both friend and foe in all our strife.’ Apologetics, but not degenerating into acrid polemics.
Another solution, all too easy, is to hide the mission or even abandon it completely. To do ordinary things extraordinarily well. To work for justice. To help the poor and the distressed. And all this is right, at least for some people. Actually this is the most popular Catholic solution. Work well, be nice to everyone, help those in need. And never say a word about the faith. But this can degenerate into secular do-gooding. With no religious element in it at all.
There is, of course, a worse solution still which is to give aid to those in need purely as a tactic to convert them. Like the Protestant soup kitchens sent to Ireland during the famine. They’re still remembered with a residual bitterness. So if you have a Catholic name but are Protestant, your family may still be called soupers. So our aid has to be genuine.
But I don’t see how you can work in the world and exclude the moment of explicit mission. Otherwise it seems to me that you are failing to witness your faith. Mr Guy Trend, whom we met a few moments ago, needs to learn this.
It seems to me that once mission degenerates into humanitarianism, either we are cowards or we have lost more of our faith than we are willing to admit to ourselves.
However genuine our help to others should be, however circumspect we have to be about raising religious questions, however well-hidden you may have to keep your Catholic identity – however uninhabited you may have to be – I don’t see how we can avoid what I might describe to you knights as the moment of action. Action in the military sense. Where we risk much but still do what we know to be right. When the word has to be spoken.
Even natural morality requires the occasional word of challenge. Of fraternal correction, if you like. In families and schools and in workplaces. And it’s never easy. And should be done in the best way, using the best words. And we can always find a good reason to put it off. Or tell ourselves we haven’t the best words. Although the best can be the enemy of the good.
Priests often avoid that word of challenge. For pastoral reasons, we say. And sometimes we’re maybe right. But we can’t avoid the need to take action. To make that challenge. To speak that word. To say what is right. Even when what is right is to do with our faith.
And I don’t think we have the option of retreating into a kind of commanderie and keeping our spiritual life safe in the liturgy and our private prayer. Not if we are priests. Not if we are military knights. And, actually, not if we are laity. Indeed Mr Pius Masser, whom we met a few moments ago, needs to learn something too.
After my daily short prayer, I try to read the Martyrology. Because that’s what the monks do. Before their daily work. I commend it to you. It should certainly put our own fears and difficulties firmly into context.
Indeed if we’re going out into the world and starting our normal secular work, we need to be reminded of the courage of the martyrs and all the other saints. So that we may ask for and receive the courage to follow them. In their witness, their confession of the faith. Their martyrdom. Even in our quiet modern grey or beige martyrdom. In dull, daily, trench warfare in our offices and our homes, rather than exciting battles. As modern military knights.
Go in peace to glorify the Lord by your life and to announce the gospel of the Lord.
© Michael Cullinan 2018
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