Leshem Shamayim: “For the sake of heaven.”

Confirmationally, I turned 16 days old, and already the days have rushed by so fast it seems that a cataclysmic crash has brought a number of rolling worlds of fluidty to a startling, jolting halt. No longer parallel, I decided to join a Church which brought some of the many ambiguities in life to a stand still. I have freely confessed a duplicity of feeling over it all: on the one hand, my rational, semi-athiestic sense of the existential world notes that I have comitted to a systemic way of thinking, of approaching theology and religion… entering into a life of a church that is as closed as it is open. Chrism on my head, I could almost feel in my tremors the quakings of worlds which were going to fall apart. Veni Sanctus Spiritus… analyzing the undeniable sense along with the fact of what was happening, a peace paradoxically invaded at the peak of terror. What an awful truth, to realize that I had severed existentially when I continued to hold open in my heart, those loving hands of Jesus which I have tried to explore in my vocational service to the world. The second undeniable observation was one of focus, removal of distraction… in a sense, falling back into a romance.

Celibate or not, each life needs a romance with God. The rest may be mundanely ordered (in fact, in order to sustain my ‘wild’ intellectual endeavors, relational escapades and litrugcial hunger,  I have begun to prefer the more simplistic forms of eating, living, survival. Utility is only bad when it limits life, not when it allows for a deeper fullness). Romance with my God is probably the thing I have been most hesitant to explore… the themes of sacrifice, submission, joyous-spontaneous love, unpredicatability, and threatening openness all resurface in the pursuit of this love with God. While I may have had that private ‘marriage’ ceremony with Jesus all those months ago and used the language for longer, now the official fact is something I no longer can hide from. I belong to Him; a belonging that is deeper than a sense of objective ownership—I have not become a plaything to passively and puppiteeringly perform the will of my Lord. Indeed He has taken me, and given me Himself. Since this exchange was made so many years ago and renewed in a private fullness last Spring, this year, my Isaac has borne a different burden.

The yearly pilgrimage through Genesis 22 promised to trace a path similar to Abraham of last year who placed himself on the altar in his son. Inevitably, the fascintion with Jesus and reflections on a beloved crucifixion may draw a new rendering of the sacrifice I am to learn with my God in this new place. It was still terrifying… the first week and mass after confirmation, progressively moving towards a place of ill ease with my own decision because of the confliction inside… but realizing that this commitment was a rebellion against what I had set my face against so firmly over two years ago: human submission, entrusting myself to You, Jesus in the form You hold on Earth.

What a mystery, that You should desire us, most Holy of Lovers.
That You should draw my hand into Yours and become mine,
Taking me for Your own- what can it mean, what can it be,
That would impel You to desire such a punishment as me?
The feet ever dirty, I’m a childish vagabond at play, yet in the field
You spied me, lost and weary constantly straying in the search
For something greater, something other, something more.
An insatiable desire You gave me to love for Your sake,
The craving, the longing- in the face of emptiness again I met
The Man after whom all my life had been bent
On seeking, on finding, to hold on tight and be still.
Yet You have not stopped moving, and it seems You never will.
You caught me in shame, disgusted with this own self,
Seeking to cast it aside, and caught hold of this wretch
Who despised You in spite of having lost herself in love,
Rejecting Your hand, I ran to darkness deeper than love—or so I thought.
Irredeemable? A haughty whore and wanton mistress,
Giving herself like and endless abyss, falling to darkness, falling deeper still
Through the black whole of an unsatisfied will that simply cannot be filled
By clinging to longing, and thus burning with shame,
Unwilling to release the putrified name which clings like a garment,
Tattered with age, muddied and bloodied—disfiguring the form
Of the soul which has worn to to bare bones through melancholic grief,
Knowing each sin cannot satiatiate the lonely thief,
Who steals her own soul and sells it again, to purchase an other
With the temptation of loss, the promise of business, a life without cross.
Claiming no ownership for more moments than a few, there is nothing to life for,
There is no responsibility to view with a care for one’s own, the other greater than self.
Selfishness has crept in a whisked away the self,
Embedding the will in a dualing narcissitic reflection.
The mirror is my prison, I see myself and rage, filled with horror and shame-
Clawing at the image, but unable to break the reflection, unable to save
This body of death I created for myself, the casket to unlike a sacrificial cross.
Alone I became, yet You were there ever with me, unseen.
It was Your love that reached out and touched the in-turned eyes, drawing out
The inverted lust, piercing with love bright-shining.
Drawing in cold arms, You asked if I was willing, to give up the hell
To come from death to life, to unfreeze my heart, to restore my sight.
A sacrifice You asked for, I had given more than enough, but to the wrong place,
I was still holding a cup, with which to catch my own blood for atonement—
But weakening and paling, moment by moment,
You stopped my pierced heart, pierced Your side for the cup, and blood is still flowing.
All the wounds I’d self-afflicted, You took into Your hands and feet,
Taking the thorns from my hair You fashioned Your crown.
And over my scars, You gave my a veil, covered me in white:
Pure virgin again. Despite all the lovers I’d once bought with my form,
You took all those wounds, and bore memories as ghosts,
To haunt whenever I took my eyes off of Yours.
Shining and holy for You, reflecting Your radiant sun, into the waltz
We locked in a dance, slowly, floatingly, mesmerized, entranced.
For a few nights and days it was heaven on earth, then
I stumbled and remembered I was dirt, and fell away from You
In contemplation of the world, swirling with spectres of my creation.
Yet this was our wedding, You were not going to let me go run,
Taking hold of my hands, the sacrifice had begun: would I submit to You,
Remain in Your loving arms, or go back to my sanctum, the inner psych ward of soul?
To be with You would remake me, slowly, building Your kingdom within me,
The home You had promised we would dwell in one day.
For now, You would be with me, invisible to sense and touch,
Teaching my eyes to see You, to trust,
When the ones You put in my hands and flesh and bone, Your Body on Earth,
You have not been compromised; I must submit to receive and give again
Or else lose my heart to confines of manufactured pain.

It’s a good life, it’s a beautiful life. The world around doesn’t fulfill the answers I sometimes look for day in and out. But it’s the nature of love that I have tried to explore again and again, which has come back and been placed in my hands. I cant quite describe it from the inside of the cacoon… the mystery of community around me seems to have some fulness I have not realized yet. This eucharist we receive, communicating each week with one another that we are one in Christ, to one another that Christ is becoming more and more real in us, committing to one another that we are learning to submit to Christ Jesus. It’s mesmerizing. I’m not still walking around in white, but there is this veil, a sign because of the angels, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11… something about submission, protection and reception that I must hold onto to learn more about. What does it mean to submit to Christ as a member of a community? How does one submit to the community/world while seeking oneness with Christ? How do we not despise this world, but embrace it more deeply when grasping at spirit.

Aquinas’ commentary on Lombard’s Sentences proposes four questions regarding whether or not the pluralistic understanding of God’s attributes exists in the human intellect: (1) what is reason whereby we can say the plurality of attributes differ by reason; (2) how can we say that an idea is or isn’t something; (3) are the meanings of these diverse attributes in God or not; and is the plurality of these ideas on the side of both our intellects as well as objectivity? Aquinas flushes out each of these questions with a very Catholic sort of response, “both, and” to questions binary answers of apparent plurality in God’s attributes being only a human intellectual or divinely objective answer.
To the first question, Aquinas seeks to define what is meant by the idea of quality, to which he answers what is intended by quality. Referring to the idea of wisdom, Aquinas uses it as an example that which the concept of wisdom, an attribute of God, is predicated in the word itself, does not truly define. The second question Aquinas brings up is how an idea is said to be a thing—a thing to the extent that there is something “outside the soul which corresponds to what is conceived in the soul.” (211) An idea can be conceived in relation to the soul in three ways: (1) intellectual conception with similitude to a thing existin outside the soul; (2) intellectual conception which is “a consequence of our way of knowing a thing outside a soul” (211-2)—reactive sort of relationship; and (30 intellectual conception which has no foundation in reality external to the soul.
Transitioning to a discussion of the attributes of God, Aquinas say that “the reality which is God is a particular subsistent act-of-existence…and nothing other than…is in God.” (212) As existence without essence, Aquinas relates a human understanding of God to a negation of what is human, for example: God is intelligent because He is immaterial. Related to a negation-thoery approach to concieving of God,“human concepts of attributes are “not truly in God since the idea of the word arises more on the side of the one by whim the word is imposed than on the part of that which it is imposed.” (214) Such an understanding of human description of divine attribute sounds very much like a projection of human understanding on divine being (which is interesting considering that all human knowledge could be considered projection).
The fourth question Aquinas responds to encompasses the plurality of past of the thing itself. Our reality exists in plurality, Aquinas says, because God’s reality is too overwhelming to our conception. “Our intellect is able to embrace, different modes of perfection in one concept” because we acquire perfection through diverse forms (214). What is simple in God is pluralized in our intellect … “the reality which is God corresponds to the plurality of these ideas.” (215) But God Himself is not in the plurality—the fullness which is a compilation of the plurality of concepts is only called “plurality” by human intellection. To attribute such conception to fully divine or fully human intellection are both partly right and wrong. “Plurality of the words whiuch are said to be diverse if not merely on the side of our intellect which forms diverse concpts about God,” (216) because each word signifying each concept is rightly said of God as well.

I held my hands, shaking, around a candle that started dripping wax on my bare toe—confirmation candle; new experiences in joining a new community. I was being accepted into the Roman Catholic Church as a neophyte. What a strange experience; I know it happened, but it hardly makes sense.

“Let anyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: to those who prove victorious I will give some hidden manna and a white stone, with a new name written on it, known only to the person who receives it.”Revelation of Jesus Christ 2.17

In the context of a battle over names, the angels proclaiming to the churches of Revelation declare that if one holds firmly to Him name and witnesses to it, overcoming it, He will give a new name written on a white stone, along with hidden manna. This verse we read to me at the retrear preceeding confirmation on Holy Saturday (some of us at the Dominican School thing “Harrowing Saturday” would be way more fun)… encouraging those of us with any glimmer of question as to the decision we were making that day to finish a process of becoming what is recognized as “Catholic” by the church community itself and other denominations…some of our journies were long, some short, some still struggling as we received the Pater Noster and Creed… others more at peace with the decision. Yet, we all chose new names by which we were aspiring as we came into this community. Mine is Catherine Jeremiah (didn’t think about this till later, but how awesome, I could be “CJ” now!), named after Catherine of Siena, Dominican saint and Doctor of the Church who radically lived a love for Jesus that took her to the fringes of life in ways I doubt she suspected—including a journey to a place of mystical marriage with her God via Jesus; and the Prophet Jeremiah, one of my favorite biblical persons of all times… whose relationship with Yhwh embodied what it meant to be the Bridegroom of a Gomer-ous people Israel. In Jeremiah’s passion, one can taste the visceral grief and heartache that we people of God, in the Body of Christ, might be able to just sense in hints and glances as our Lord mourns over His world and His Bride.

Confirmation: since all of the sacraments have their root in THE Sacrament, Jesus, I attempted to comprehend this one approaching the rite, and why it was so necessary to full acceptance and communion in the part of His Body, the Catholic Church (I am demonstrating a poor Catholic ecclesiology, I know, but the conversation is open to continuing). I believe chiefly in a the tenuous unity we call church and every part of me wants to see this cultivated and preserved because if Love is to live and flourish, if Jesus is to be known and present in all our community, we must work towards being One as He and the Father are one. I am so grateful for those who prayed such words with me this week, whether in litrugy or a more personal communion; the words of Jesus in John 15 and 17, the words of Peter in 1 Peter 1… all beautiful reminders of the desire of our hearts: to be one with God and one another. If I had to say something that completely contradicts my cognitive categorization of religion and faith, I would say that is what it means to be Christian: actively pursuing the oneness with God and neighbor. But if there is baptism, why need their be confirmation?

I love Paul’s prayer at the beginning of Ephesians 4 (v.1-7):
“I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you therefore to lead a life worthy of the vocation to which you were called.
With all humility and gentleness, and with patience, support each other in love.
Take every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together.
There is one Body, one Spirit, just as one hope is the goal of your calling by God.
There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and one God and Father of all, over all, through all and within all.
On each one of us God’s favour has been bestowed in whatever way Christ allotted it.”
That is my prayer, amongst others that I petition Him with daily… and yet I know I am a member of His Body, a cell in the movement towards Oneness. We are already one in the Lord, the faith in His sanctifying life, saving death, and renewing resurrection… but yet we still see division here on earth (wouldn’t this be a fun thought to tackle, philosophy friends, with the problem of universals… or as some of you say, nominalism?). So we are one… what is confirmation? A confirming of the Holy Spirit at work?

Why did I need to be confirmed, or did I need to be? I kept saying nothing is really going to change, for I am already a part of Christ. I received the Holy Spirit on my baptism, did I not, so what does this act, rendered an indellible mark on the soul, do? Does it seal me into a community? Is it active as a sign of a more concrete oneness? Learning about the parish structure of the Catholic Church in my canon law class, I understand that what is universal is made up of what is particular. Perhaps (because ecclesiology is my theological obsession) it is the universal that needs revision—to what am I being confirmed, for whom, by what? The preist? The Holy Spirit through the preist? The witness of the community? The acceptance of the community of me as one of them? Father, our Jesus prayed that we be one as You and He are One with the Spirit… yet the Body of Christ on Earth continues to mystify me in the duality of definitions I get, which may or may not affect communion. Mystical communion of the baptized, yet Catholic theology teaches the fullest communion is savored by the confirmed who can receive Eucharist? An ontological change? How are we becoming different? What is it that cannot grasp/understand before this process? Maybe that has yet to be considered.

I have many questions still about the process, the rite itself, but the experience for me was one of confirmation by the community. It is still continuing. The whole community of Catholicism that I’ve experienced since Saturday night just even feels different. The parish became family, the priory became family, in a way I guess I’d assumed we already were. If the air had density, it would have changed between shadow and reality… like Plato’s cave, maybe I’d been watching the shadows and was experiencing what was real. A tangible warmth was in the air, surrounding all of us who were newly accepted as candidates or catechumens at the Saturday vigil. But what led us each here, to make such a decision? I would love to hear each person’s story, but mine was not so much about the mode of Church (because it was Catholic though universal is extermely appealing to a heart desiring unity of all believers)… but perhaps because of deficits in areas that it seems to resolve: a dualism between body and spirit, separation of faith and living, between the Heavenly Body of Christ and the Earthly One (or is that just Bridegroom and Bride stuff that I don’t understand?), and separation of religion and faith.

Life takes its tumbles, some of them take us away from God, some closer… and when the space has come to a place of incommunicability in some areas, like shutting oneself in  soundproof room, perhaps desperation allows us the luxury of sorting through the heap we feel we’ve become. “I can count all my bones” may not be such a bad thing when we’re trying to make sure that we’re whole before Him, and yet broken again, I fall off searching further. Maybe it’s the stillness of submission that was needed, another journey with Isaac, a little more mature/questioning/stronger Isaac… to Moriah and try the sacrifice again (I have been in an annual tradition of examining the Adekah story… last May I gave it as a sermon… the year before gave it in the Fall… perhaps its time to search Genesis 22 again), and see what it is that I have taken out of God’s hands in a futile attempt to serve Him. So confirmation became about a lot of things on the journey for me: surrender to an other, outside of me, connected to God in relationship, in a way I had only specualted doing so (this will take some time to really show its true colors); in that surrender an act of submission, which was offered up, but not sufficiently dissected as sinew from bone (Hebrews 4.12- The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts more incisively than any two-edged sword: it can seek out the place where soul is divided from spirit, or joints from marrow; it can pass judgement on secret emotions and thoughts.)

So with this Word cutting itself into my heart throughout the entire passion week, drowining the spirit that had been parched without it, I was flooded with a realization of a fear that keeps me only ever on the brink of true trust: that fear of the helplessness confessed in submission, that pride that wants to know God’s working and thinks it might be able to comprehend the direction. Though each day, the sands of life shift and configure a new mirage by which to sway my mind and direction… abandonment is finding, searching is the desert really means to be still in knowing? The connection to Him who bore our penalty that we might bear His peace, the healing wounds… mystifying. Yet in some way, tangible, but not in conception. I cannot wrap my mind around it, and I think that was the beauty of confirmation at the Vigil this year—wrapping together in the incommunicable symbol of continuing life and journey a life and journey that have taken on schizoprenic personalities and quibbled. But its not done, its taking a new, another beginning. This road does go ever on and on… through a semester of mostly women’s studies, ethics, and theology… into a summer of work, writing, and likely transferring to a new program (MA/Mdiv) at a neighboring school in the Fall. All the while, the words of the heart, the intention of the prayer remain the same

8 That is why it says: He went up to the heights, took captives, he gave gifts to humanity.
9 When it says, ‘he went up’, it must mean that he had gone down to the deepest levels of the earth.
10 The one who went down is none other than the one who went up above all the heavens to fill all things.
11 And to some, his ‘gift’ was that they should be apostles; to some prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers;
12 to knit God’s holy people together for the work of service to build up the Body of Christ,
13 until we all reach unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God and form the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.
14 Then we shall no longer be children, or tossed one way and another, and carried hither and thither by every new gust of teaching, at the mercy of all the tricks people play and their unscrupulousness in deliberate deception.
15 If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow completely into Christ, who is the head
16 by whom the whole Body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each individual part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up in love. (Ephesians 4)