"You shall eat it in haste."

Today's mass reading is from Exodus 12 - the establishment of the Passover. I used to wonder at the specificity of God's instructions for the ritual. Why must the lamb be "roasted" and not boiled? Why do they have to roast the head? Why must the blood be on the doorposts and lintel?

I was in awe of the symbols of crucifixion when I read that roasting the whole lamb involved a cross-shaped spit, and when I realized what the wooden doorframes prefigured. The Passover prepared the way for Christ's Eucharistic sacrifice - the paschal mystery. Every time we go to Mass, we participate in such an ancient ritual, one in which the lives of millions have been wrapped up throughout history. An understanding of Exodus 12 certainly spurs on a deep reverence for the Mass. It can also give us greater insights into how to receive the Eucharist.

In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste (11).

I'm not suggesting that we wear traveling costumes every Sunday, but I do think that, as St. Peter exhorted, we should gird up the loins of our minds, setting our hopes completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:13). The phrase "gird your loins" refers to a lifting and tucking of robes in order to have freedom of movement. To gird the loins of our minds, I think, is to prepare for a journey.

The Hebrews were setting off to the promised land, but our journey is to our home in Heaven - the complete "revelation of Jesus Christ." Each time we receive the Eucharist, we should be in mind that we are pilgrims to another land, and fed by Christ, should hasten to ever come closer to His Kingdom.

One Infinite Moment

At the end of Sunday Mass this week, I was standing next to my little brother. The processional hymn began, so I opened the missal to share it with him, pointing out the verses so that he could follow along. Because I was too hoarse to sing that day, I heard better than ever Samuel's strong young voice, hitting all the right notes, but stumbling over the difficult words & syllables. (Sam reads at a high level for a 7-year-old, but even Asterix & Obelix don't have words like cher-u-bim and ser-a-phim!)

His earnest, focused face; his sweet voice; the way he kept at hymnbook even though it was difficult -- it was a beautiful little moment in which I felt very blessed.

But there was also another feeling that shot through me in those few happy seconds. There was an inner knowledge that said, "This moment is full of joy, but it's almost over. The organist will stop playing, people will go on living, Sam will grow up, and this moment will only be a vague memory." It was a feeling of pain because I knew the moment was leaving me as it was happening.

When I'm listening to a song with just a perfect chord here or a ravishing lift there, I experience the same thing. The music is so beautiful that I hurt just knowing that the song will end. I want to linger in it. I want it to last forever.

Heaven lasts forever, but I don't imagine it as an infinite set of moments that are always passing by. I think it's more like one infinite moment -- one beautiful lingering.  

Significant Books, Part X

What if Heaven's not the afterlife, but rather, earth is the pre-life? This was the epiphany I had when reading Miracles by C.S. Lewis four Easters ago. This book made me consider the supernatural world at an entirely higher level. As a child, my idea of Heaven was a limited little dream world. I imagined flying over green hills, children playing, and a smiling Jesus sitting on a lawn chair. It wasn't a bad prospect, but I don't see it as worth dying a martyr's death.

What if Heaven's not the supernatural, but rather, earth is the sub-natural? This is a passage from the book that I will never forget:

Confusion between Spirit and soul (or "ghost") has here done much harm. Ghosts
must be pictured, if we are to picture them at all, as shadowy and tenuous, for
ghosts are half-men, one element abstracted from a creature that ought to have
flesh. But Spirit, if pictured at all, must be pictured in the very opposite
way. Neither God nor even the gods are "shadowy" in traditional imagination...If we must have a mental picture to symbolise Spirit, we should represent it as something heavier than matter.

A crude analogy of miracles in my mind is the idea of a 3-dimensional person strolling into a 2-dimensional world. He seems to break all the rules; he seems crazy and will probably be killed off. But he is the one with most substance; they simply can't comprehend it.

We are "real" because we are derived from the true Reality, the Existence, the I AM. The common cultural images of God simply won't do. If there is a supernatural Being like that, He must be absolutely terrifyingly unfathomable, but how many of us regard Him in that way?

Thinking about this makes me wonder about the growing belief in "spirituality," but not in God. It seems that we think that, if Nature is the only thing that exists, it must have existed forever self-sustainably, and is therefore somehow spiritual or supernatural. However, that leaves us with spiritual characterizations, but no Character, no Person.

I don't know if that will make sense to anyone reading this; I shied away from writing this post for a long while because Miracles has inspired me to ponder infinity more than any other book, and infinity is impossible to explain, only to expound upon...more...and more...and more...however, I think the expoundings of C.S. Lewis are well worth reading and re-reading.

The Shores of Valinor

The description for this blog is "these are the things that intrigue and inspire me." I suppose it's obvious that I'm mostly inspired by books, but there are an endless amount of things that catch my interest. One thing that's been affecting me lately is this painting by Ted Nasmith:

Click this link to view larger

It's been my desktop image for a week, and I keep noticing more things I like about it. Aesthetically, I love the width of the landscape, the majesty of the mountains & clouds, and especially the depth & lustre of the sea. But more than that, I love how the light at the top of the mountain is bright, but hidden. You can see that there must be a great canyon beyond the brink, but that too is hidden. The scene is beautiful, but it heightens your desire to see more. I also love the subtle details like the waterfall on the mountainside and the birds flying between the ship and the shoreline. If you look closely, you can see figures on the ship, clasping each other with their arms outstretched toward the light.

The title of this piece is The Shores of Valinor. It is inspired by The Silmarillion (so I suppose it's literary as well as artistic...of course it would still have to do with books...) Valinor is, in some ways, the paradise of Middle-earth. What the painting signifies to me is the heavenly fulfillment of our desires for greatness & beauty. Heaven will be everything our hearts have ever longed for because it will be complete unity with God. When I was little, I remember not wanting to go to heaven because I didn't want to leave all the delights of earth. But what I didn't realize was that heaven is all the delights of earth multiplied by infinity.

The couple on the ship have made a journey - a long, difficult journey - and have depended on each other to complete it. They have two arms reached out in rapture and two arms grasping each other. To me it's a picture of true friendship. The aim of true friends is to help each other reach Heaven - union with God. And that's what a marriage of two souls should always be.

Those are just some of the things that have been going through my head as I've logged onto my computer every day. ;) It's good to have a constant reminder to set my thoughts on worlds far off / where we only cry from joy.

Set your sails upon the mighty winds of May
Set your sails upon the hope of June
Set your sails upon the air of warm July
Set your course for Heaven's shore!
- Future of Forestry

[Music is another thing that inspires me a great deal; I should write about it more often!]