A Truly Happy Man
There was once a great theologian called John Tauler, a Dominican who lived in Cologne, and who was famous for his virtuous life and great preaching. He prayed ardently to God for eight years to find someone who would teach him the true way to virtue. One day when he was praying for this intention, the theologian heard a voice from Heaven that said: “Go to the door of a certain church and there you will find a man who will instruct you in the spiritual life.”
When the theologian went to the church, he saw only a poor, barefooted beggar dressed in tattered clothes, whom he greeted in the following way: “God grant you a good day, my friend.”
The poor man answered: “Sir, I don’t remember ever having had a bad day.”
The Doctor of Theology said: “May God grant you a good and happy life.”
The beggar replied: “Why do you say this, since I was never unhappy?”
Hearing these words, the learned doctor rejoined: “May God bless you, my friend. I wish you would speak more clearly, since I do not understand what you mean.”
Then the poor beggar explained: “I will do so gladly, Doctor. When you wished me a good day, I answered that I never had a bad one, because when I am hungry, I praise God; if it is cold, hailing or snowing, if it is raining, if it is good weather or bad, I praise God. For this reason, I never had a bad thought. When you wished me a good and happy life, I answered that I was never unhappy, because I learned to resign myself always to the will of God, being convinced that all of His works can only be very good. Thus, I accept with great joy and satisfaction everything that happens to me as coming from God’s hand, whether prosperity or adversity, sweetness or bitterness. This is why I was never unhappy. I never wanted anything except God’s good pleasure.”
After hearing this answer from the beggar, the doctor questioned: “What would you say, my friend, if God should want to condemn you?”
“Ah,” rejoined the poor man, “if God should want to treat me so roughly, I have two arms, humility and charity, with which to compel Him to descend to hell with me. I would much rather be with God in hell than in Heaven without Him.”
From this, the theologian learned that true resignation, accompanied by a profound humility, is the shortest route to the Love of God.
The doctor next asked the beggar from where he came, and the poor man answered that he had been sent by God. “But where did you find God?”
“I found Him,” said the beggar, “As soon as I renounced creatures.”
“And where did you leave Him?” “I left Him,” continued the beggar, “in pure and upright hearts and among men of good will.”
Greatly admiring the beggar’s wisdom, the theologian probed still further: “Finally, my friend, who are you?” The beggar replied that he was a king. When the doctor asked him where his kingdom was, the beggar answered: “In my soul, since I know how to rule and govern my external and internal feelings so well that all my affections obey reason. This kingdom is doubtless more excellent than all those that exist in this world.”
Then the doctor wanted to know what had led the beggar to such a great perfection: “It was silence,” answered the poor man, “And my lofty, sublime meditations, and the union that I have had with God. Since I met God, I have never found rest or consolation in any creature of this world. It is my God, not the creatures or the things of this world, who will console me now and forever, Amen.”
(This conversation between Doctor Tauler and the poor beggar is taken from Grimes’ work, Esprit des Saints Illustre, Vol. IV, p. 165)
Ambiences, Customs and Civilisations
Can Only Sacred Art Be Christian?
by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Through tall stained glass windows come abundant but soft streams of light. This light is reflected everywhere: on the floor, the polished metal of the weapons and suits of armour, and the bronze and crystal of the immense candelabras. It even seems to touch with difficulty the ceiling ribbing and paintings overhead. The strong yet elegant columns, with their coherent, distinct, and suave lines, open up like immense palm trees that protect the hall with their fronds of stone. The hall is strongly impregnated by a special ambience that invites one to repose without idleness or dissipation. Rather, it is a repose imbued with gravity, reflection, equilibrium and strength.
The armour and the stuffed deer enrich this ambience recalling the prowess of the hunt and the battlefield. The carved wood panelling with its elegance and warmth breaks the austerity which the stone alone perhaps would have had to the extreme. In the back on a pedestal is a statue of a saint which draws one’s thoughts toward Heaven.
This hall undoubtedly reflects a mentality that may be pleasing to some and perhaps displeasing to others. However, it expresses an admirable arrangement of colours and forms. It is a hall designed for daily use in civil society which presents an ambience in which most of us would feel at ease living our daily lives.
The Sainte Chapelle in Paris was constructed in the thirteenth century by Saint Louis IX, King of France, to house some of the thorns from the Crown of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It expresses the same mentality as the hall even though it is not turned toward daily life in society, but rather toward prayer. Its note of elegance touches on the sublime. These differences however do not cause it to lose any of its plenitude of strength, equilibrium, gravity and recollection.
Over the centuries, religious, artists and pilgrims have seen an archetypal expression of the Christian soul in the Sainte Chapelle. This is seen in the ambiance contained therein. It can also be discerned in the mentality so well expressed in its lines, colours, forms, and general design.
Both the hall and the Chapel are Christian. What makes them Christian is not only the effect of the religious images and symbols found there. Rather, it is more by the ambience that one imbibes there and the mentality that is the basis of this ambience.
From these observations, one arrives at a broad concept. A work of art is not Christian by simply being covered with symbols of our Holy Religion, just as a man does not become a monk by simply wearing a habit.
To be called genuinely Christian, the pulsating soul that shows through in the work of art must be Catholic. And a Christian ambience does not only impregnate buildings destined for worship, but any place where one sees in its design that unmistakable mark expressed by a truly Christian soul in everything that he does.
Catholic Trivia: Cuisine
Coffee
Probably the only food discovered by a monk and officially approved by a pope. According to legend, coffee was discovered more than a thousand years ago when a friar in an Arabian convent noticed his goats prancing on their hind legs after eating berries from a wild coffee plant. He tried the beans himself; soon afterwards a new medicine was born.
Drinking coffee for the sheer pleasure of it didn’t come until years later … and it didn’t come without a fight. Sold in popular coffeehouses known as “penny universities” and “seminars of sedition,” coffee was denounced by devout Christians as “the devil’s brew” and outlawed by secular authorities who saw it as an intoxicating beverage that led to “discussions of rebellion and slander of those in power.” Church opposition finally ended in 1594 when Pope Clement VIII tried a copy and liked it so much that he baptized it. “We will not let coffee remain the property of Satan,” he announced. “As Christians, our power is greater than Satan’s; we shall make coffee our own.” (Thank God!)
Pretzel
Salted breads have been around for thousands of years – but it wasn’t until about 610 A.D. that an Italian monk twisted them into their distinctive crisscross shape, which is supposed to look like two arms folded in prayer. The monk created these pretioles, or “little gifts” to give as a reward to children who memorized their prayers. By 1200 A.D. they were popular all over Europe.
(Taken from the website: http://www.st-ignatius-loyola.com/triva_cuisine.html)
Reminder
Call to Chivalry Summer camp for Fathers and Sons
Mount St. Joseph’s Abbey, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary
19th July, 2009 to 25th July, 2009
Cost: €200, including full board and lodging and entrance fees to museums/castles visited during the camp
The camp is for boys between 12 and 18 years. The fathers of all participating boys are welcome to attend for all or part of the camp.
Anyone interested, please contact Rory O’Hanlon at the telephone number below.
A full information package about the camp will be sent out at the beginning of June. This will include an application form, a schedule of camp activities, parental authorisation forms, a checklist of what to bring and other information on the camp.
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