Aedificium

Books can be holy objects, and reading is a spiritual discipline. I thought I would here present some thoughts from the Christian ascetic and monastic tradition on books and reading.

1. Antony was so attentive at the reading of the Scripture lessons that nothing escaped him: he retained everything and so his memory served him in place of books. (Life of Antony)

2. The books read at vigils should have divine authority: the Old and New Testaments and explanations of them given by recognized and orthodox fathers. (Rule of St. Benedict)

3. During Lent, they should each receive a book from the library that they are to read straight through to the end. (Rule of St. Benedict)

4. On Sundays, all should devote themselves to reading, except those who are assigned to special duties. (Rule of St. Benedict)

5. Reading is bound to silence. … Constant and attentive reading done devoutly purifies our inner self. (Peter of Celle, The School of the Cloister)

6. I consider a room without reading to be a hell without consolation, an instrument of torture without relief, a prison without light, a tomb without ventilation, a ditch swarming with worms, a strangling noose, the empty house of which the Gospel speaks. (Peter of Celle, On Affliction and Reading)

7. Reading is the food, light, lamp, refuge, solace of the soul, the spice of all spiritual flavors. (Peter of Celle, On Affliction and Reading)

and finally…

8. Study is hard work. It is so much easier to find something else to do in its place than to stay at the grind of it. We have excuses aplenty for avoiding the dull, hard, daily attempt to learn. There is always something so much more important to do than reading. There is always some excuse for not stretching our souls with new ideas and insights now or yet or ever. (Sister Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict)

It’s a dark, dank, warmish-coldish day here, the type of day that makes you really wish you had a nice fireplace to sit in front of with a good book, with a little bread, wine, and cheese.

Alas.

But in thinking of fireplaces, it got me thinking about the routine of cleaning up from last night’s fire before making a new one; shoveling out all the cold, black ash and scooping it into the faux-bronze bucket, trying to keep it in one place lest it get all over you, the furniture, or on the bread or cheese or in the wine.

Hmmmm.

Downstairs, the wife is preparing a scrumptious dinner for tonight, and the house is filled with the aroma of chicken, eggplant, garlic and olive oil, cheese, a loaf of fresh bread, and who knows what else. We’re having guests tonight, and my desire for wonderful food is in fully affected. It’s also the night where our family celebrates our weekly family Eucharist.

Hmmmm.

Ashes. Desire. Eucharist. Hospitality. Fire. Food. Back to Bernard.

The Abbot writes that the Good Householder provides for his family and for his guests, especially in bad times, by feeding them with the bread of life, and in so doing he also feeds Himself. Bernard then writes that it is our penitence, our salvation, that is His food, that we ourselves are his food. A remarkable turn on the Eucharist theme! “Does he not eat ashes as though they were bread? For I am a sinner; it is I who am the ashes to be eaten by him. I am chewed as I am reproved by him; I am swallowed as I am taught; I am digested as I am changed; I am assimilated as I am transformed; I am made one as I am conformed” (Sermons on the Song of Songs 71.5). Bernard likens our spiritual state in repentance to ash, the result of a purifying fire of desire or affectus that burns our sin into ash, which becomes the food of God and Christ. In a reciprocal spiritual meal, the Eucharist becomes truly communal.

But eating ash? Ok, in a spiritual sense, this is powerful stuff. We’re dust and ash, right, and we’ll return to dust and ash; good imagery and metaphor. But what about eating it?

Turns out that this is a question that occupied St. Francis of Assisi. St. Bonaventure tells us that the patron of poverty, when he was tempted to indulge his bodily desires for fine food, would sprinkle the charred condiment of his fire onto his bread and cheese. Talk about a killjoy. The spiritual image of Bernard, signifying desire, becomes for Francis a sign for destitution. Reflecting on this, David James Duncan writes “Perhaps, I would dare guess, because food topped with ashes is exceedingly hard for the mind or body to desire, and ‘desirelessness,’ said the excommunicated saint Meister Eckhart, ‘is the virgin who eternally gives birth to the Son.’ Having perceived this virginity and birth with ashes — having forced even his body to pray when it tasted the wrecked meal and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ, Francis!” — the French Guy lit into his meal with gooey, gray-mouthed relish” (DJD, God Laughs and Plays, 80). Duncan goes onto experience for himself the taste of “finality” as Francis experienced it.

Makes me think of the relationship between the spiritual and the physical with a little more sensitivity, that Francis had the stones to actually take seriously Bernard’s metaphor and thus get a taste of how great the Housekeeper’s desire must be to commune with us. Maybe tonight I’ll put a plate of ash on the table, next to the bread, next to the wine, and next to the china, and dare any of us to “taste and see that the LORD is good” and to seriously reflect on our own spiritual state.

There’s a popular sandwich chain with the slogan “Mm mm mm mm mm…Toasty!”

Exactly. Francis would approve.

Some Lenten thoughts from St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “Love is an affection of the soul, not a contract. Moving us freely, it makes us spontaneous. … It is stupidity and madness to want always that which can neither satisfy nor even diminish your desire. … The Just are feasting and rejoicing in the sight of God, delighting in their gladness. Here is fullness without disgust; here is insatiable curiosity without restlessness; here is that eternal, inexplicable desire knowing no want. At last, here is that sober intoxication of truth, not from overdrinking, not reeking with wine, but burning for God.”

Desire is powerful stuff. In Psalm 63, David likens his desire for the presence of God to his experience in the wilderness while he was on the run as a fugitive from King Saul; longing for the dawn, absolutely parched with thirst in a dry, sleepless land. The kind of thirst where it is all one can think about, where your entire body cries out for a drop of water.

In Isaiah 55, the writer seeks to awaken the desire of the Exiles in Babylon to turn around and walk away from their live by appealing to physical needs and desires that can be satisfied; a banquet invitation, with sumptuous wine, fresh milk, and the satisfaction of bread. The chapter, as is virtually all of the second scroll of Isaiah, is an ode to joy, the joy of being offered the chance to be redeemed.

But there is no compulsion; as the Qur’an reminds us, “There is no compulsion in religion.” And neither is there in these texts; rather, the writers seek to awaken desire to turn by likening it to the desires of the body, for food, wine, milk, music, quiet rest, the company of others, and, as in the Song of Songs, in sexual ecstasy. Isaiah loves to remind us that this is a new thing he is doing; unlike with Egypt, which was absolutely a compulsion, God’s new act is not at all forced; and our writers know that many will ignore the new thing unless it stirs desire.

Is our desire strong enough to allow Yhwh to do a new thing? Is it strong enough to live a perpetual Lent, where the call to repentence is as strong as our bodily desires for satisfying hunger, slaking thirst, and consummating sexuality?

Let us Bless the Lord.