The Circumcision of the Lord 2023

The New Year is inaugurated with the feast of the Circumcision of Lord: a purifying wound, a cutting off, a pact made in blood with God. The beginnings of salvation start anew with the first drop of blood shed by Lord, and in such a way the end becomes a beginning. Few things make the cyclical nature of time as obvious as the movement of Christian calendar, everything is repeated and made present again, round each cycle tears still fall on Good Friday, and we stand in suspense at the doors of the Church on Holy Saturday night. Even the circular shape of the foreskin itself recalls this experience, and the accompanying blood presents us with an image of time as a wound: the process of becoming – as opposed to Real Being – always accompanied by pain.

The cyclical experience of time is now often described in its negative and futile aspect, which we can identify with the violent and bloody nature of circumcision, but certainly there is a positive aspect as well. Time is described in our tradition as an image of eternity – here we can see the significance of the foreskin being a cut-off, wounded portion of God – the continual re-presentation of events is then a function of time’s participation in eternity, and in a way, this lifts us out of process into a more stable realm where everything exists in perfect simultaneity. Under this aspect, the repetition of things only increases their power, and this can be experientially grasped if one lives for a few years with a mind properly attuned.

Whether or not the coincidence of this feast and the New Year is an accident of history is a matter of debate, but this has no bearing on this wonderful symbolism, and ultimately, all things are a matter of Providence.

A Spirit of Nowhere

 

Towering rows of beige siding melts

In the haze of a plastic twilight

To recede past sight and blend with the horizon,

While miles of painted on concrete drips

Into a forever dilating

Maze of streets and thoroughfares

So vast they eclipse the sight and knowledge

Of human affairs or planning committees.

And here is the boy who clamours and shakes

To disembodied voices in the night,

Pacing endlessly through the confines of

An imperceptible part of nowhere.

Music and Contemplation 2: The Metaphysics of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The purpose of my previous article on music and contemplation was to bring out the metaphysical meaning of traditional music and its link with contemplation, but since I lack the patience to really flesh out my ideas the post did come across rather brief and unfocused, so here I just want to elaborate on the symbolism of music in a more concentrated way.

My main point was that religious chant and Indian classical music both point to the same truth that there is an immutable and primal God, and that there is a world of multiplicity that stands in relation to Him. This is probably the most basic outline of reality that can be drawn, and pre-modern contemplative music represents this outline in audible form. We can visually manifest this basic outline in the form of the Cross and all its variants, wherein the vertical portion of the Cross stands for God and the horizontal for manifestation (the melody). The melody of chant surrounding its harmonic centre is not a chaotic motion, the world did not emanate in a random fashion, and this is manifested by the use of modes in music, therefore, to break the mode is to break the order of creation. This latter point is made more explicit when we consider the esoteric meaning of the modes: their correspondences with the planets and elements. These correspondences and their place in traditional cosmology (I would like to more specifically comment on the meaning of the modes but I lack the knowledge) bring more depth to scales than if we viewed them merely as tools to make the music sound pleasing. Again, we can clearly see this in the Indian tradition, as different ragas are set to be performed at different times of the day and in different seasons, the music is in tune with the world...

Music and Contemplation

Saraswati: goddess of music, wisdom, art, and knowledge

The spirit that animates the music of traditional civilizations is very different than the one which dominates our modern Western culture. I think that one of the factors behind this great difference is the West's exaltation of action which has become opposed to contemplation.

It does not take great powers of perception to see that Western society is propelled by action, there is a tangible and inescapable obsession with work and production, and we see the fruits of this all around us: from our private time spent gazing into the void of virtual worlds to the sparkling towers which dominate the horizon of the earth. Activity which is not entertainment or work has no place in such a world, intellectual activity is not understood and even looked down upon, this is the natural result of the unnatural glorification of action, and it poisons everything it comes into contact with. Much has been written on this wide and important topic, and it is not my purpose to set forth a full exposition of the significance of contemplation and action (for this I would recommend Pieper's Leisure the Basis of Culture and Guenon's The Crisis of the Modern World), here I wish only to focus on how these principles apply to music and see what deeper meanings we can draw from them. As always, what I say here is only some aspects of the greater picture, not an exhaustive or perfect treatment.

Trinity Sunday 2021

O never-failing and radiant dawn,

Dweller of the heavens, the eternal east,

Triune Deity alone and unseen

Seated in a shroud of limitless light.

Now behold this throne in the heart of man

Who is but dust and air, a nothingness

When compared to He who is within him,

Closer than the breath and hot flowing veins.

And inwardly the sacred change affects,

As when eyes are opened and dissolve to flame,

Flying like a moth to the eternal glance,

And man is transformed by the vision gained.

At the Feet

 

The feast of Candlemas: a throng of faithful gathered together before the Holy Mysteries in the unassuming confines of a simple basement. Here I had the privilege of sitting on the ground before the feet of the priest when he turned from the altar to expound upon the Holy Word.

Now despite my romantic portrayal of this rather routine event – a sermon – it did prompt some reflection on the transmission of the philosophical/religious doctrine, and why we have far the most part lost this transmission. My experience of receiving the Christian teaching at the feet of a man instilled reverence in my soul not only for the Word but for the man who was teaching it to me. I remembered the importance the Hindus place on having a real human being as a spiritual/intellectual guide. It is safe to say that in the Indian traditions you can’t get anywhere without an authentic teacher, the guru is the one who dispels the darkness in his disciples, and for this reason is given a high degree of veneration. I read recently that Ramakrishna said that a disciple would get absolutely no where if he viewed his guru as merely a man.

Why a Catholic Should Study Eastern Religion

How do I love God and not a product? This is a very important question for those of us who live in the modern West, we who are deprived of organic culture and saturated in a materialist outlook. Those who are not content with what the world gives them are unfortunately by necessity forced to ground themselves in something of their own choosing: religion, philosophy, lifestyle etc. The problem this creates in the Catholic realm is that of a devotion to certain positions (liberal, traditional), schools (Thomistic, Nouvelle Theologie), or forms of liturgical praxis. As long as one assents to certain propositions of a system they have all they need, what goes along with this is usually a strong sentimental attachment to things that accidentally go along with the system, anything else is suspect or downright anathema.

These points of view are elegantly marketed to us in the form of religious products, and it seems like we have to subscribe to one of these endlessly multiplying products in order to be a “good” Catholic. We are no longer just consumers of goods, but now ideas and lifestyles are advertised and consumed in the same manner. Every package seems to think that it’s got it all. I think this phenomenon is inevitable in our individually driven society, but it’s a view that I think can be broken out of slowly.

Chant in its Natural Environment

 

Religious chanting is an event, therefore the music only fully conveys its power in the context of the divine services they are appointed for. It is best heard by listening to those who really live within it, complete with all the mistakes, coughs, hoarseness, and movement around the choir.

Against Beer and Bacon Theology

What is Beer and Bacon Theology? Well it's certainly not a concise set of propositions, a coherent system, or thought of one man or specific group, it is instead based on a general inchoate mentality towards the use of base pleasures, specifically alcohol. The attitude I take issue with is one that I’ve personally encountered having been around very conscious Catholics and institutions for a few years now. The most concrete example I can think of is that of people who put a caricature of Chesterton and Belloc at the heart of their thinking; they seek to divinize the pleasures of food and especially drink, I term this view Beer and Bacon Theology, or, as a Catholic Answers article put it, Theology of the Bottle.

While I haven’t found anything these people say that is explicitly objectionable – their statements on the virtues of eating and drinking are always qualified by admonitions against drunkenness and excess – there is still something troubling to me about the way they approach alcohol, and the mentality that they are fostering amidst the Catholic culture. On the surface Beer and Bacon Theology seems to breed merely a pretentiousness surrounding drinking with its insistence on high quality and decorum, but deeper than that is something that seems to me truly disordered and corrosive to the culture.

Procession of the Black Madonna

Below is Carlo Levi's description of a Marian procession held in a village of Southern Italy in the mid 1930s. 

“In the afternoon, when the heat of the day had subsided, there was a procession, beginning at the church and winding its way through the village … first in line were boys carrying poles with white sheets and cloths attached to them for banners which they waved in the breeze, then the band players from Stigliano with their loud and shiny brasses. After them, on a throne supported by two long shafts, which a dozen men at a time took turns in carrying, came the Madonna.

 ...

Amid this warlike thundering there was no happiness or religious ecstasy in the people’s eyes; instead they seemed prey to a sort of madness, a pagan throwing off of restraint, and a stunned or hypnotized condition; all of them were highly wrought up. The animals ran about wildly, goats leaped, donkeys brayed, dogs barked, children shouted, and women sang. Peasants with baskets of wheat in their hands threw fistfuls of it at the Madonna, so that she might take thought for the harvest and bring them good luck. The grains curved through the air, fell on the paving stones and bounced up off them with a light noise like that of hail. The black-faced Madonna, in the shower of wheat, among the animals, the gunfire, the trumpets, was no sorrowful Mother of God, but rather a subterranean deity, black with the shadows of the bowels of the earth, a peasant Persephone, or lower-world goddess of the harvest.

...

They pinned to the Madonna's robes five and ten lire notes and even dollar bills jealously saved from their labours in America. Most of them, however, hung garlands of dried figs around her neck or put eggs and fruit at her feet; they ran after her with other gifts when the procession had already moved on and mingled with the throng amid the noise of the trumpets and the shooting and shouting. As the procession advanced it became more and more crowded and uproarious, until, after it had gone through the entire village, it went back into the church. A few heavy drops of rain fell, but soon the wind swept away the clouds, the storm blew over and calm returned along with the first evening stars."

- Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli

I believe that Carlo Levi's description of the event as "pagan" to be very apt, for there is more in Catholicism (especially in its folk expression) that retains elements of our pre-Christian heritage than most would like to admit. When Catholicism isn't sanitized for a modern intellectual culture it tends to take on an ecstatic character with a ritualistic language and expression that is foreign to us, this is due to our lost connection with the land and lack of reliance upon divine powers for our daily necessities. Levi's book was immensely interesting for displaying this pre-modern worldview and way of life.

Conscious Catholicism

There was a brief but important time in my life when I thought that everybody would subscribe to my version of high-powered Catholicism, if only they were given the right education and means to do so. I now believe that this was an impossible dream, as my attraction to such things is – in reality – highly eccentric. The amount of people that will live up to the demands of modern Catholicism and “take their faith seriously” will always be the significant minority.  And indeed, this has always been the case, the difference now is that there seems to be little room for the “cultural Catholic” in the post-Vatican II world of active and enlightened faith.

Among traditional and conservative Catholics, there is a persistent and shrill cry against the enemy of people who only go to church (often only twice a year) out of purely human or cultural obligation. These normal people rarely think of religious questions, unconsciously follow the ways of the world, and certainly do not read the Summa for fun and edification; yet still feel compelled to enter the doors of their local Catholic church for holidays or family functions.

What the traditionalist fails to realize about this way of life is that it really is what held together the traditional societies of pre-modern times. The only difference now is that simply attending to religious duty out of familial allegiance or cultural obligation means far less than it did even 100 years ago (especially in Western Europe and North America). For nearly everyone in traditional societies, adhering to the faith simply meant doing what everyone else did, and this was living according to cycle of religious feasts and fasts, and following the norms dictated by society, which were greater in number and often harshly enforced. Those who went above and beyond this became clerics and monks. But the average man would just go with the stream of society, and his more personal devotion was performed to gain heavenly intercession through the saints in order to put food on the table and avoid a horrid death at the callous hands of nature. Just living according to these norms at their bare minimum gave one a secured place in the community and the Church.