A contemporary print of someone being racked in this country. This month, on May 4th, we celebrated the feast of over 300 English and Welsh martyrs. Jesus told his followers that they would suffer for the sake of the Kingdom, and even be put to death. This prediction has been fulfilled countless times. Most martyrs suffered terrible tortures. Reading accounts of their suffering can terrify us everyday Christians. The question arises: how can they endure so much? Maybe we are overlooking the grace of God. See this account of the life of one young English Martyr, St. Alexander Briant. St Alexander Briant (1556-1581) was a former pupil of one of the first Jesuits to come to England, Father Robert Parsons, who arrived here with St Edmund Campion in 1580. Alexander entered the seminary at Douai France, and was ordained priest in 1578. He was assigned to the English mission in August of the following year to work as a priest in his own county of Somerset. At that time it was against the law for a Catholic "Seminary Priest" to enter and minister here. The penalty was death. After working only briefly he was arrested in April 1581 by a group who were searching for Father Parsons. After spending some time in Counter Prison, London, he was taken to the Tower where he was subjected to tortures that, even in Elizabethan England, stand out for their viciousness. The rack master admitted that Briant was “racked more than any of the rest,” and following a public outcry the torturer was imprisoned for a few days for cruelty. With six other priests Briant was arraigned, on November 16, 1581, on the charge of high treason, and condemned to death. In a letter to the Jesuit Fathers in England written from prison he says that he felt no pain during the various tortures he underwent, and adds: “Whether this that I say be miraculous or no, God knoweth, but true it is.” He was scarcely more than twenty-five years old on 1 December, the day of his martyrdom. He suffered with St Edmund Campion and St Ralph Sherwin. They were hung drawn and quartered. There were about 350 people martyred during the English Reformation. In the past century more catholics have been martyred than in the whole previous nineteen centuries. Instead of dreading the pains of martyrdom, we need to remember that Jesus is always with us, and that he will never allow us to suffer more than we can bear.
It is only in recent years that brain-imaging has developed. That is using MRI, CT and PET scans to visualise the structure and functioning of the brain. With it, we can see neurons in the brain lighting up and sparking into connections when someone is thinking. It is fascinating and could provide untold potential for curing mental disorders. From this new development, a large number of people have concluded that consciousness and thinking are governed by physical brain activity alone. What is the Christian response to that view? It really is a matter of your point of view, your philosophy or your religion. If you believe that there is only a material universe and that thinking is an accidental occurrence in the random development of the cosmos, you may well say that it is the brain that governs thought and consciousness. There are a lot of people who have this world-view, and there is a great deal of discussion going on about “consciousness” among various branches of science, which gets more and more confusing. The Christian world-view is that before there ever was a material universe there has always existed a non-material Triune God, three infinitely distinct persons living in total harmony - so total that they can be said to live within each other, and are correctly described as “one”. That is not just a number, but an accurate description of their complete unity. From God’s life of utter love, God created the material universe so that we humans, beings who are created in the divine image, can flourish and grow to the point of joining in the life of the Trinity for ever. So from the Christian world-view, we ask the question the other way round. How does consciousness, thinking, and knowing act upon the material brain? It is fascinating, and like many other novel questions in the past, we will find that modern discoveries will only support the Christian world-view. Thinking and knowing do not function because the brain works that way. The brain works that way because we are more than material beings and the brain functions because we think and know and are conscious. We can not be reduced to some advanced AI- type machine. We are spirits as well as material bodies. We are persons , like God, who cannot be reduced solely to physical terms. We are mysterious beings - spiritual, yet embedded in the material world. Salvation is when both come to complete maturity and integration. That is why the word of God entered our lovely world, to restore it and to bring it to completion. Its eventual fullness can only be guessed at, because it is too glorious to put into the words of this preliminary stage of our development. Which world-view echoes most with your sense of being human?
THE SPREAD OF GREEK WISDOM About five centuries before Christ, a big flowering of human thinking sprang up in Greece. Socrates began to teach the youth of Athens to think deeply. Two things he concentrated on were what makes a person good, and how to understand this pursuit of goodness. For the first he used the words “the just man” and for the second “wisdom”. This search for wisdom became known as “Philosophy”, the Greek word meaning “the love of wisdom”. Socrates’ foremost student was Plato, whose great disciple was Aristotle. They are all known as the founders of Western Philosophy. Philip, king of Macedonia, called Aristotle to his capital to oversee the education of his precocious son, Alexander (the Great) Once he became king, Alexander set out to conquer the empires of Persia, Egypt and parts of India. He died at the age of 32, but his Greek empire endured, and it ensured that Greek culture and thought became the dominant culture for centuries. When, the Roman Empire grew and reached its pinnacle about the time of Christ, covering the whole of the Mediterranean world and much of the Near East, it was still practicing Greek culture and the common language of the empire was Greek - Latin only took over after 300 AD. That is why most of the New Testament was written by Jews, but mainly in Greek. That is because the majority of Jews lived outside Israel all over the Empire. Even the Greek Version of the Old Testament compiled by the Hebrew School in Alexandria, Egypt, in the century before Christ was the one most widely used worldwide. That is the source of our Bible. This domination of Greek philosophy and culture posed a special problem for the Jews. Their thought and culture was formed through their centuries old journey with God. Their geographical position on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean was at the point where Asia, Africa and Europe met - it was the strategic crossroad of three continents, and everyone wanted to control it. The Jews never had a quiet life because it was constantly fought over by the big powers. And all these powers sought to influence them away from their calling to be the People of God. For centuries before and after Christ it was the Greek philosophy which was their greatest challenge. When, in 1 Corinthians 1, 22, St Paul’s states that the “Greeks look for Wisdom”, he sums up Greek thought, by rightly identifying it as a huge Human effort to attain goodness. Although the search for goodness is central to our humanity, Jewish/Christian wisdom knows that this can only be achieved in humble partnership with our Creator. We, like Paul, know that this humble partnership was achieved and is gifted to us by the Crucified Christ. The wisdom books of the Old Testament If we want to understand the Wisdom books of the Old Testament (Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Wisdom, Job, Ecclesiasticus-Sirach), we must understand that they were written in the two centuries before Christ, to counter the powerful influence of Greek philosophy. The key to them, is the affirmation that wisdom, far from being a purely human activity, only flowers in relationship with God. Their authors used a common form of writing of their time by styling their books as being written by a revered character from the ancient Jewish past like King Solomon. The early Christian authorities understood this, but, as the centuries rolled on, people came to believe that these ancient sages were the real authors of these books, rather than their being much more recent responses to the Greek philosophy which dominated thought in the few centuries before Christ. The wars of the Macabees was also part of the battle between the two cultures, Jewish and Greek. These two opposing world views were the only ones with any staying power in the centuries before Christ. While the Greek dominated for a long time, the Jewish world-view spread all over the Roman empire as most Jews emigrated and traded, preparing the way for Christianity's vigorous spread. It was first preached to the exiled Jews all over the Roman Empire, but quickly spread to the other peoples. In the middle ages, the great insights of Greek philosophy were blended into our modern thinking by such great geniuses as St Thomas Aquinas.
For years I have heard spiritual guides saying that it is our wills that are crucial in the prayer of the heart. I have to admit that I have found it difficult to make sense of this, because it sounds like muscular Christianity which I have found inadequate. I imbibed a strong moralising religion as a child, which meant learning what was right and willing myself to do it – this was especially reinforced by the image of a fearsome God who was keeping the score. The result was a sense of failure combined with frequent resolutions to do better. I know that was not true religion, which is about relating to the God who is love. What I was practicing was a throwback to Old Testament keeping of the law. I think that is what Jesus was talking about when he described John the Baptist as the greatest man born of woman, but added ‘yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is’ . He said: ‘Since John the Baptist came, up to this present time, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence and the violent are taking it by storm’ . (Matthew 11, 11). Muscular Christianity with its stress on will power uses violence against self and even against others to take the kingdom of heaven by storm. So why do the greatest spiritual guides keep saying that the will is central? A clue lies in The Catechism of the Catholic Church’s chapter on prayer (paragraph 2563). The explanation begins with the heart: “The heart is the dwelling-place where I live. According to the Semitic (Jewish) or Biblical expression, the heart is the place ‘to which I withdraw.’ The heart is our hidden centre, beyond the grasp of our reason and of other people; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully.” The Catechism’s explanation then shifts the focuses to the heart’s movement and actions beyond itself: “The heart is the place of decision , deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as images of God we live through relationship: it is the place of covenant” (my underlining). I find the words ‘decision’ and ‘choose’ more helpful than ‘will’. As I spend time in silent prayer seeking the face of God, with the conscious attempt to love him and let myself be loved by him, it is the constant renewing of the decision and choice which gradually solidifies an attitude of love in my heart. Much of the time, there is no feeling or understanding of this living relationship, but, as time goes on, I am aware that that relationship is an attitude developing in my heart. That awareness rises up from my heart to my mind more and more throughout the day and night. It is like a catch of a tune springing up in the mind. But the word ‘will’ or 'will power' certainly describes the strength needed when there is temptation. I find that it is easier to resist temptation when I am aware of the Father’s love and Jesus’ closeness. It is when these are obscured that my will must operate most strongly. Usually it is not a matter of willing to do something, but rather a tenacious clinging on in the dark to the hand of God. That takes grit, in which I am often lacking, but as the relationship grows I expect my will to grow stronger. WHAT IS THE USE OF TEMPTATION? We might ask: what does temptation have to do with contemplation? Temptation is never far away from one who contemplates. The Evil One knows only too well what power for good flows from the lovers of God. He hates contemplation and tries to disrupt it whenever he can. Thankfully, God shields his lovers much of the time, but at others he permits us to be tempted. It is not that he is abandoning us then, but he is turning the Devils weapons back on his own head. Each time we overcome temptation with the help of God's grace, not only is the Devil weakened, but also our own inner self grows stronger. It is in that struggle, that we are tested and purified like gold in a furnace. When undergoing temptation it is important to remember four basic Catholic teachings. God will never allow us to be tempted beyond our strength. But often we will not appreciate what strength we have with the aid of God's grace until after struggle is over. All temptations eventually pass. Temptation is not sin. Sin is where we willingly indulge a temptation and welcome it into our souls. Then it restricts our capacity to experience God's love. In that state of deprivation we allow evil to become stronger in ourselves and the whole world. Temptations arise from virtues that are wounded and twisted. Anger, for instance, is a God-given power of our soul to remove evil with extraordinary force. When anger is diseased, that force is used to harm and hurt. The saints and spiritual teachers mean something much deeper than 'will power' when they use the word 'will'. We shall consider that in Chapter 12 in this series 'Prayer of the heart'. QUESTION How are you finding my thoughts on the prayer of the heart/contemplation? I am sure I myself only see a small part of this deepest activity of our spirit. Would you care to add something of your own thoughts and experience? Use the 'comment on this article' button below.
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