Gaudete Sunday and the oblation of Michelle Kate Allen
The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 61 pt. 1
Today's passage from the Rule correlates well with today's celebration of Gaudete (Rejoice!) Sunday. A Benedictine community is instructed here to open itself to receive with rejoicing whatever God has to give through the presence of the visiting monastic. This is a posture of the heart that Caryll Houselander identifies as the "virginal quality" embodied by St. Mary. Listen to her words from The Reed of God.
"That virginal quality, which, for want of a better word, I call emptiness is the beginning of contemplation.
It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it was intended.
It is emptiness like the hollow in a reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can only have one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.
It is emptiness like the hollow in the cup, shaped to receive water or wine.
It is an emptiness like that of a bird's nest, built in a warm, round ring to receive the little bird.
The pre-Advent emptiness of our Lady's purposeful virginity was indeed like those three things.
She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.
She was a flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love and lifted up in sacrifice.
She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird."
We are each to seek this virginal quality within ourselves. We are each "to receive the piper's breath and utter the song that is in his heart." We are each to free ourselves from our attachments to the particulars of our circumstantial landscape so that we can welcome the Divine Word that seeks a channel into the world. Kate's Act of Oblation today shows that she embodies this quality in her life. Let us listen together for the piper's song blowing through the reed of our growing community.
Br. Chad
This is probably the commentary I've struggled with most since I began reading this blog. On the one hand, I want to embody an attitude of openness--that is very much what today was about for me. On the other hand, the idea of being a female, virginal body, ready to receive whatever God wishes to place in me, is rather triggering--not because of God, but because of my experience with men (who think that only men have authority to be ministers, because Christ said so) who have declared that the woman's role is strictly to receive, rather than to give/offer something of herself.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate reading this from you, knowing that you don't believe women are strictly meant to be receivers of what others have to offer, even if the other is God. I also appreciate that you regard this stance of openness as one to which all of us--women and men--are called. I find it a hopeful and healing thing that I am safe to explore my discomfort here in this prayerful place, rather than assuming that my discomfort doesn't matter or is a sign of failure/inferiority.
Thank you.
Of course, all that being said, the metaphor of the piper's breath making music through the instrument of my body resonates strongly. The musician in me loves that.
DeleteThank you, Kate, for so graciously sharing your discomfort and for recognizing that it stems from a context that our community does not share. Indeed, I see what Houselander calls the "virginal quality" to be a state of being to which we are all called. My relationship with St. Mary is one wherein I look to her as a master of this state of being and ask her prayers and assistance as I seek to cultivate it within myself. The Annunciation is the very moment at which her mastery in this regard is manifest in the life of Church, and this is why we look to her as our patron.
ReplyDeleteI went searching for a copy of this book online but didn't see any copies available through the local library. Do you have a copy available for borrowing? I'm good about returning things on loan to me. :) If not, that's okay.
DeleteI don't own a copy, actually, but Fr. Gil does (I borrowed his for awhile).
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