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– St. Thomas Aquinas
And thy Lord inspired the bee, saying: Choose thou habitations in the hills and in the trees and in that which they thatch; Then eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of thy Lord, made smooth (for thee). There cometh forth from their bellies a drink diverse of hues, wherein is healing for mankind. Lo! herein is indeed a portent for people who reflect.
- The Koran 16:68-69
I have spend some considerable time in the church lately – out of desperation rather than devotion – seeking succour and protection, taking refuge from the world. I spend some time in prayer at the altar, and then move into the chapel where I contemplate the icon of the Madonna and Christ Child. Falling, needing to be upheld, I try and rest in the love and support that each gives the other in that sublime image.
One Sunday, Father Ken opened the door in the eastern wall of the chapel and taught on the need for the Church to look out into the world and for the world to look into the Church. The door must be open so that each may gaze at the other. The next morning, or perhaps the morning of the day following that (I have at the moment no clear sense of the passage of time), the chapel door was open again, letting in the clear morning sunlight. I had become accustomed to the activity of the birds as they busied themselves on the church roof but this day, as I moved into the chapel, the sounds of the world, the activity of God's creatures on a fine morning, the scents of warm earth and floral perfumes were carried into the chapel and I was compelled to sit in the warm sunlight in the chapel dsoorway and to look out onto the world, to be both in the Church and in the world.
The door must be open , the priest taught.
The nineteenth Psalm begins: “ The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. ” We are assured that the created order proclaims the Lord and when our Lord invites us to “consider the lilies of the field” and “behold the fowls of the air” or when he speaks of vines or mustard seeds, he invites us to learn from the natural world, which is perfect in and for God. Unable to betray their own natures, animals and plants are, effortlessly, perfect expressions of God in a way that we as men and women are not. What is effortless for the meanest creature is almost impossible for us. They are Grace. They are a word from His Word. Revelations from God, the life of Christ and the life of Creation, we can learn from them, we must learn from them. We must participate in them: “partakers of Christ” [1] through his Church and through His World. We must participate in the sacraments – our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Christian rites call them mysteries – of the Church and the sacraments of the World, these outward expressions of an inward Grace.
This day as I sat in the doorway of the chapel in the sun I saw many things; most importantly I saw a tree and a butterfly. And they taught me, tried to teach me, what it means to commune with them as a sacrament, to participate in a revealed mystery of God.
That tree – I know not what kind – was turning with the autumn; some of his almond shaped leaves were still green, others yellow, and many already gone, having heard the call of the season. That tree was in a state of transition – he is always in such a state – following the ebb and flow of the seasons. In spring he has vigour and generates new life, in summer he perseveres in strength against extremity, in autumn he declines, preparing for his dormition in the immoderate winter. He lives, and to live is to move.
At times he has lost limbs, either to the elements or the gardener, and he bears the traces of these losses still. At times he has thrived and at times he has shrivelled. He has been well fed, and he has starved, he has been healthy and he has been diseased. But through all of this he has remained; patient, silent, his trunk remains strong and his roots hold deep in the earth. He cannot flee, he is bound by his strength. He is naked and maimed, but before all this he simply, softly, powerfully, is . He suffers the travails of time, stands in the elements unsheltered, bears the wounds of his deep past, but still this tree holds deep in the earth. In his travels he is still, he is inviolable, he is eternal. He is .
You must be like me , the tree, my brother, taught.
I saw a butterfly in the grass in front of me. How unlike the tree! The butterfly is fragile and transitory – was fragile and transitory – for she must be dead by now: her life brief and precarious. Her body is soft and her wings delicate. She is a creature of a day and, fleeting, she is gone. But as she explores the grass, as she floats on the breeze out of sight and back again, each moment is lived in such a profound fullness, in such nowness , that eternity springs within her and its enormity can barely contain the fullness of each imperceptible, infinitely small, grain of time in the tiny life of that tiny creature. She lives, and to live is to be still.
I could stretch out my hands and crush the butterfly; it would require no strength, no real resolve, almost nothing of me, she is so slight. But this is nothing to the butterfly for she dwells in eternity, in the fullness of the now that has no end. In her activity she is perfectly, sublimely, still. Her fragility, her short span of mere days, is inconsequential in the full sun of the eternal now which she never leaves. She is .
You must be like me , the butterfly, my sister, taught.
How different! How akin! Two terms of the one pole – my brother, my sister –each touching upon and dwelling in the eternal, divine centre. Immediate and everlasting; each windows onto God; the same window, the same icon. The Infinite marvellously contained in the finite; the universal door given here in this doorway for this particular man. He runs motionless through the ages and she is eternal in the perpetual calm of her fleeting industry. Each a Grace, each the fullness of Grace.
You must be like us , they – my brother, my sister – taught, and the door must be open .
As a creature, I must be the Mother of God, the mother of my divinity: “ Woman, behold thy son! ” as adopted god, I must be the Son of Man, the son of my creaturehood: “ Behold thy mother!” [2] Holy Mother, Holy Son, how you uphold each other! Your door is open. Hail Mary full of Grace “ Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” [3]
Dear Lord, dear Mother, my heart is listening but it still does not understand; the eye of my heart knows not what it sees. My bare blind feet feel for a path. Lord, help me find your Infinite Presence in me and, Holy Mother, help me find my presence in You. Lord and Mother, let me rest and move in that.
Graeme Castleman
The other day, pottering in the kitchen, I found myself mid way through singing the Gloria in a strong, loud voice. I did not know when I started, but for that moment I felt as though I had been singing it my whole life. In that moment, I could see the light that is shining from under that door.
[1] Heb. 3:14
[2] Jn 19:27, 26.
[3] Lk 1:42.