Death’s not so dusty

The following is a meditation by Fr Gregory Murphy OP, onetime Godzdogz contributor, now working on the parish of St Dominic's, London where he edits the weekly parish newsletter. Photographs record the visit of friars from the London community to the graves of the brethren buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.

Appropriately enough at this time of the year, we find ourselves dwelling on death, and not just because of the alarm waking us to dark, dank mornings. In the Church calendar this is the month in which we pray especially for the Holy Souls; and we’ve celebrated last week All Saints and All Souls, echoed this week by the same feasts in the Dominican calendar – for all the saints of the Order of Preachers, and the Commemoration of our deceased brothers and sisters (more out of specific gratitude than general insecurity, I think). The secular calendar for once keeps time with us, with the ceremonies of Remembrance Sunday linked to the 11th November, the day the armistice was signed which ended the First World War, when we remember all those who have fallen in war and conflicts, combatants or not. All this can seem bleak. We might find ourselves prone to a sense of futility, even despair, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth finding life to be ‘the way to dusty death’; as Schubert’s winter traveller, in the first song of Winterreise, realising that he ‘… cannot choose the time/For my journey;/I must find my own way/In this darkness’; for we too will die. But we should not grieve over our deaths, or for those we know who have died, Paul insists (1 Thess. 4: 13), as others do who have no hope. For our hope is founded on the risen Christ.

This side of two thousand-odd years of well-intended pious platitudes it can be difficult for us to appreciate just how audacious that hope is. After all, the ancient world’s take on life after death ranged from our being remembered by our successors through being (more subjectively) ineffectual ghosts haunting a gray netherworld (Hades, Sheol) to sleeping the long night on and on – hardly that much to hope for. Yet we can read the Old Testament as foreshadowing Christ’s resurrection. Many texts wrestle with how the wicked seem to prosper and the just suffer; but the hope for vindication by God remained. For example, in the Wisdom literature, Job – a fictional character who embodies the problem of innocent suffering – asserts his hope in ultimate vindication by God: ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth … and in my flesh I shall see my God'. Throughout the long years of the Covenant God's people had become convinced of his justice, his love and care for the poor and oppressed. In his love he often showed mercy, going beyond justice and forgiving sins - but he would not be unjust, would not fail to vindicate his friends. From this slowly-dawning conviction of God’s faithfulness comes the hope that God’s love extends beyond this life – for all life is God’s gift, and God will raise his friends to new life. We can see that hope expressed in the story of the torture of the Maccabees by the pagan Greeks and in the psalms.

So some of the Jews, when God came among them as Jesus, had some concept of a life beyond this present one, of life with God. Others, like the Sadducees, did not. Josephus tells us Sadducees were urban aristocrats, conservative in their beliefs (they accepted only the first five books of the Jewish scriptures, the Torah, not the Prophets or Wisdom writings or late works like the books of the Maccabees). Their query to Jesus about the woman married to seven brothers is no genuine seeking of knowledge, since it assumes what in fact they explicitly deny, life after death. Jesus makes a case for the resurrection based on the account of Moses’ experience at the burning bush. The declaration that ‘I am the God’ of patriarchs who have died means that in some sense they still live; ‘for to him all of them are alive’. The proof of resurrection, then, is the living God. Resurrection is our standing in the sight of God, being part of God’s life, God’s future, but this is not merely an extension of our present existence, it involves a radical change. Resurrection entails transformation: our transformation into members of the Body of Christ, dying with him so that we can be raised with him. And that transformation begins now, as we begin to live in the Spirit of God, in justice, faithfulness and hope.

Cyril Hilary Anderson O.P.(1920-1990)

Born on the 3rd December 1920 in Peckham Rye, Cyril Anderson felt called to the religious life from an early age. He was a postulant with the Carthusians at Parkminster but felt that his vocation was not within the monastery. He trained as an electrical engineer but still felt called to the religious life.

In 1939 he received the Dominican habit at Hawkesyard and made profession the following September. He would spend seven years at Hawkesyard during which he re-wired nearly the whole priory. His skills as an electrician would be displayed throughout his life and he would also re-wire the whole of Blackfriars Hall in London.

He moved to Woodchester in 1947 where he acted as school manager for ten years. He also taught music briefly at Llanarth but he returned to Hawkesyard in 1969 where he remain for another nine years. He had suffered from ill-health throughout his life due to a heart problem but his health deteriorated rapidly after he moved to Leicester in 1988 and he died in 1990, aged 69, with 49 years of profession.

Cyril was a quiet and self-effacing brother who was known for his gentleness, kindness and helpfulness. His life demonstrates the full and fruitful ministry of a co-operator brother. His skill as an electrician and his talent as an educator were great gifts to the province. He was also an accomplished musician and played the organ at both Hawkesyard and Woodchester.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,

through the mercy of God,

rest in peace,

Amen.

Doctor Veritatis

Teacher of Truth

Recently we had a vocations open day at Blackfriars Oxford, a chance for those pondering religious life to have a look at a Dominican house and chat to some of the brothers about the Order, our life, and our mission. I was struck over the course of the day by how often I was asked the question - each time expressed in a slightly different way - what is Dominican spirituality?

This can be something of a tricky question for Dominicans to answer because the systematic methods or techniques of mental prayer that have become synonymous with 'spirituality' emerged centuries after the Order's foundation. Indeed, an elderly friar once told me that he didn't believe in 'spirituality', but he believed in the Holy Spirit, his point being that for Dominicans, a spiritual life is one that is guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit in all its aspects and dimensions. St. Dominic bequeathed us a way of life and a mission, not a methodology. Yet if this tradition is to lead both those that hear us preach and the brothers themselves to God, it must be founded on the one true God. That is, it must be founded on Truth. Hence Veritas - truth- is the motto of the Order of Preachers.

Both the Old and New Testaments witness to the immense danger of individuals, communities and societies founding their lives on falsity, the danger of founding our lives on what is not God. When we make the pursuit of created or human things our purpose we turn these created things into idols, false gods. These idols inevitably stifle our humanity, trapping us in ideas and practices that inhibit our flourishing. Christ promises that the truth will set us free (John 8: 32). As Dominicans, then, our prayer, our common life, our study, and our preaching should be orientated towards exposing these idols that enslave humanity and, like St. Dominic, preaching instead the one true God who has revealed his great love for us in Christ Jesus. A life founded on Christ is a life founded on love, a love that is true, a love more powerful than death.

Praying for our deceased brethren

On 8 November, the Dominicans commemorate our deceased brothers and sisters in the Order, those who, having completed the tasks of this life, have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. This year, the friars from Oxford visited Wolvercote cemetery where they prayed and blessed the graves of their brothers buried there.

The following is a reading from the Dominican Proper, which may be read on this day during Matins. It is by fr. Pierre André Liégé OP:

"Our faith in the sacrifice and death of Christ proclaims this event as the fountain and gate of all things which, in our life, take the form of sacrifice and renunciation. For does not the Living God, through the cross of Jesus, reveal a God who turns death, as well as the other evils and calamities in our life, into a living hope? Did not Jesus in his own sacrifice fully restore the relationships of humanity to God by accepting the ultimate spiritual agony?

To die together with Christ is to be bound over to the following of him, eagerly persisting in this very hope and in spiritual combat. Indeed, through spiritual combat we are freed together with Christ when for the love of God and of one another we expend ourselves, no matter what the cost, in opposing whatever falsehood or injustice, danger or violence, hatred or the plotting of the powerful, or fear that may stand in the way. In hope, however, we are bound over to Christ when from the depths of our death, or of our own hopelessness of weaknesses, or of the unbelief or hopelessness of others — all those things utterly blameworthy in our life — we entrust ourselves completely to the care of the Living God."

Dominican Bishop Wins International Human Rights Prize

José Raúl Vera López O.P., Bishop of Saltillo, Mexico, has been awarded the 2010 Rafto Prize for his defence of human rights and social justice.

He has been an uncompromising critic of power abuse and a fearless defender of migrants, indigenous peoples, and other groups at risk in Mexican society. He has also bravely spoken out against the powerful drug cartels, who wield much power in his diocese, which borders the United States.

He has been a constant defender of those on the fringes of Mexican society and critic of those in the military, police and government who abuse their authority.


More information about Bishop Lopez and the Rafto Prize can be found here

O lumen Ecclesiæ

St Dominic is frequently depicted with a star around his forehead, because his mother, Blessed Juana de Aza saw this appear during his baptism. This legend is corroborated with this description of the saint by Blessed Cecilia of Rome: “From his forehead and between his eyebrows a radiant light shone forth, which drew everyone to revere and love him”. Hence, the antiphon to St Dominic begins by referring to him as lumen Ecclesiæ, ‘light of the Church’, and this description says something about St Dominic, and his Order.

Light is something that we seldom notice when it is present; we just take it for granted that it ought to be there, whether as natural sunlight, or with the flick of a switch. As something intrinsically good, like truth, or goodness, or beauty, we feel light’s absence more than its presence. Light is necessary for our well-being, and serves our greater good. Light enters a building through its windows, so each window panel is sometimes called a light. When the light shines through the windows of a church, it gives form, colour, and life to the images of Christ, the saints, and the angels. Thus they become present to us, and so the light may be said to preach.

But notice the humility of the light. It doesn’t draw attention to itself, but serves others’ needs, makes their lives better, and ultimately, proclaims the truth and goodness of God, the one true Light. Hence, St Dominic, this most humble of great saints, left us a mission of preaching and the salvation of souls rather than any personal Rule, or writings, or personality cult. His sole aim was to shine a light on the Faith by assiduous preaching, and an apostolic way of life, and to allow the light of God’s truth to illumine our lives through study and contemplation, so that we might see better, and thus, live more abundantly. And he did this from his beginnings as a cathedral canon at Osma from within the Church and her structures. Thus he founded a clerical Order, and he is truly called a light of the Church.

Inspired by him, let us also be a light to those around us, for it is “better to shine a light than to curse the darkness”.

The Antiphon 'O Lumen'

From the 14th century it was a custom in the Order to sing the Magnificat Antiphon for the Feast of St Dominic after the Salve Regina at the end of Compline every day. This antiphon, O Lumen Ecclesiae, will form the subject of a series of meditations beginning tomorrow. Here is the full text:

O LUMEN ECCLESIAE, DOCTOR VERITATIS,

ROSA PATIENTIAE, EBUR CASTITATIS,

AQUAM SAPIENTIAE PROPINASTI GRATIS:

PRAEDICATOR GRATIAE, NOS IUNGE BEATIS.

The usual English translation is as follows:

O light of the church, teacher of truth,

rose of patience, ivory of chastity,

You freely poured forth the waters of wisdom,

preacher of grace unite us with the blessed.

In Eastertide the antiphon ends with Alleluia. We hope you enjoy this series of posts which will be published during the month of November. Here is a recording of the community at Blackfriars, Oxford, singing the O Lumen: