Batter My Heart: John Donne's Holy Sonnet 14

More John Donne this week, as promised. This contemporary of Shakespeare has been criticized for writing poetry that's too intellectually convoluted, but his Holy Sonnet 14 must be one of the most emotional love poems to God in the English language. I will let the master speak for himself.

 

Holy Sonnet 14

by John Donne

 

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me,'and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I like an usurpsed town to'another due,

Labour to'admit You, but O, to no end.

Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captive, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly'I love You, and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed unto Your enemy;

Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,

Take me to You imprison me, for I,

Except You'enthral me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.

 

 

Read it slowly. Read it aloud. And marvel at the sheer beauty.





The Cross In All Things

This past Sunday the Church celebrated the glorious feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. The story behind the feastday is an extraordinary one: on the fourteenth of September we commemorate the day St. Helen, mother of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine the Great, discovered the True Cross on which Jesus Christ gave His life for the world.

I will not attempt today to plunge the profundities that such a feast holds. So many wiser and more beautiful things have been said about the Cross than I could ever write. I simply want to share a few tidbits of this literature on the Cross that have recently caught my attention.

First, a hymn from Vespers before the feast from the Eastern tradition. I love our prayers for Vespers and Matins on holy days. They dive into poetic and theological raptures on the feast, and we bring them to life again every year with voice and melody. Through these prayers we are truly immersed in the mysterious presence of the feast:

O Cross, you are the radiant sign among the stars.
In prophecy you have revealed the sign of victory to the godly king;
And when his mother Helena found you,
She displayed you in the sight of all the world.
Today the choirs of the faithful shout aloud as they raise you on high:
Enlighten us by your brightness, O life-giving and all-venerable Cross.
Make us holy by your might;
Strengthen us by your exaltation,
For you are raised up against our enemies.

Today the choirs shout; today make us holy. The emphasis on the present shifts the focus from a mere commemoration of the feast, to an actual participation in it. It reminds us that we are Christians today and galvanizes us to live as such.

Moving westward, I take my second piece of literature from the Elizabethan poet John Donne.



Although a contemporary of Shakespeare, Donne was not half as famous, probably because his poetry is so intellectually rigorous and not all easy to understand. Nonetheless he wrote some very profound and beautiful lyrics, particularly religious poems. His Holy Sonnets are deservedly called gems and I may well write on them in more detail in the future. But today I draw attention to a few lines from a longer poem that he wrote called, simply, "The Cross":

Who can deny me power and liberty
To stretch mine arms and mine own cross to be?
Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy cross;
The mast and yard make one, where seas do toss.
Look down, thou spiest out crosses in small things;
Look up thou see'st birds raised on the crossed wings;
All the globe's frame, and spheres, is nothing else
But the meridians crossing parallels.
("The Cross", lines 17-24)

In other words, we may as well embrace the cross--because we can hardly avoid it! "All the globe's frame" reflects the astounding and glorious sacrifice of our Creator.

May the Holy Cross protect and sanctify all of us this week in our minds and hearts.



The Great Books Calling, Part 4

The fourth and final segment of a blog series on my journey to the Great Books and Wyoming Catholic College. Click the links to read the previous segments: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

My mind, heart, and soul were made up. I wanted to go to a Great Books college. It didn't matter that I had to explain to every other person what the Great Books were, or that some of them gave me strange looks when encountering the concept of a classical liberal arts education. I had a calling. I had been inspired--literally, a new zeal had been breathed into me, and I was not giving it up.

In the very first days of my new excitement I believed I was called to St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland (see Part 3). I loved their small community, their dynamic classroom approach, their intellectual rigor. In fact I was so overjoyed at finding a college that actually appealed to me, that I was reluctant to search farther. But, for the sake of thoroughness, I did. (Thank the Lord!) The next college website I visited was that of Wyoming Catholic College.

I had actually known about Wyoming Catholic, vaguely, for years. My mother worked in higher education, and we had friends of friends who were involved in its founding in 2005. But the only reason it had remained on my radar was because of its equestrian program. (I had known, even before I wanted the Great Books, that I wanted to ride during college.) Other than that, WCC seemed a mere blip on the map. They were less than ten years old. They had less than 150 students. They had no permanent campus. What kind of future could I possibly find there?

I very quickly found out.

That day in late spring of 2013, I pored over WCC's website. I instantly felt their Catholicity. I had not realized how much I had been missing that element in my college search; now it called out to my like a clarion trumpet. Here was a place a could not only keep my faith, but also nurture it. Next I swooned for their curriculum. From the giants like Plato and Shakespeare, to original scientific texts by Newton and Einstein, to the Bible and papal encyclicals--this was the real deal. I had been terrified of trapping myself in one discipline in college; no fear of that at WCC. Everyone took the same incredible classes; everyone learned to think like a poet, a philosopher, a theologian. And one more thing--a cowboy.

For it the faithful culture and solid curriculum of WCC drew me in, it was the outdoor program that hooked me for good. On the website, I marveled at photos--students horseback riding, scrambling up and down cliffs, hiking in pristine mountain wilderness. This was...different. Very different. This was like no other college I'd ever seen. What other school, first thing freshman year, took its students on a required three-week backpacking trip in the mountains? It was crazy. It was terrifying. It was kind of ingenious.

As a suburban Illinois girl, whose childhood had been filled with adventures in books, I was admittedly starved for wilderness. At Wyoming Catholic, I'd be immersed in it. I'd learn outdoor skills, teamwork, leadership, and wonder. I'd be surrounded by God's glory and the song of the mountains.

At that Wyoming Catholic became my number one college; number two became...actually, there wasn't a number two. But I couldn't wait two years. So I signed up for their summer program, P.E.A.K. (Powerful Experience of Adventure and Knowledge). Those two weeks this past July were some of the most beautiful and challenging of my life. I did study the Great Books. I did feel nurtured and strengthened in the deeply Catholic environment. I did see the song of the mountains, every morning, from the porch of my dorm. I did sleep among the sagebrush and the stars.

I also did a few crazy things, like this:


Australian rappelling--ie., walking headfirst down a cliff! That's me on the right, just starting to freak out...
(Photo by Mikaela Heal and Grace Pfeifer)

When I returned to my Chicago suburb, I found it...depressingly flat. But I know I'll be back. I've left a second home in Lander, WY. My Great Books calling led me to the mountains, where I saw beauty and felt terror and knew humility and joy as never before. In my mind, there is no question: I am a future student of Wyoming Catholic College.





Feathers & Trumpets: A Story of Hildegard of Bingen, by Joyce Ray

 

Recently I signed up as a volunteer on CatholicFiction.net, a wonderful site dedicated to "news, views, and reviews of classic and contemporary Catholic fiction." The following is my first book review for the site. My Great Books series will return next week.

 

When I picked up this book I knew little enough about St. Hildegard of Bingen--only that she was a medieval nun who composed music and wrote books, both of which activities were unusual for women of her time. However, thanks to Joyce Ray's beautiful and well-researched novel, I now have a much greater appreciation for this unique saint and Doctor of the Church.

 

Young Hildegard is an unusual girl. The tenth child of noble parents in 12th century Germany, she is from her birth destined to become a nun, thanks to the medieval practice of "tithing" every tenth child to the Church. As a girl she is plagued by headaches, fainting spells--and visions. She predicts the color and markings of a calf before it is born. She sees fantastic landscapes and ferocious mythical creatures. Troubled about the source of these visions, her family agrees Hildegard will be safer behind the walls of a monastery.

 

The plot follows Hildegard through her years of preparatory training, her profession as a Benedictine nun at the age of fourteen, her life as a secluded anchoress in St. Disibod Monastery, and later her leadership role among the larger community of nuns. All through these events her visions continue. Some are terrifying, others unbearably beautiful. Because Hildegard is still unsure whether the source of the visions is holy or evil, she only shares them with her two closest companions--her ascetic mentor Jutta and her beloved disciple, Richardis. But when a Voice out of a blinding light commands her to write down her visions, she cannot keep them a secret any longer. With the help of a monk named Volmar she begins recording God's revelations.

 

Hildegard's visions are some of the most beautiful prose passages in the story. All her life Hildegard searches for love in her fellow man, but she only finds love's consummation in her intense encounters with the living God:

 

"In the clear radiance, the blue was azurite, as pure as the pigment illuminating her Psalter. The point came nearer, took human form and shimmered with sapphire brilliance. The human figure gazed as Hildegard. She floated on a gentle current....She neared the radiant human, knowing that he was her destination, that he was the answer to her pain. But the current supporting her flowed faster now. It became a torrent of floodwaters that churned and sped her toward the shimmering sapphire which radiated heat. When the figure engulfed her, she knew instantly that the arms of her Lord cradled her."

 

The strength in God that her visions inspire allows her to carry on her monastic work through much physical suffering and human opposition. In the latter part of the book she receives a vision, which she believes is a command, to move her community of nuns from St. Disibod  and to build a new monastery at Mount St. Rupert. The abbot of St. Disibod, who has enjoyed the funds and notoriety his monastery has received ever since Hildegard revealed her visions, resists the change. But through Divine intervention he is eventually forced to allow Hildegard to follow her calling.

 

One of the remarkable things about the book is Joyce Ray's skill in portraying Hildegard a character with whom the reader can sympathize. Most of us are not cloistered monastics, nor do we have heaven-sent visions. But Hildegard is not distant or incomprehensible. She loves music and gardening. As a girl she dislikes the tedium of memorizing Latin psalms. She cannot follow the ascetic habits of her mentor Jutta, who flays herself and fasts to the point of sickness. As a young nun, she struggles with her attraction towards the monk Volmar; as an older woman, she feels a mother's pain when her faithful disciple Richardis leaves her to lead a different monastery. In fact, the character of Hildegard presents a remarkable portrait of a person who really is ordinary, but is also given immense gifts by God.

 

As historical fiction, the book is researched thoroughly enough that the setting feels honest and real. For an added treat, each chapter is headed by a quote from Hildegard's actual poetry, letters, and biography. As a young adult novel, is does an excellent job of turning a character who would at first seem foreign into a person whom the young reader can care about. Under Joyce Ray's pen, the monastic life becomes a drama of love between God the Creator and his created. Feathers and Trumpets is a worthy tribute to this unique and wonderful saint. 

 

A bonus for my blog readers: a taste of Hildegard's music. Listen to as little or as much as you like; it is all gorgeous.