Recently I have been invited to participate in a couple of novenas related to illness. At first I was a bit wary of them, because the first one was also part of a campaign to obtain cannonisation for a couple of people - i.e. say the novena, he gets healed, they have a miracle to their credit and go on to the next stage.... I am rather cynical about canonisation, who gets canonised and who does not. I suspect there are plenty of people living lives of "heroic virtue" who don't have quite the same popular following as JP2 or that ghastly Opus Dei man, there is a political element in them. Odds are if enough nuns carry around enough scraps of JP2's garments one of them will recover from an illness sooner or later. And of course, someone must have had the foresight to divide his garments into useful miraculous portions too. This may not happen to the quietly heroic parish priest who fights off the temptations of drink, sex and anything else and serves his people wholeheartedly and dies a solitary death with dementia in an old priests' home...
However, the first novena was remarkably successful, it achieved its very specific and limited aim. The current one is hedging its bets, asking for healing, but also comfort and being a good example (suggesting healing may not happen). I guess that's the sort of theology I understand - wanting to pray for what's in God's will... but accepting that it might be different from what you and your dearly beloveds want. Different from the militant "claiming" that goes on in some quarters of my family!
At some point last week, just before I got the novena request, and before I talked to Tara (my Catholic ally), I had the idea that the best way of tackling the ever difficult Mark question was.... to do a novena. Not say a prayer everyday, but to spend a little time praying and reading the bible (opened at random) for 9 days. When this novena started things were at the low state that readers of this blog will have noticed. His father had just died and I didn't think this was the time to start talking about divorce, yet - yet - So I began to pray and read, and at first I felt it was OVER - but as the 9 days went on, I began to see more and more of his good qualities, his humour, his sensitivity - and of course, his encyclopaedic knowledge of me! There was even a bit of tentative .... so while I am still in a right old two and eight about things generally, the marital relationship has warmed considerably, and I no longer wish to leave him. We had a discussion about divorce and I listened to myself and thought "I don't believe I'm actually saying this to him." Still, I think it was curiously helpful - if it is the unspoken fear - to be clear about it - not as a threat, just as a possibility.
Tara introduced me to the Memorare - a prayer to the BVM which I hadn't been brought up with. I could see the idea of it being a very powerful prayer - in that you TELL Mary that she's on a promise to help you. I found it extremely difficult to say the prayer at first, it's the mother thing I'm afraid. If I call the BVM "my mother" what would my real mother think? Perhaps that's why my mother never was that much of a Mariolator? Or me? Or was it just because the idea of one's mother had sufficient toxicity that it didn't seem a nice word to use to Our Lady? Ooh - I might be onto something here...
After I had coaxed and sobbed my way through the prayer I felt better, calmer, and I made it explicit that I was asking for something quite large: to get out of debt - since I feel most of our problems are to do with our debt situation - just paying the mortgage arrears would be a start. A couple of days later I thought, as the marriage issues began to clarify (the specific request for that novena) "why not turn the Memorare into a novena too?" So I am doing that - I have missed a couple of days, but a few dribs and drabs of money have come in in the last 48 hours, so I have every hope that there will be enough to pay off the arrears on the mortgage and perhaps a bit more.
Now it occurs to me, what is to stop me doing novenas on a regular basis - to get clarification on different issues, rather than to get a specific "goody"? Certainly the Bible reading one is good: suddenly the Bible becomes as interesting as the I Ching - you understand that it is not just the words themselves, in their historical/social/spiritual context that count, it is how you apply them to your situation, how you understand them, that shows you something about your state of mind, whether you find yourself twisting them to your own advantage, or wanting to ignore them because they are close to a painful truth. For years I've felt a bit guilty about doing the I Ching - but now I can see that in some way it's provided a sort of training in self-examination that can be useful. If I see it as a way of examining my conscience, then it must be good. But I think seeing it as sort of "magic" that unlocks desired objects is dangerous, and should be avoided.
However, the first novena was remarkably successful, it achieved its very specific and limited aim. The current one is hedging its bets, asking for healing, but also comfort and being a good example (suggesting healing may not happen). I guess that's the sort of theology I understand - wanting to pray for what's in God's will... but accepting that it might be different from what you and your dearly beloveds want. Different from the militant "claiming" that goes on in some quarters of my family!
At some point last week, just before I got the novena request, and before I talked to Tara (my Catholic ally), I had the idea that the best way of tackling the ever difficult Mark question was.... to do a novena. Not say a prayer everyday, but to spend a little time praying and reading the bible (opened at random) for 9 days. When this novena started things were at the low state that readers of this blog will have noticed. His father had just died and I didn't think this was the time to start talking about divorce, yet - yet - So I began to pray and read, and at first I felt it was OVER - but as the 9 days went on, I began to see more and more of his good qualities, his humour, his sensitivity - and of course, his encyclopaedic knowledge of me! There was even a bit of tentative .... so while I am still in a right old two and eight about things generally, the marital relationship has warmed considerably, and I no longer wish to leave him. We had a discussion about divorce and I listened to myself and thought "I don't believe I'm actually saying this to him." Still, I think it was curiously helpful - if it is the unspoken fear - to be clear about it - not as a threat, just as a possibility.
Tara introduced me to the Memorare - a prayer to the BVM which I hadn't been brought up with. I could see the idea of it being a very powerful prayer - in that you TELL Mary that she's on a promise to help you. I found it extremely difficult to say the prayer at first, it's the mother thing I'm afraid. If I call the BVM "my mother" what would my real mother think? Perhaps that's why my mother never was that much of a Mariolator? Or me? Or was it just because the idea of one's mother had sufficient toxicity that it didn't seem a nice word to use to Our Lady? Ooh - I might be onto something here...
After I had coaxed and sobbed my way through the prayer I felt better, calmer, and I made it explicit that I was asking for something quite large: to get out of debt - since I feel most of our problems are to do with our debt situation - just paying the mortgage arrears would be a start. A couple of days later I thought, as the marriage issues began to clarify (the specific request for that novena) "why not turn the Memorare into a novena too?" So I am doing that - I have missed a couple of days, but a few dribs and drabs of money have come in in the last 48 hours, so I have every hope that there will be enough to pay off the arrears on the mortgage and perhaps a bit more.
Now it occurs to me, what is to stop me doing novenas on a regular basis - to get clarification on different issues, rather than to get a specific "goody"? Certainly the Bible reading one is good: suddenly the Bible becomes as interesting as the I Ching - you understand that it is not just the words themselves, in their historical/social/spiritual context that count, it is how you apply them to your situation, how you understand them, that shows you something about your state of mind, whether you find yourself twisting them to your own advantage, or wanting to ignore them because they are close to a painful truth. For years I've felt a bit guilty about doing the I Ching - but now I can see that in some way it's provided a sort of training in self-examination that can be useful. If I see it as a way of examining my conscience, then it must be good. But I think seeing it as sort of "magic" that unlocks desired objects is dangerous, and should be avoided.
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