Listening to Miss Lana Del Rey and contemplating penance – intersection of distance love, the yearning for the desired, the wife or God, and the smell of diesel fumes and unbearable heat of the burning sun in forty degree heat.
Gratitude for blessings.
Desire for confession.
Hunger for penance, as the putting right, the adjustment, the justice.
Worse strictures.
I am reminded of how much joy I found in my lowest moments, often self-inflicted, or at the very least out of my hands – is it more important if it’s one or the other?
Self-inflicted penances? Why would they be superior to the gentle ones offered by a confessor?
We have so much more to offer, the penance inherent to the soldier – the finest of our number, Saint Ignatius of Loyola was a solider, and it bleeds through every layer of his work. Dominance, self-inflicted punishment – usefulness, but it must always make us stronger, not weaker. God delivers strength to us, but we must move of our own volition.
All of the monastic vocations work towards making better monastics – but we cannot afford to be weakened, not when our job is on the edge of the wall, standing in the breach.
We must be strengthened by penance.
Christ didn’t just get tortured and murdered, he carried a cross, endured, overcame. He led the way, it must be through overcoming pain, so we have to feel pain, we have to know pain, endurance, rigidity, discipline. Love.
Mimicry of Christ’s sufferings.
Or those of the saints, in such a way that leads to pain, but growth, penitential struggle.
My favourite moments in a life of exercise have always been those moments when I was pushed in a way I did not think I could be.
Company green PT, running with an empty barrel on my back, dropping slowly to the back of the pack, sergeant grabbing my lapel and says “I need you to get this to the front of the platoon” – running, darkness, noise, static, joyful silence, manic laughter, refusing to stop, the rare joy of absolute overcoming. Pain like a constant static, I yearn for that feeling, not self-harm, self-overcoming, a glimpse of annihilation.
Honing that moment makes us strong.
This is what God wants me to feel like.
Not enough is written by Roman Catholic men who seek out discipline, we aren’t vocal enough in saying – this is what we should be doing.
We need to be good now, we need to be servants of the Church in physical capability – saints in a flak vest.
Penitential work – a Sunday afternoon effort, a series of examples might be necessary.
Confession, penance, the Eucharist, kneeling before the very real presence of Christ, not a symbolic gesture, but a joyful reality, a tearful momentous repetition – I take the feeling and externalise it, make it real, giving all respect and adoration due to Imperator Christos, king of kings, lord of lords, the correct moment of fealty, obedience, command, those of us who are told by him “live by the sword, die by the sword”, a promise a blessing. We don’t deserve any of what we have, so we are grateful for it.
A beach, lift a boulder, run a mile, swim, lift the boulder, run a mile, swim etc.
An hour or more? Maybe more? Set a limit? Hour AMRAP?
Not a test, not a pass or fail, penance isn’t pass or fail.
Woman is called to aesthetic beauty, or God wouldn’t have made her the way she is, attractive, and so what of man? Man is attractive in his rugged power, muscularity, stoicism, the Roman virtues, hence Christ’s conquest of Rome as the seat of his earthly power. He will rule from the New Jerusalem, but he currently reigns on the graves of the martyrs and the emperors, don’t forget what we are called to – martyrdom and conquest.
Born to die.
What is unique about beauty except perfection in imperfection?
I find myself more and more drawn to the desire to leave a good corpse – I can write amazing poetry and stun with my visual prose, to be a troubadour, a Lancelot, I know what I am.
And so the goal is to leave a fabulous ruination, so that like Hector, I will be the marvel of my friends and enemies even in death.
“Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I’ve got nothing but my aching soul? I know you will, I know that you will.”