- Rainer Maria Rilke, "Blank Joy"She who did not come, wasn't she determined
nonetheless to organize and decorate my heart?
If we had to exist to become the one we love,
what would the heart have to create?
Lovely joy left blank, perhaps you are
the center of all my labors and my loves.
If I've wept for you so much, it's because
I preferred you among so many outlined joys.
Wonder, Loveliness, Delight and papable Signs of Genius exist primrily to be ENJOYED –– not ANALYZED and CODIFIED.
ReplyDeleteWhat could the Martyrdom of St. Teresa of Avila possibly have to do with any expression of Joy, Satisfaction, Peace and Contonment?
ReplyDeleteI do see much evidence of inherent Sado-Masochism in the history of the Christian Movement. This appears to be borne out by the dictatorial encouragement of perpetual feelings of Guilt, and the celebration of agonies suffered in the lives of martyred saints.
The notiin that Jy or fulfillment could best be achieved through intense Anguish, Torture and Death is DECIDEDLY Sado-Masochistic –– or isn't it?
Indeed. A celebration of power relations amongst the powerless.
ReplyDeletePossibly –– from a worldly perspective–– but St. Teresa of Avila, herself, thought differently She left us these immortal words in her breviary.
ReplyDeleteLet nothing disturb thee ––
Nothing affrigt thee.
All things are passing.
God never changeth ––
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all thing.
In whom God pleaseth ––
In nothing is lacking.
Alone, God sufficeth..
~ Translated by H.. Longfellow
Around 1556, friends suggested that her newfound knowledge was diabolical, not divine. She had begun to inflict mortifications of the flesh upon herself. But her confessor, the Jesuit Francis Borgia, reassured her of the divine inspiration of her thoughts. On St. Peter's Day in 1559, Teresa became firmly convinced that Jesus Christ presented Himself to her in bodily form, though invisible. These visions lasted almost uninterrupted for more than two years. In another vision, a seraph drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart, causing an ineffable spiritual and bodily pain:
ReplyDeleteI saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it...
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This vision was the inspiration for one of Bernini's most famous works, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa at Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.
The memory of this episode served as an inspiration throughout the rest of her life, and motivated her lifelong imitation of the life and suffering of Jesus, epitomized in the adage often associated with her: "Lord, either let me suffer or let me die."
Apparently, there were TWO Saint Teresa's –– one of AVILA, the other I don't know.
ReplyDeleteWhatever Modern Minds would like to call it the experience of Terea's prolonged ECSTATIC AGONY was perfectly real ––TO HER.and who the hell are WE to try to dismiss these things as the ravings of a sex-starved, Masochistic neurotic?
EVERYTHING made manifest by human beings was conceived and borne from our unique capacity to use IMAGINATION.
I believe Imagination is an attribute of SPIRIT from which all ese is derived.
In short: LIFE IS A MYSTERY tobE LIVED –– not a PROBLEM to be SOLVED.
Please explain to us, O Wise Man:
ReplyDeleteWhat should we do when seine else's JOUISSANCE
Becomes to us a rectal aching NOUISSANCE?
~ Meghan Markelstein, RPITA
___ DAMAGE CONTROL? ___
ReplyDeleteToo that Queen Elizabeth
___ no longer has the power
To have a brazen tart like Markle
___ murdered in the Tower.
She managed to dispose
___ of Harry's Momma
Neatly and completely
___ 'midst high Drama!
The Queen' s been wise
___ though not to press her luck
Despite her grandson's
––– tendency to suck!
~ Kitty Panne