Relatively speaking, Chapter 21, consisting of
five paragraphs, is one of the longer chapters in The Cloud. Writing in Middle
English, Anonymous gives us this question as his chapter heading:
The trewe exposicion of this Gospel worde: Mary hath chosen the best
partye.
Alluding to the story of Jesus’ visit to the house of Mary and Martha as
Luke presents it (10.38-42), Anonymous is aware that grammatically his 15th-century
Latin Bible (translated into English and known today as the Douay-Rheims
Catholic Bible) concludes the story with these words:
[41] And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha,
Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: [42] But one
thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be
taken away from her.
Anonymous sees a problem with the word best. For something to be
best, there must be at least three things: something good, something better,
and something best. Obviously, however,
in Luke’s story only two things (actually two persons) are being compared:
Martha and Mary. So how can there be a best
choice? Fully aware of the problem, Anonymous works toward a satisfying answer
in paragraph one.
In paragraph two, Anonymous reminds us that he’s already laid the
foundation for a satisfying answer. He
briefly reviews what he’s said in Chapter 8, and you may wish to revisit that
chapter to see how Anonymous lays out a tri-partite schema describing the relationship between the active and
contemplative life. By following his
logic in paragraphs two through four, you can how his “three-part” schema makes
the “best” part possible?
In paragraph five, Anonymous, addressing us as “active” Christians,
encourages us “to work as hard as [we] can in the first and second stages.” Then he tells all “active” Christians who may
have a tendency to criticize “third-stagers”—that is, contemplatives—to leave
us along. After all, we’re chosing
“Mary’s third and ‘best’ part, and play” (56). Look at Butcher’s note on the
word “play” (in Middle English pley)
and work toward answering this question: “In what way(s) is Centering Prayer
“play”?
A hint. Those who play musical instruments generally do not describe such activities as "work." We really don't "work" a violin, piano, guitar, or any musical instrument; instead, when we practice and make music, we say that we are "playing" our instruments. How then can it be that Anonymous suggests that contemplative prayer, our doing Centering Prayer--is, as the last word in this chapter puts it--pley?
No comments:
Post a Comment