All these days count
The repetition of daily life isn't despair, it's hope
I noted a few weeks ago that these Sundays after Epiphany share the same introit which exults in the adoration of Christ. There’s a repetitive quality to the liturgy, the way it circles back again and again to these prayers which have been polished like stones in ocean waves. The prayers are efficient and yet still shine with a translucent quality.
It’s a gentle circling, a revolution round the sun, the liturgical year. It brings us back again and again to meditate on the life of Christ, the last things, beginnings and endings. Sometimes the prayers return weekly to journey alongside us like a poetic witness, a word participating in the Logos, our humble religious speech that somehow participates the eternal Word, Christ speaking eternity into time.
That’s what the repetitions are about – the entrance of eternity into time. It’s writ deeply into the rhythm of the liturgy and also written into the repetitions of our daily lives. Each day I wake up and painstakingly make my first cup of coffee (among many). I grind the beans that I myself imported from Africa and roasted (Breviary Coffee, available for sale now at the Coffee Hour), I hear the water in the kettle, measure out the coffee into the french press, and then I take my coffee to the porch where I read (probably) some obscure book about aesthetics. Or I sit there and, as a melancholic like me is wont to do, watch the sun rise over the Mississippi and I muse. Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations and just thrust into the ranks? 1
When I get into a certain mood (existential crisis mode), I wonder what it’s all adding up to – each new sunrise, each twenty-four hours completed. Every day, I offer Holy Mass. Every day, I say my prayers. Repetitions. Yes, I have my hope, cultivated as a virtue, the sacred expectation that Our Lord inculcates within us like a seed that, one day, there will be a glorious encounter in which, if I persevere, I will see him face to face. But in the meantime, what is the value of the hidden work of these days, this quiet life that has been gifted to each of us. Yes, it is inordinately pleasant and joyful to be here. I wake up each morning thrilled to be here. But what is the value of the circling round?
Charles Peguy, in his poem The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, describes a little girl named Hope. If we picture this life as a liturgical procession in which we’re marching to the gates of the New Jerusalem, then Hope is the child running back and forth along the length of the procession. Twenty times, back and forth. She is walking, skipping, leaping...we’ve seen this scenario literally play out in our church processions. The adults walk quietly, not wasting steps because we know it’s two full miles in St. Louis summer heat to the statue of St. Louis, meanwhile the kids are running around like lambs in the field. Or maybe you’ve noticed the phenomenon when you’ve taken children to the woods. They sprint up the trail like wild animals, whooping and shouting, scaring away every creature within a city block. Then they sprint back to tell their parents to hurry up, or admire a mushroom, or climb a fallen tree.
“Twenty times,” writes Peguy, “Of repetition, of the same thing/ Twenty times in vain, right on top of each other.” I can’t help but think of how many times I’ve offered Holy Mass. Thousands of times now, seven, ten times per week, for fifty-two weeks, for ten years, potentially (God willing) fifty more years. Perhaps you think the same thoughts. One more day at the office, how many days now has it been? Or parents consider one more day with the children, one more repetition of the routine, breakfast, school, soccer practice. We’ll all do it again tomorrow.
I suppose there are two ways to look at it. One way is prone to despair, wondering why these days seem so ordinary and uneventful so what’s the point. Today we have the same introit as last week, I’ll offer the Host with the same words, you might go to confession and once again say the same sins. The repetitions seem to almost contrary to spiritual progress.
This perspective lacks hope. Remember, the little girl Hope loves to run the same path back and forth again. She knows a secret. She is always making beginnings and is always aware that the better perspective is to see from the point of view of Heaven. She know that our repetitions are not the same path at all. With God, everything is new, nothing is in vain, and the repetitions are not a closed circle of despair but, rather, an ascending spiral. Nothing is lost. Everything adds up.
Chesterton says, “It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.” Like Peguy, he references children, pointing out that they “have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’” You read a book to a child over and over again until you cannot hardly stand it anymore, and yet the child is still delighted. Perhaps God says to the sun every morning, “Do it again,” because he is so delighted. Despair makes us old and tired, but hope and repetition make us young.
“On earth everything repeats itself,” writes Peguy, “But in heaven everything counts/ And everything increases. The grace of each day.”
So don’t even think about being tired.
Our Mass oration asks God; “contínua pietáte custódi/ Keep Your household always in filial love.” That Latin word for piety is nuanced, but essentially it’s a petition that we, like children, would remain in God’s Fatherly affection. We are binding ourselves to the duty of piety, to love our Heavenly Father and remain in his household. “Put on,” says St. Paul, “as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Bear with one another…” In other words, within this house we find ourselves, this Temple, this family bound to Christ, we owe each other our best effort. As many times as we must, repeatedly, we love each other.
In the ups and downs of life together, the household of God is bound by piety. It’s an every day commitment encompassing even the smallest interactions. To me, this is an admonishment (and an encouragement) that every single, little thing I do and say matters. Even the repetitions are bursting with hope. Everything you do has eternal significance. Each word and action is carrying you to Heaven.
Our Lord warns us that, in this world, the wheat and weeds share the same field. This means that we have repeated opportunities to practice piety and cultivate hope in a world that is far from perfect. We walk through the golden wheat, twenty times back and forth, among the weeds, twenty times. We are in a grand procession, and even if the pilgrimage is shadowed by the Cross and the burden of daily, repetitious, and at times exhausting struggle to lay down our sins, don’t give up. It is hope that led Christ to the grave every bit as much as it is hope that marks his rising. He walks through the field with us. Twenty time, a hundred times, as many times as he needs to he will always be at our side.
All these days count, so use them wisely. Delight in the journey, this circling entrance of eternity into time, because God is even now straightening our turning steps and guiding us home.
1 I quoted these questions from Kierkegaard’s Repetitions.
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