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Approaches to Our Father

Why another book on the Lord’s Prayer? The title of the book in French is Approaches to Our Father; Daniel discusses the setting and overarching themes of the prayer, rather than the details. This is not to say that there is nothing said about individual phrases, but that these elements emerge incidentally; thus there is, for example, particularly powerful insight into forgiveness. There are two settings for the Lord’s Prayer. The first is Luke, where it is given as a response to a question from a disciple on how to pray, and here Daniel stresses our great need to be taught — our great need, our poverty. The second is in Matthew, where Jesus gives the background to private prayer, in our chamber with the door shut — and, wonder of wonders, God is there! So the focus is on this humble generosity of God. A third chapter points to the overall scheme of the prayer, starting with heaven and ending with evil or the evil one, and so points to the incarnation of Jesus, coming down from heaven to engage with our troubled world and the reality of our sin. In typical fashion, the book closes with the observation that there is no ‘Amen’ stated in the text — in his engagement with sin, it is Jesus and he alone who is and can give the true Amen. This is one of the shorter of Daniel’s books, and packed with good things.

Here is a short, typical, extract, from a passage titled “Your room is the Holy of Holies”:

All that Jesus tells us about our room has this further remarkable feature, that he compares it to the most prestigious of places. Biblically, in fact, the only place on earth where God was present each day to listen in secret to prayers was the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. Only there was it possible to be one on one with God, far from the crowds of hypocrites who occupied the synagogues and street corners! Only there, and, even then, only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year! That was all! Jesus overturned it all, revealing God’s secret: that your chamber too is the Holy of Holies, and that you are its high priest since it is you who crosses its threshold to address your prayer to the one who is there in secret. You are therefore a high priest when you close that door; be so without fear and do not wait a year before you pray again! He awaits you every day, and you alone! Wonder of wonders, the Lord’s Prayer is prayer within the Holy of Holies, making a feast day of every day!

The apple tree

The parable of the apple tree

This summer I enjoyed an entertaining little incident. I am making bold to recount it to you as we know each other well enough now. I had to prepare a sermon for the wedding of two divorcees. This is no easy task, but the most difficult aspect was the text I was asked to preach on, Colossians 3:12–15, with the astonishing phrase, “above all, clothe yourselves with love.”

The verb used compares love to a garment. How disappointed I felt; is love so superficial and so much a matter for show that it can be compared to a costume that can be changed with the changing day? I went out, under this cloud of disappointment, and sat beneath an apple tree at the back of my house to reflect on this strange verse. Suddenly I felt the touch of a branch on my shoulder. The apple tree under which I was sitting then spoke to me. It said, “I’m going to explain to you what love is and why it is that this verb ‘clothe yourself’ is used. There is a comparison here, but it is not a comparison taken from the world of men but from we apple trees. Apple trees, you know, clothe ourselves firstly with leaves, in the spring, and over them we put on the apples. Believe me, it takes time to get dressed like this. Slowly, peeping through the leaves they come, not appreciably from morning to morning, but little by little; there is nothing superficial, and it is the best of ourselves; it is a part of ourselves; to tell the truth it is our true activity; it is the only thing we do: we clothe ourselves with apples. I think that for you humans the same applies when it comes to love, and this is what Paul was saying — ‘clothe yourselves with love above everything else.’”

I was amazed by the words of the apple tree; it had understood everything about the verse and all about love! Then the tree added, “Have you noticed the way apples have no resemblance to the trees? Nevertheless, it is certainly we trees who make them! No resemblance at all! In winter we are rather dismal to look at, dried up and sad, with nothing attractive about us. Even our wood is no good to work. You would never guess that apples could grow and ripen on such branches. As for the leaves, it’s just the same; they don’t seem to serve any use except to give a little shade. Looking at them you wouldn’t think they lay alongside such beautiful fruit! As you see, the beautiful apples are nothing like us, yet they are ours. Well, allow me to say that the same applies to people! Disappointing as they may be, so dried up and sad, so useless and such an encumbrance, people are nonetheless able to clothe themselves with love! What could be more beautiful than love! What a poor creature is man! But how wonderful to think that they are able to love!”

I agreed completely, amazed to hear such things! After a silence which the apple tree left me in which to reply and seeing that I wasn’t responding, the tree asked if it could continue. “Yes, indeed!” I said, thinking of the wedding sermon he was delivering on my behalf!

“You people,” said the tree, “you have so many extraordinary abilities but you have never yet managed to make artificial apples. Only we apple trees are able to produce apples. You can find better wood than ours, and finer leaves on other trees, but when it comes to apples . . . ! This is the reason for our existence. God made us for this. If we don’t produce apples, who will? Well, my dear fellow, the same applies to you. Man is the only creature in the world who is able to love; it is his reason to exist. However hard you try I am sure that you will never manage to invent artificial love! And if you don’t love, who will love in your place? Where will God find love if you don’t clothe yourselves with it? Think carefully about it: isn’t this the only thing that Jesus asked of you? The only thing!”

I was dumbfounded to hear so many things from the tree. And since I was troubled at the thought of this fine tree giving me such a lesson, I replied, thinking to put him in his place with a little of his own history, “Tree, you are quite right; nevertheless, I find that if love is like your apples, then there is an element of pride here because with your apples you do rather push themselves to the fore; they don’t go unnoticed. Forgive me, but there is an issue of humility here!”

I felt that the tree then gave rather a blow to my status as moralizer. “It’s true,” he said, “that we show off our apples and that it is a little ostentatious. But the truth is that this pride is a fault of young trees. Look at that one over by the ditch; it has four apples, and that is enough for it to proudly stretch its branches into the sky as high as it can, saying ‘look at me.’ But look at the old tree behind it; it is so weighed down with apples that its branches hang in humility down towards the ground, and it does this the better to humbly offer its fruit to passers-by . . .”

“I understand,” I said to the tree, “say nothing more; I know that we are just the same; the less we love, the more we demonstrate ; it’s true. Tree, thank you, but before I go, I would like to pose you a question. How is that as we seek to give the best of ourselves, we bump into so many obstacles? How is that love can turn bad like a rotten fruit, to such a degree that couples separate?”

“That’s a big question, and I can only respond by telling you what I have experienced myself. I too have borne bad apples. It’s because the apple is a very vulnerable fruit. A rotten apple is a sick apple, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the tree is sick. An apple tree suffers when it has to be seen with spoilt fruit but doesn’t lose hope because of it. It knows that it will always be able to give further good fruit. No doubt this is true of you too. A particular love might become sick and spoilt, but this doesn’t have to mean the person with the rotten fruit is sick himself. It is always possible for him to love again, more humbly, but with all the more hope, having experienced what it is to have something go bad.”

I had enough for my sermon, and I was about to take my leave. I was plunged deep in reflection, but that doesn’t mean I forgot to warmly thank my friend, the tree. I had never been so grateful to an apple tree. But, to stop my effusions, the tree said to me, in the same steady tone of a wise old sage, “Daniel, I do need to say one more thing to you. You will have noticed that an apple tree can produce hundreds of pounds of apples. Well, take careful note that an apple tree has never eaten so much as a single one of those apples. It is not fed by what it produces; the apples are all for people; the tree gives, and gives all that it has. What’s more, for it to give its fruit, there is no need to appeal to its good nature, to make any claim on it, or to speak to it in any way; it simply clothes itself with apples and that is enough. The apple tree attracts others to it simply because it is clothed in apples. See that you do likewise. Let your love be for others, and only for others. Don’t look to take anything from it for yourself. And then, don’t talk about it; it is unnecessary. If you love, people will come to you without you having to say a word.”

“I understand, my dear tree, but tell me something else, since you speak about nourishment. What do you feed on if it is not the apples?”

“On this point, I can’t tell you everything,” the tree replied. “Just know that my nourishment is given me in secret. I draw it up with the roots you cannot see, and it is needful for my roots to stay hidden; with them I draw my nourishment from the darkness of the earth, continually. Without this feeding I would never yield a single apple. Know too that my fruit comes from the source my roots draw on, and it is no doubt for this reason that they have no resemblance to me. That is enough, but you should realize too that it is the same with you people. All that is necessary for you to love is drawn from God in the secrecy of your prayer life. I have nothing more to say; apply yourself to prayer and you will be covered in fruit.”

I had enough for two sermons; I left full, overflowing with what the tree had given me.

As I left, I came across my cousin, who looks after the orchard. He had just been watering the trees. I looked for something or other to say to him, some story that would not reveal that I had just been conversing with one of his charges! He might have thought me a bit crazy.

“Tell me, Patrick, all this stuff grows on its own?”

“On its own — you must be joking! You’re a bit too much the intellectual, you are! If you knew the time it takes me to ensure the apple tree gives apples, the time spent pruning, watering, spraying . . . All the fruit you see is the result of hours and hours of labor, days of waiting and hoping; and, seeing you are a pastor, I can confess to you that I love my apple trees, and that is why they give such beautiful fruit.” And he said all this with a joyful light in his eyes.

“Bless you, Patrick, and thank you!” As I left I thought to myself: how much time does God need for a man to be able to give fruit, how many years of patience, labor, hope . . . and love?

Dear brother watchman, the apples will soon be ripe. I have a feeling that they will be particularly good this year. I will bring you some on my next visit; you can tell me what you think of them.

And may God keep you day by day.

God at the heart of our lives

As the prior of the Fraternité des Veilleurs, Daniel has written numbers of circular letters, many of which are reproduced here, spanning a period from 1991 to 2001. The letters are first of all charming and are pleasant to read from a purely literary point of view; at some points there is even a certain amount of jocularity which finds its way out in some inventive language as Daniel imagines himself visiting the home of his reader. A particular highlight is a meditation under an apple tree which speaks and imparts to Daniel a wonderful marriage sermon. Each short letter is refreshing spiritually as well, with a number of new angles and hints which are deepened in other books. We learn something of the author’s experience in pastoral ministry, particularly pastoral visitation, before, surprisingly, in the middle of the book we find ourselves involved in something of a narrative of how Daniel left ministry in a local parish, firstly for a monastic interlude with hopes of forming a new community, and then to his life of comparative solitude more in the style of a hermit, one who, however, receives numerous visitors. As he describes this process we witness Daniel’s biblical understanding ripen into true contemplation, and it is the evident expansion of his sympathies as he settles into the more secluded life that lends the book a strong fascination.

Note: Sept. 2022 I think this book is unlikely to be published soon and am thinking how nice it would be to make the whole of it available here. Watch this space.

Three further beautiful excerpts have been added: The way of repentance, The modesty of God (a letter), Prayer, an art.

Encounters with Jesus

Should Rencontres avec Jésus be translated as “Encounters with Jesus” or “Meeting Jesus”? Both are good, but “Encounters” is closer to the French; the book examines 4 encounters of individuals with Jesus, but one of them is not really a meeting at all, and another is an encounter with Jesus as a baby, so it seems a stretch to call it a meeting!

The first encounter is with Zacchaeus, and this really is a meeting. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; Zacchaeus thought he would go and seek Jesus, but didn’t know that Jesus had come looking for him. As we would expect with Daniel, he takes us a long way inside the events, close to Zacchaeus, but Zacchaeus is also ‘everyman’. Translation is an interesting challenge: in French what looks like a present tense is often clearly past, so it is not always easy to know which tense to use in translation. The writing also alternates between being very immediate about Zacchaeus, which warrants the present tense, and being more simply description of the past. We therefore shift in and out between looking at Zacchaeus and being challenged ourselves, firstly about our motivation in seeking Jesus, then the discovery that it is he who is seeking us, and then, as we look at Zacchaeus’ self justifying response to people complaining, to how to deal with the negative thoughts that assail us — we don’t; we let Jesus deal with them; we listen to what he says.

The second encounter/meeting is of Jesus with the ‘deaf-mute’ of Mark 7. There is another moving and in the Bourguet way, exemplary, meditation on the story, taking the reader deep inside the events; here though the emphasis is more on Jesus as healer than on the man as a type of humanity. “Looking up to heaven, he groaned.” How does Jesus pray, and how do we join him in praying? Does God hear our groaning?

Daniel briefly touches on the issue of social justice in his discussion of the poor widow and her two ‘mites’, but the focus is almost entirely on her faith, her intimacy with the unseen but all seeing God who is perceived clearly by Jesus but not by most others, and providence or provision. Daniel always has insights into the historical background that are helpful. That’s good, but the important thing is that it helps see into Jesus’ heart. (Jesus is happy here merely to observe and comment; there is no meeting!) In the end the heart of Jesus is the heart of a supplicant, standing at the door seeking entrance to communion like that of the widow with the Father.

The fourth encounter is that of Symeon with Jesus as a baby in the Temple. Perhaps there are three facets to this. The first is a consideration of Symeon himself; how marvellous is this man who waited all his life to see one promise fulfilled, and the God who was faithful to the promise. The fact of him holding the Christ, Jesus, in his arms leads to a consideration of what it is to be a spiritual father, to contemplate what God is doing in another person’s life, to have a part in bringing it forth, and to bless. How does Symeon relate directly to us? In the same way that he held Jesus in his arms, welcomed him, we receive him too in the Eucharist, and it is on a moving account of what it means to participate in taking the bread and wine that the book concludes.