CHRIST AS MYSTIC HERO: WATCH JOSEPH CAMPBELL ON THE IMPORTANCE OF MYTH IN OUR HUMAN PROGRESSION.

(Excerpted from a book I am putting together on The Christ Principle, entitled, “CHRIST AS MYSTIC HERO: A Lay Cistercian reflects how Christ is the archetypal hero on humanity’s march to Omega.“)

THE SIMPLICITY OF MYTH WITH CHRIST AS MYSTIC HERO

Before I embark on a series of reflections on how The Christ Principle gathers all knowledge, love, and service unto himself as an Archetype or Paradigm of what it means to be human, I encourage you to take the time to listen to Joseph Campbell, the noted commentator on human behavior.

Slow down your life and speed up your enlightenment. Here is a series of YouTube blogs by Joseph Campbell, who has unlocked the hitherto procrustean approach I had to look at what it means to be human. Myths, such as Genesis and Exodus, are the deepest desires of humans, and they have the framework of historical intelligent progression. Suppose you think of myth as somehow inaccurate. In that case, you will completely miss the point of any classic heroes who faced obstacles, overcame them, and rose from their natural humanity to something much more fulfilling. Jesus fits into this paradigm, and I have used it to probe ever deeper into the Mystery of Human Intelligent Progression, which is informed and fulfilled by the Mystery of Faith. I now look beyond even Myth to what I have discovered as an even more profound and more connected interconnection between the human movement advancement from Alpha to Omea using Teilhard’s Map (unattributed) of how humanity uses intelligent progression to grow continuously in consciousness and also complexity to our final destiny as the human species. This is the mystical level of Myth or the Mystery of Faith.

I view these YouTubes as occasions when I can reflect on Christ as a Hero (The Four Gospels) and the steps he took to fulfill this classic evolution of humanity from animality through humanity but with the added dimension of spirituality and the incorruptibility of the last step in human evolution.

MRS. MURPHY: A TYPE OF HOW TO PLACE YOURSELF IN THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST AND WAIT

I remember the Sun slicing through the gigantic, three-foot thick sandstone window openings of our Second Theology class in Sacramental Theology on the first floor of the Major Theology section at Saint Meinrad School of Theology. At the blackboard was the late Father Aiden Kavanaugh, O.S.B., writing down the words “Mrs. Murphy” on the blackboard. In 1963, not knowing what I did not know, much less what I should know about theology, I was just trying to stay awake on the warm Spring day in Southern Indiana. I remember thinking that his explanation of Mrs. Murphy did not make sense. Father Adrian told us to remember that liturgy was about the human heart being able to approach the unapproachable mystery of Faith through using the senses and everyday human experiences to share what we can share about Word and Sacrament.

Those fortunate to hear Father Aiden recognize that he thought in terms of compound, complex sentences. Still, his keen insights into the human condition began to formulate how the Sacred informs meaning in each of us in very different ways. I offer two insights from Father Aidan’s lectures. The first tells of the absolute simplicity of Faith as characterized by a person he calls “Mrs. Murphy.” St. Thomas Aquinas also mentioned this little old lady in his sayings. The point is, although you can plumb the depths of your mind and heart with readings and prayers, that is good; all that is needed is being in the presence of Christ in the upper room of your inner self and waiting in silence and solitude. I could not believe what Christ shared with me through the energy of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I am merely a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, lucky to comment about life around me and certainly not an eloquent apologist for any approach to liturgics. In his book, Mrs. Murphy looms large as an archetype of us all, an Adam and Eve for relations with the Sacred. Let me quote Fr. Aidan to give you a sense of his eloquent thinking. 

“The liturgical assembly is thus a theological corporation and each of its members a theologian. . . . Mrs. Murphy and her pastor are primary theologians whose discourse in faith is carried on not by concepts and propositions nearly so much as in the vastly complex vocabulary of experiences had, prayers said, sights seen, smells smelled, words said and heard, and responded to, emotions controlled and released, sins committed and repented, children born and loved ones buried, and in many other ways no one can count or always account for.” (On Liturgical Theology, Chapter 7)

 Suppose I understand Father Aidan’s thinking even remotely. In that case, it is that the local church is established by Christ to enable its members to communicate and give glory to a God we cannot see, to make sense out of everyday struggles and trials with those we do see, and to find meaning and purpose with a world gone mad with its importance. By loving our neighbor as ourselves, within the sacramental and non-sacramental context of the local assembly, the Mystery of Faith, we find purpose, pure energy with the source of all reality, and how to love with all our hearts, minds, and strength. God will not leave us stranded or without food to sustain us on our journey. If our purpose is to be with God…Forever, the invisible God needs some way to communicate with those who call him Lord and give them food for the journey and the ability to make all things new, over and over. The context in which we find what we need to make sense is the local church, linked by heritage and practice to the Apostles. It is the way to touch the invisible God in our midst; it is how we claim our adoption as God’s sons and daughters.

I think I am beginning to get what Father Aidan was proposing with the archetypal character of Mrs. Murphy, much like Genesis did with Adam and Eve. What has bothered me all these years, up to five years ago, was the concept of Mrs. Murphy. How can an old woman sit in the back of the church and know more than all the theologians and clerics combined? I say five years ago because that was when I was accepted as a novice Lay Cistercian. With the emphasis on contemplation and Lectio Divina, I gradually morphed into Mrs. Murphy; at least, I fancy that I did. I wasn’t worried that I had to comprehend the Mystery of Faith, only that I could approach it in humility and wait. I began to think less of knowing and more of loving through doing. As part of this, I wrote down all my thoughts about Mrs. Murphy in 67 books and a blog to keep my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) fresh and relevant to my relationship with the Sacred. Information, knowledge, and science are not the end purpose of life, as St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P., described in his famous quote that everything he knew about God was “so much straw.”

Knowledge unlocks the door to the heart, where no one wants to look. I am sitting on a park bench in the dead of Winter, waiting for Christ to come by. I strain to see him trudging about the bend with his pet Yellow Lab, hoping that he will sit down next to me. St. Thomas Aquinas says that knowledge preceeds love.

Mrs. Murphy is that “every person” who has profound simplicity, the simplicity of a human approaching that which the human mind cannot control or grasp but the human heart can partially capture. We glimpse divine reality, like looking through a foggy glass. For Mrs. Murphy, and now for me, I am satisfied that Christ is my mediator between the Sacred and the World in which I live. With Christ, I access the Mystery of Faith through silence, solitude, work, and prayer in the context of my two communities of Faith. I am grateful and blessed that Father Aidan planted the seed, I watered it, but Christ gave the issue. And what an issue it is. The hero has ascended back to the Father to complete the Mission and to prepare a place for me, an adopted son (daughter) to inherit. I am still learning what that is, but I tell you, I will sell every-THING I have to be there, as I Hope in the Resurrection and my personal ascension to heaven with Christ, Mary, St. Joseph, and St. Michael as my companions and friends.

CHRIST: THE ENDURING EXAMPLE OF CHRIST AS A HEROIC, MYSTIC FIGURE

I can still see Father Aidan writing on the chalkboard. He talked about how Christ fulfilled not just the Old Testament prophets but also the hero myth model of Greek and Roman mythology. The Gospel structure did not just pop out of the air. Still, it was a literary device that cultures used to show a hero who had a mission to overcome, faced incredible obstacles and overcame them, and rose above (resurrection) all his adversaries and blockages to bring new life to the world. The late Dr. Joesph Campbell has written extensively about this topic of hero, savior, messiah, and king of kings. Here is one synopsis of his steps to explain the hero’s journey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBOx_zizir0 In researching this idea of a hero, I am struck by the last of applications in the literature about Christ as a heroic figure for the human race. I bring that up because that is precisely what Father Aidan proposed back in 1963. It is not exactly the same model that Dr Campbell uses, but there are so many variations out there that I give Father Aidan poetic license to interpolate it for his purposes. Here is what he wrote on the chalkboard that day (remember, that was back in 1963; I am now 83 years old). Here is Father Aidan, who adapted the classic hero myth form from Joseph Campbell, plus my own notes. Christ is the archetype of all the heroic types of human literature, men and women who illuminate what it means to be human.

• HUMAN NATURE’S DESCENT FROM RESONANCE TO DISSONANCE: A Hero is required to restore human nature to its original status.
• WHISPERS OF A HERO IN THE MISTS OF TIME: The Anticipation of a Hero
• CHRIST AS MYSTIC HERO ARRIVES: Birth Of God/Man Jesus into Ordinary Time (Incarnation)
• CHRIST AS MYSTIC HERO IDENTIFIES THE MISSION: God’s price of buying back the original sin of Adam and Eve and restoring resonance with all reality.
• THE HERO TRAVELS FROM THE GARDEN OF EDEN TO THE NEW JERUSALEM: The Mission as Journey(Synoptic Gospels)
• THE HERO ASKS HUMANS FOR HELP WITH THE MISSION: Unlikely Helpers in the Mission (Selection of the Twelve and disciples)
• CHRIST FACES AND OVERCOMES PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND SPIRITUAL OBSTACLES TO THE MISSION: Conquering human nature’s choice of good or evil.
• THE HERO IS A RANSOM FOR MANY: The Hero suffers and dies for his Mission (Passion and Death)
• THE HERO IS THE ULTIMATE SIGN OF CONTRADICTION: The Hero Rises (Resurrection) with humanity to new life
• THE HERO LEADS THE FLOCK BACK TO GREEN PASTURES: The Hero Descends into Hell to unite all reality into one holy, apostolic, and Catholic Universal Church and establish resonance to the dissonance of humanity. (One Lord of all Reality)
• THE HERO RETURNS HOME TRIUMPHANT: The Hero Ascends to ordinary life again, but this time, it is supernatural. (Ascension)
• THE HERO CONTINUES TO LIVE IN OUR HUMAN CHAOS WITH US. The Hero passes on this supernatural life to the gathering of his followers through THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND LIVE THE HEAVENLY LIFE NOW AND IN THE LIFE TO COME, THE FULFILLMENT OF OUR HUMAN NATURE.

• I am still learning how the hero myth is applied to the Gospel account of Christ’s life journey to complete his Mission from the Father.
• This common literary device of the heroic myth seems to be at the heart of the four Gospels. Each Gospel is different because each writer is different, but they all use the same literary formula.
• Christ is the hero of all the heroic stories of salvation from bad or evil.
• Jesus Christ is not a mythic figure but rather a mystical one, the only person to have the capacity and capability to heal humanity from its self-inflicted wounds and lift up the race to have the opportunity, if they so choose, to continue human evolution as intended. You will notice that even though Christ redeemed (bought back the pawn ticked) all humans, to move forward with evolution, individual humans must use their reason and free will to choose Christ. Unfortunately, not all the Christ’s that people hold up are true. Therein lies the problem of Christianity. Which Christ is the true one? Complicating this exploration, each individual’s perception of Christ is based upon their unique life situations and experiences. This is why each of us can reason and make free choices not coerced by God or other humans. Choose wisely! One of many ways I enter into the life of Christ while I am living is through the Liturgy of the Catholic Church and its focus on “having in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” Eucharist IS Jesus now, just as real as when God transfigured him to the incredulous Apostles.

THE ENDURING EXAMPLE OF LITURGY AS LIVED EXPERIENCES LIFTED UP THROUGH, WITH, AND IN CHRIST

So far, I have just touched on the importance of Mrs. Murphy as someone open to the possibility of all Being and content to be in the presence of Christ. Next, the heroic myth story is one that Christ did to fulfill the prophets and leave the local Gathering of the Baptized to do what Christ did. And what did he do?

Christ loved each of us in the context of our faith community so much that he became our nature (Philippians 2:5-12). He did that to not only tell us how to love others but to show us how to love others as He loved us. Liturgy is not just a Eucharistic moment in the community’s life, although it is indeed that. The Church gathers the faithful together to lift their life situations to the Father, as did Christ. In the myth hero formula, these would be the obstacles he would face to sidetrack him from his Mission. This Mission was to re-establish the relationship between divinity and humanity lost by the archetypal choice of Adam and Eve to be god. In the Liturgy of the Hours and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, there are moments where we offer up to the Father with, through, and in Christ the glory due to his name as God, living and true. Father Aidan exposed the purpose of liturgy as a dynamic way to transform my everyday hurts, sufferings, accomplishments, and successes into praise and glory of the Father. Mrs. Murphy is everyman, everywoman, and all who use the external moments provided by the local gathering to see what cannot be seen and hear what cannot be heard. The community is the living body of Christ, composed of all the individual leaves on that branch, Christ being the trunk and the roots. Liturgy in the broad sense is prayer, those of the community of faithful but also the Church Universal. In this sense, the Church Universal is holy, while all its members are sinners in need of God’s constant mercy.

THE ENDURING TASK OF SEEKING GOD EVERY DAY

Everything in the above two categories seems to point to the individual in the context of the Church seeking God daily with what life serves up. This was brought home to me in this era of COVID-19 self-isolation when my wife asked me why I don’t go to church anymore. I made a feeble attempt to tell her that my doctor thought I was at high risk of being out in public because of my past battles with Leukemia (CLL type) and having a pacemaker implanted four years ago. Her argument was that I was not a good Catholic anymore because I did not go to Church as often as before, and she never saw me praying out loud. I used this experience to measure myself against Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict, which I read daily, to understand what is essential. In one of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) meditations, I asked the Holy Spirit if I was a slacker and losing my faith. The thought came back immediately that, far from lacking Faith, this COVID-19 test made me stronger. Instead of being held hostage by being a lax catholic because I did not attend church as frequently as before, I realized, thanks to Mrs. Murphy and Father Aidan, that I am Church and that wherever I go, Church goes with me. The fact that I think I am Church does not mean I speak for the Church Universal. It means that, like one leaf on the branch of my tree of Christ at Good Shepherd Community, I am one of many leaves who try to move from self to God daily. I also realized that when I join in my thoughts and Cistercian practices, I am joined with all other individuals who make up the Gathering known as the Church. We share one faith, one Lord, one Baptism, and are the living, real presence of Christ on our journey. Seeking God daily is not an isolated event between Christ and me. Still, it is the presence of others Baptized in the Faith and adopted sons and daughters of the Father who, together and individually, long to move from self to God in the context of community. The Cistercian charisms of silence, solitude, work, prayer, and community enable me to join with others to praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. The God who is, who was, and who will be at the end of the ages. –Cistercian doxology.

Thank you, Father Aidan and my other professors who planted the seed. Even though it has taken a long time, Christ has given the issue. My choices are informed by all those who have, in some way, touched my mind and heart.

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