Tenderness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  26, all the pastors of the city and professors of theology around his sick-bed, assured them of his perseverance in the true apostolic and orthodox doctrine, recited the Apostles’ Creed, and exhorted them to purity of life, harmony among themselves, and obedience to the magistrates. He warned them against intemperance, envy, and hatred, thanked them for their kindness, assured them of his love, and closed with a prayer of thanksgiving and some verses of the hymns of Prudentius. Then he took each by the hand and took leave of them with tears, as Paul did from the elders at Ephesus. A few weeks afterwards he died, after reciting several Psalms (51, 16, and 42), the Lord’s Prayer, and other prayers, peacefully, in the presence of his family, Sept. 17, 1575. He was buried in the Great Minster, at the side of his beloved wife and his dear friend, Peter Martyr. According to his wish, Rudolph Gwalter, Zwingli’s son-in-law and his adopted son, was unanimously elected his successor. Four of his successors were trained under his care and labored in his spirit. The writings of Bullinger are very numerous, mostly doctrinal and practical, adapted to the times, but of little permanent value. Scheuchzer numbers one hundred and fifty printed books of his. The Zürich City Library contains about one hundred, exclusive of translations and new editions. Many are extant only in manuscript. He wrote Latin commentaries on the New Testament (except the Apocalypse), numerous sermons on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the Apocalypse. His Decades (five series of ten sermons each on the Decalogue, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Sacraments) were much esteemed and used in Holland and England. His work on the justifying grace of God was highly prized by Melanchthon. His History of the Swiss Reformation, written by his own hand, in two folio volumes, has been published in 1838–’40, in three volumes. His most important doctrinal work is the Second Helvetic Confession, which acquired symbolical authority.319 § 55. Antistes Breitinger (1575–1645). In the same year in which Bullinger died (1575), Johann Jakob Breitinger was born, who became his worthy successor as Antistes of Zürich (1613– 1645).320 He called him a saint, and followed his example. He was one of the most eminent Reformed divines of his age. Thoroughly trained in the universities of Herborn, Marburg, Franeker, Heidelberg, and Basel, he gained the esteem and affection of his fellow-citizens as teacher, preacher, and devoted pastor. During the fearful pestilence of 1611 he visited the sick from morning till night at the risk of his life. He attended as one of the Swiss delegates the Synod of Dort (1618 and 1619). He was deeply impressed with the learning, wisdom, and piety of that body, and fully agreed with its unjust and intolerant treatment of the Arminians.321 On his return (May 21, 1619) he was welcomed by sixty-four Zürichers, who rode to the borders of the Rhine to meet him.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  With ready and sincere affection I embrace those who return with penitence." Calvin adds: "Such as are expelled from the Church, it is not for us to expunge from the number of the elect, or to despair of them as already lost. It is proper to consider them as strangers to the Church, and consequently to Christ, but this only as long as they remain in a state of exclusion. And even then let us hope better things of them for the future, and not cease to pray to God on their behalf. Let us not condemn to eternal death the offender, nor prescribe laws to the mercy of God who can change the worst of men into the best." He makes a distinction between excommunication and anathema; the former censures and punishes with a view to reformation and restoration; the latter precludes all pardon, and devotes a person to eternal perdition. Anathema ought never to be resorted to, or at least very rarely. Church members ought to exert all means in their power to promote the reformation of an excommunicated person, and admonish him not as an enemy, but as a brother (2 Cor. 2:8). "Unless this tenderness be observed by the individual members as well as by the Church collectively, our discipline will be in danger of speedily degenerating into cruelty." 2. As regards the discipline of the clergy, Calvin objects to the exemption of ministers from civil jurisdiction, and wants them to be subject to the same punishments as laymen. They are more guilty, as they ought to set a good example. He quotes with approval the ancient canons, so shamefully neglected in the Roman Church of his day, against hunting, gambling, feasting, usury, commerce, and secular amusements. He recommends annual visitations and synods for the correction and examination of delinquent clergymen. But he rejects the prohibition of clerical marriage as an "act of impious tyranny contrary to the Word of God and to every principle of justice. With what impunity fornication rages among them [the papal clergy] it is unnecessary to remark; emboldened by their polluted celibacy, they have become hardened to every crime ... . Paul places marriage among the virtues of a bishop; these men teach that it is a vice not to be tolerated in the clergy ... . Christ has been pleased to put such honor upon marriage as to make it an image of his sacred union with the Church. What could be said more in commendation of the dignity of marriage? With what face can that be called impure and polluted, which exhibits a similitude of the spiritual grace of Christ?... Marriage is honorable in all; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge (Heb. 13:4). The Apostles themselves have proved by their own example that marriage is not unbecoming the sanctity of any office, however excellent: for Paul testifies that they not only retained their wives, but took them about with them (1 Cor. 9:5)." § 107.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  This passage, whether we take it in a literal or anthropopathic sense, has no reference to the eternal destiny of Jacob and Esau, but to their representative position in the history of the theocracy. This removes the chief difficulty. Esau received a temporal blessing from his father (Gen. 27:39, 40), and behaved kindly and generously to his brother (33:4); he probably repented of the folly of his youth in selling his birthright,851 and may be among the saved, as well as Adam and Eve—the first among the lost and the first among the saved. Moreover, the strict meaning of a positive hatred seems impossible in the nature of the case, since it would contradict all we know from the Bible of the attributes of God. A God of love, who commands us to love all men, even our enemies, cannot hate a child before his birth, or any of his creatures made in his own image. "Can a woman forget her sucking child," says the Lord, "that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may forget, yet will I not forget thee" (Isa. 49:15). This is the prophet’s conception of the tender mercies of God. How much more must it be the conception of the New Testament? The word hate must, therefore, be understood as a strong Hebraistic expression for loving less or putting back; as in Gen. 29:31, where the original text says, "Leah was hated" by Jacob, i.e. loved less than Rachel (comp. 29:30). When our Saviour says, Luke 14:26: "If any man hateth not his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple," he does not mean that his disciples should break the fifth commandment, and act contrary to his direction: "Love your enemies, pray for them that persecute you" (Matt. 5:44), but simply that we should prefer him above everything, even life itself, and should sacrifice whatever comes in conflict with him. This meaning is confirmed by the parallel passage, Matt. 10:37: "He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." (b) Rom. 9:17. Paul traces the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to the agency of God, and so far makes God responsible for sin. But this was a judicial act of punishing sin with sin; for Pharaoh had first hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34). Moreover, this passage has no reference to Pharaoh’s future fate any more than the passage about Esau, but both refer to their place in the history of Israel. (c) In Rom. 9:22 and 23, the Apostle speaks of "vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction" kathrtismevna eij" ajpwvleian), and "vessels of mercy which he (God) prepared unto glory" (a} prohtoivmasen eij" dovxan).

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  afterwards was a sincere convert to Protestantism, heard mass in the convent of the Cordeliers at Nérac. Beza, seeing that Antoine would not hold out, but was certain to fall into the power of the Catholic party, quietly left him, Oct. 17, and after many dangers reached Geneva early in November. The journey had taken three weeks, and had, for the most part, to be performed at night.1286 § 170. Beza at the Colloquy of Poissy.1287 Beza was now considered by all the French Reformed as their most distinguished orator, and next to Calvin their most celebrated theologian. This commanding position he had attained by many able services. When, therefore, the queen-mother Catherine determined to hold a discussion between the French prelates and the most learned Protestant ministers, the Parisian pastors, seconded by the Prince of Condé, the Admiral Coligny, and the king of Navarre, implored Beza to come, and to him was committed the leadership. At first he declined. But in answer to renewed and more urgent appeals he came, and on Aug. 22, 1561, he was again in Paris, for the first time since his precipitate flight, in October, 1548—thirteen years before. The preliminary meeting was in the famous château of St. Germain-en-Laye, on the Seine, a few miles below Paris. There, on Aug. 23, he made his appearance. On the evening of that day he was summoned to the apartments of the king of Navarre, and in the presence of the queen-mother and other persons of the highest rank, he had his first encounter in debate with Cardinal Lorraine. The subject was transubstantiation. The Cardinal was no match for Beza, and after a weak defence, yielded the floor, saying that the doctrine should not stand in the way of a reconciliation. On Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1561, the parties to the Colloquy assembled in the nuns’ refectory at Poissy, some three miles away. It was soon evident that there was not to be any real debate. The Catholic party had all the advantages and acted as sole judges.1288 It was a foregone conclusion that the verdict was to be given to the Catholic party, whatever the arguments might be. Nevertheless, Beza and his associates went through the form of a debate, and courageously held their ground. In characteristic fashion they first knelt, and Beza prayed, commencing his prayer with the confession of sins used in the Genevan liturgy of Calvin. He then addressed the assembly upon the points of agreement and of disagreement between them, and was quietly listened to until he made the assertion that the Body of Christ was as far removed from the bread of the Eucharist as the heavens are from the earth. Then the prelates broke out with the cry "Blasphemavit! blasphemavit!" ("he has blasphemed"), and for a while there was much confusion.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Calvin used frequently contemptuous and uncharitable language against his opponents in his polemical writings, which cannot be defended, but he never condescended to coarse and vulgar abuse, like so many of his contemporaries.1271 He has often been charged with coldness and want of domestic and social affection, but very unjustly. The chapter on his marriage and home life, and his letters on the death of his wife and only child show the contrary.1272 The charge is a mistaken inference from his gloomy doctrine of eternal reprobation; but this was repulsive to his own feelings, else he would not have called it "a horrible decree." Experience teaches that even at this day the severest Calvinism is not seldom found connected with a sweet and amiable Christian temper. He was grave, dignified, and reserved, and kept strangers at a respectful distance; but he was, as Beza observes, cheerful in society and tolerant of those vices which spring from the natural infirmity of men. He treated his friends as his equals, with courtesy and manly frankness, but also with affectionate kindness. And they all bear testimony to this fact, and were as true and devoted to him as he was to them. The French martyrs wrote to him letters of gratitude for having fortified them to endure prison and torture with patience and resignation.1273 "He obtained," says Guizot, "the devoted affection of the best men and the esteem of all, without ever seeking to please them." "He possessed," says Tweedie, "the secret and inexplicable power of binding men to him by ties that nothing but sin or death could sever. They treasured up every word that dropped from his lips." Among his most faithful friends were many of the best men and women of his age, of different character and disposition, such as Farel, Viret, Beza, Bucer, Grynaeus, Bullinger, Knox, Melanchthon, Queen Marguerite, and the Duchess Renée. His large correspondence is a noble monument to his heart as well as his intellect, and is a sufficient refutation of all calumnies. How tender is his reference to his departed friend Melanchthon, notwithstanding their difference of opinion on predestination and free-will: "It is to thee, I appeal, who now livest with Christ in the bosom of God, where thou waitest for us till we be gathered with thee to a holy rest. A hundred times hast thou said, when, wearied with thy labors and oppressed by thy troubles, thou reposedst thy head familiarly on my breast, ’Would that I could die in this bosom!’ Since then I have a thousand times wished that it had happened to us to be together." How noble is his admonition to Bullinger, when Luther made his last furious attack upon the Zwinglians and the Zürichers (1544), not to forget "how great a man Luther is and by what extraordinary gifts he excels." And how touching is his farewell letter to his old friend Farel (May 2, 1564): "Farewell, my best and truest brother!

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  the only living heir to the house of Saul is the crippled son of Jonathan, who is no threat to David (see 2 Samuel 9, where David shows kindness to him “for Jonathan’s sake”). His name, Mephibosheth, is probably a euphemism, concealing the name of Baal ( bosheth means “shame”). The name is given as Meribaal in 1 Chron 8:34 and 9:40. The dismantling of the house of Saul is finally completed in 2 Samuel 21. This entire strand of the narrative fits perfectly with the view that the Rise of David is an apologetic or propaganda document. But again it is not difficult to read the story against the grain and arrive at a rather unfavorable picture of David. The rise of David reaches its climax in 2 Samuel 5. He is again acclaimed as king at Hebron, this time by all Israel. Then he captures Jerusalem, the Canaanite city that was still in the hands of the Jebusites at this time. Jerusalem was an ideal capital for David because it was easy to defend and it had not hitherto been associated with any Israelite tribe, although it was in the territory of David’s own tribe, Judah. The acclamation of David is complete when he is acknowledged by the king of Tyre. The account of the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem is often regarded as the conclusion of the Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel. It makes excellent sense in its present context, however. The ark was the traditional symbol of the presence of YHWH. By bringing it to Jerusalem, David made the old Jebusite city the center of worship for the tribes of Israel that worshiped YHWH. David is ostentatious in his public celebration of the event, leaving no doubt about his devotion to YHWH. The disapproval of Michal, daughter of Saul, is of little consequence at this point. The house of Saul is no longer a factor in the kingship of Israel.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  known to us primarily from Deuteronomy, Ruth does not necessarily depend on the biblical law code. The practice of levirate marriage was presumably traditional, and Deuteronomy does not specify the obligation of the next of kin, other than the brother. The action of Boaz is not constrained by legal obligation, but is motivated by kindness toward a destitute kinswoman, who also happens to be attractive and adventuresome. The message of the story, in any case, should not be tied too closely to any hypothesis about its date. The view that it is political propaganda, whether for David or against Ezra, does not do justice to this gentle and humane story. The message is simply that people who act with fidelity and compassion are ultimately blessed by God, even if they have to endure difficult circumstances for a while. Ethnic origins are of little importance, and sexual propriety can be adapted to the needs of a situation. Ruth wins favor, both with Boaz and with God, because she did not abandon her mother-in-law in her time of need but was willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure the continuation of her husband’s family.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  “Of course, my little princess,” he’d say, and then he’d settle into the heavy oak chair in the middle of the family room. I’d scramble onto one of his black-trousered legs and dangle my own legs between his, kicking back and forth. Often, my sister Mary Catherine joined me, sitting on his other leg. “And what song would you like tonight?” My answer never varied. “You know—‘La Très Sainte Vierge’!” It was one of several French-Canadian songs in his vast repertoire, a song about Our Lady when she was a little girl, walking to school. My dad would stroke my own long brown hair as he sang “avec les beaux cheveux pendant,” which he explained meant “with her beautiful long hair hanging down.” And later when he tucked me into bed, I held my breath, waiting for the words I knew he would whisper in my ear: “Good night, my little princess.” On nights when my parents attended classes at the Center, one of the Big Brothers or Big Sisters would be our “Angel,” the Center’s word for babysitter. I had a few favorite Angels: Brother Sebastian was one of them. His role as my brother’s godfather gave him a special place within our family and his bedtime stories were legion—St. Patrick came to Ireland and kicked out all the snakes; St. Francis tamed the wolf in Gubbio; St. George killed the dragon; St. Frances Cabrini sailed on a ship to America from Italy and traveled throughout South America riding on a donkey. Those tales of the saints became my internal encyclopedia, and I relished memorizing facts about countries and cities, history and nature, all intertwined in a riveting story about life long ago and out in the now-verboten world. I imagined visiting each city where a saint grew up—Rome, Constantinople, Besançon, the Isle of Lindisfarne, Lisieux, Padua, and on and on. I tried to picture the hills of Tuscany and the Arno River, the Sea of Galilee with fishermen throwing out their fishing nets. Then, as I fell off to sleep, I vowed to myself that someday I would visit those places. But my favorite Angel was Sister Mary Elizabeth, whom I still thought of as Betty Sullivan. The red fence had put an end to our time together picking flowers by the river or walking to the Center, but the bond we had forged since my infancy only grew. When I was too young to understand such things, she had been engaged to marry one of the men at the Center—but that was before they all took vows. Perhaps I represented the child she knew she would never have. Then one day, she was gone. I didn’t see her at First Breakfast or second breakfast. She didn’t come out to the yard and play with me after dinner. A sense of dread mounted inside me: Had she been kicked out? Kicked out was the term we used when someone was no longer with us.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  “I’m here to find a job in the investment business, not drive some old lady to her shrink.” “It’s just while you’re looking for a new job, princess,” he cajoled. He paused and then went on: “I told her you would call her this evening.” More to please my dad than to earn the five dollars an hour that Mrs. Taylor grudgingly agreed to pay me, and convincing myself that this position would be for a few weeks at most, I tiptoed my way into scenes of a life of both privilege and horror. The position of chauffeur lasted for less than a week, by which time it had morphed into a mélange of roles including gal Friday, confidante, friend, lunch companion, and chauffeur. Mrs. Taylor (as I addressed her) needed help to bathe and dress in the morning because her breakfast consisted of a handful of pills (her “vitamins” as she called them) washed down with several large gulps of “water,” as she described clear liquid, which was quite obviously vodka. The routine was the same each day. After extricating Mrs. Taylor from her bathtub, terrified that I might break her rail-thin bones either by holding on to her too hard or by letting her slip and fall, I helped her through what generally ended up as a two-hour dressing ritual. Stumbling her spindly legs into a pair of white linen trousers was the first step in the process. Once seated at her makeup table, she embarked on a ceremony of sorts—namely, re-creating Brenda Diana Duff Frazier, debutante of the year 1938. Between sips of what she kept referring to as water, but I knew better, she drew with a deep black makeup pencil the shape of her eyebrows, which were nonexistent, as well as her once famed widow’s peak, which was now simply part of her nearly bald head that she adorned with a jet-black wig, another replica of days gone by. By the time she powdered her face and painted on her ruby-red lipstick, she looked more Kabuki than debutante, more a caricature than a re-creation of her once exotic beauty. Despite her intense reliance on pills and alcohol, Mrs. Taylor had a bright eye, a sharp tongue, and a wickedly good sense of humor. And deep inside there was also a kind, but badly broken, heart. Snippets of stories from her past that spilled out of her as we drove each day depicted a woman who craved love because it had been denied her. For a reason I couldn’t explain to myself, likely because I was well aware that this was a temporary employment situation for me, I found her fascinating rather than revolting. After visiting her psychiatrist, who seemed oblivious to her state of addiction, she and I would lunch at the Ritz Carlton, the same meal every day—beef tongue on rye bread with mustard for each of us, accompanied by a double martini (for her alone).

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  On a warm summer evening, I was sitting with him in his apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, coddling a glass of white wine, the light of day still pouring into the living room through the skylight above. I had my feet tucked underneath me as I excitedly explained my upcoming business trip to Paris. He mentioned that his mother lived in the town of Orgeval, a few kilometers outside of Paris. She had recently broken her hip, he said, and was struggling with her recovery. “I’d love to visit her,” I told him. That’s when he got silent, and I sensed something was wrong. “Tell me,” I said. A tear came to his eye, and he reached out his hand, with its slight tremble, to take my own in his. The words formed slowly. “My mother’s a lesbian,” he said, and the tear rolled down his cheek. His pain touched me—he’d spoken of his mother before, but only in reference to his parents’ divorce when he was barely old enough to walk and how he would go for months at a time pining for her. I knew deeply what that separation felt like, yet I had not braved sharing with him the story of my own parental loss. But in that moment, something sprang free in me. That his mother was a lesbian seemed to me hardly a matter of shame. Compared to the tale I was hiding, I thought it trivial. His emotion acted as a catalyst, and I burst out, “Well, I have a secret, too.” And for the next hour, I let spill out of me for the first time ever the tale of my life. Punctuated with sobs and even laughter, I unveiled my story while he listened intently, without interrupting, his soft blue eyes moist with emotion. And when I was spent talking, he expressed his fascination with my childhood and his interest in meeting my extended family. I was immensely grateful for his interest and particularly for his lack of prejudice toward my parents. I found it surprising that he knew nothing of the Center because he was a Harvard man—class of ’51—which put him in Harvard Square at the very time of the disruption that shaped my life. But his sybaritic life as a member of the elite Fly Club at Harvard during that tumultuous time kept him far removed from the revolution at the Center. He told me he loved my story—the unusualness of it, the fact that I still cherished the place I knew as home for so many years. We shared our childhood sorrow over losing the daily love and affection of our parents—he because his mother ran away from marriage, I because my parents were convinced that sacrificing their marriage would help to save my soul.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  It was late February, a month after we’d moved, and the flu epidemic returned. I prided myself on being one of the few children who hadn’t succumbed. Then one night, I coughed as Sister Maria Crucis came into my cubicle to kiss me goodnight. Just a little nothing cough. “I think you’re coming down with the flu,” she exclaimed. “Oh, no, I’m fine,” I responded, desperate to maintain my status as one of the “strong” and “healthy” children. But to her my cough was an opportunity to envelop me in her protective cocoon. She swooped into action, armed with a jar of Vicks VapoRub that she proceeded to slather on my chest. “I’ll be back with some brandy,” she said as she headed off down the corridor to return with the only enjoyable part of the treatment—warm brandy mixed with honey that, with the help of additional heavy woolen blankets that she piled on top of me, was meant to sweat the flu out of me. Even story time (Sister Catherine reintroduced bedtime stories) was ritualized. Sister Maria Crucis would position herself in the middle of the bed in one of our cubicles, with her back against the wall. Once she had sorted her long black skirt so that it lay in a tidy fashion around her legs, she signaled the five of us to set ourselves up on either side of her, with our hands in our laps and our bathrobes neatly closed and tied. As Sister Maria Crucis read to us, my mind would wander.... What is Sister Elizabeth Ann doing? Why can’t she be reading to me?

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  She found my childhood deeply disturbing, and on one trip home from college, she demanded that I “drop everything,” as she put it, until I finished my book. Now I have finished it. Epilogue T he Center of my childhood was much changed by the mid-1970s. Leonard Feeney, under the auspices of Cardinal Madeiros of Boston and Cardinal Wright of Worcester, had become reconciled with Rome in the early 1970s and died in 1978 a few days shy of his eighty-first birthday. After more than a decade, the infighting among factions at the Center in Still River simmered down, and the two communities found a way to split up and yet remain on speaking terms with each other. I had taken no sides in their conflicts, and each of the separate entities reached out to me in a warm and welcoming way. In a turnabout, they sought me out for advice, most particularly on matters that had to do with finance, and I was happy to help them in whatever way I could. St. Therese’s House became a Benedictine abbey, changing its name to St. Benedict Abbey. It remains a vibrant community today. The Big Sisters at St. Ann’s House became a pious union of nuns under the Catholic Diocese of Worcester, teaching catechism and preparing children for First Communion, for which they are beloved by Catholic families in the local community. A number of the original Center members moved to Petersham, Massachusetts, and established their own Brother/Sister Benedictine monasteries, St. Mary’s Monastery and St. Scholastica Priory, under the auspices of Pluscarden Abbey in Scotland. Three other splinter groups settled in Ohio, New Hampshire, and California. [image file=Image00040.jpg] During the late 1970s, on one of my visits to Still River, I was astonished, as I entered the library, to find Betty Sullivan sitting in the red leather wing chair next to the piano. She caught my eye as I approached and her face lit up—as much as her doleful eyes would allow. She no longer looked decrepit. It was evident that whatever mental illness she had suffered years earlier was at least under control. For the next couple of hours, we shared reminiscences and caught up on our lives. She knew, to my amazement, that I had a career in the financial world. That pleased me—that she had made an effort to keep me in her sights. For her part, she said she had taken up oil painting and followed it with, “And I’d love to paint your portrait, and Davey’s, too,” referring to my brother’s name as a baby. “That would be wonderful,” I replied, intrigued by what she might produce. Sadly, time ran out before her dream became reality. She was ill with breast cancer at the time and succumbed before she had a session with either of us.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  On a warm summer evening, I was sitting with him in his apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, coddling a glass of white wine, the light of day still pouring into the living room through the skylight above. I had my feet tucked underneath me as I excitedly explained my upcoming business trip to Paris. He mentioned that his mother lived in the town of Orgeval, a few kilometers outside of Paris. She had recently broken her hip, he said, and was struggling with her recovery. “I’d love to visit her,” I told him. That’s when he got silent, and I sensed something was wrong. “Tell me,” I said. A tear came to his eye, and he reached out his hand, with its slight tremble, to take my own in his. The words formed slowly. “My mother’s a lesbian,” he said, and the tear rolled down his cheek. His pain touched me—he’d spoken of his mother before, but only in reference to his parents’ divorce when he was barely old enough to walk and how he would go for months at a time pining for her. I knew deeply what that separation felt like, yet I had not braved sharing with him the story of my own parental loss. But in that moment, something sprang free in me. That his mother was a lesbian seemed to me hardly a matter of shame. Compared to the tale I was hiding, I thought it trivial. His emotion acted as a catalyst, and I burst out, “Well, I have a secret, too.” And for the next hour, I let spill out of me for the first time ever the tale of my life. Punctuated with sobs and even laughter, I unveiled my story while he listened intently, without interrupting, his soft blue eyes moist with emotion. And when I was spent talking, he expressed his fascination with my childhood and his interest in meeting my extended family. I was immensely grateful for his interest and particularly for his lack of prejudice toward my parents. I found it surprising that he knew nothing of the Center because he was a Harvard man—class of ’51—which put him in Harvard Square at the very time of the disruption that shaped my life. But his sybaritic life as a member of the elite Fly Club at Harvard during that tumultuous time kept him far removed from the revolution at the Center. He told me he loved my story—the unusualness of it, the fact that I still cherished the place I knew as home for so many years. We shared our childhood sorrow over losing the daily love and affection of our parents—he because his mother ran away from marriage, I because my parents were convinced that sacrificing their marriage would help to save my soul.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  So I was unprepared when the psychiatrist called me in to his office one day. “You realize, don’t you,” he said, “that you’re the only person in the world whom she loves. Would you consider moving in with her? It would help her immensely.” Poor Mrs. Taylor was all I could think. She loves me because I’m the only person in her sphere who’s not afraid of her—not her tantrums, nor her wailing, not even her histrionics when the police come to the apartment because I’ve inadvertently set off the alarm on her jewel-stuffed safe, evidence of the many lovers in her past life. Before replying, I asked him if he had any idea that Mrs. Taylor was blind drunk by the time she arrived for her daily visit. He was nonplussed, and I realized at that moment she was just a paycheck to him. No, I wouldn’t live with her, I told the doctor, but I promised to stay with her until I found a job. I didn’t share with the psychiatrist that, despite Mrs. Taylor’s eccentricities and her own self-loathing, there was a way in which I did love her. She and I flew to her house on the Cape, another home stocked with staff. There I discovered her insomnia. Come the time I was ready to retire for the night, she bade me sit at the foot of her bed and for the next six hours she regaled me, between gulps of vodka, with tales of a life lived long in the past and lived hard. The eastern sky was spreading the light of dawn by the time her increasingly garbled storytelling came to an end and she fell back on the pillows exhausted. When my birthday came around in August, I was touched by the presents she gave me—a painting of a hummingbird that she had done while we were on the Cape together and a leather briefcase with my initials engraved on it. She wished me good luck in my search for a job. Perhaps that present was my good-luck charm, because by September I had found a job that became a stepping-stone into the world of finance in New York City, where I was hired three months later.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  I wondered sometimes if the two of them weren’t driving Sister Catherine crazy. In my mind’s eye, I could visualize the tautness that would grip her face, particularly when my father would openly flout the rules. She couldn’t control them, and I relished the distress it must have been causing her. The true state of my parents’ marriage was brought home to me one Sunday evening at our intimate family dinner. It was a homey setting, a freshly pressed white linen tablecloth covering the round dining room table, in sharp contrast to the institutional setup in Still River that was devoid of tablecloths and even place mats. That evening, when my mother had gone into the kitchen to get dessert, my father turned to me and spoke, his words seeming to be carefully chosen. “My little princess,” he began (I relished that he still called me that), “if something should happen to me and I die at the Center, I want you to take my wedding ring from inside my scapular and put it on my finger in the casket. I want to be buried as a married man.” It was a poignant moment—my father making a plea to his now-worldly eldest daughter to ensure that the message was loud and clear that, although he was living a celibate religious life today, in his heart he was a married man who loved his wife. I was not prepared to probe his heart or his mind on the matter. Instead, I responded with all my heart. “I promise you I will do that, but you’re nowhere near dying. You just turned fifty.” His request might have been an opportunity to question him about the Center, about the breakup of the families, about why he and my mother made the sacrifices they did, but I wasn’t comfortable going down that path. Instead I buried my burning desire to tell him how much I wanted to see that ring back on his finger, the ring I had played with as a tiny child long before he had been forced to take it off. In my heart, I felt I knew the reason he was still at the Center—four of his children were still there, and he held firm to his belief that an education at the Center provided the best opportunity for a solid grounding in Catholic doctrine and morals. While Mary Catherine was about to graduate from high school, my youngest sister, Veronica, was not quite fourteen, with several years of school still ahead of her. Little did any of us anticipate the turn of events that was about to unfold.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 28—Self-Giving Love According to John 189 ‹ Making this idea the center of the crucifixion narrative seems counterintuitive. After all, many aspects of the story suggest that death is the tragic interruption of Jesus’s work, not its fitting conclusion. The gospel has shown how Jesus’s opponents charge that he is a lawbreaker and a blasphemer; from that perspective, Jesus’s death is a victory for his opponents because it brings his activity to an end. ‹ John’s challenge is to show how crucifixion can possibly be seen as the meaningful completion of Jesus’s public activity. In doing so, the author depicts scenes that are unique to this gospel, including the appearance of Jesus’s mother and an unnamed disciple at the execution. ‹ In the gospel itself, the main action is remarkably simple. Jesus says to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” And he says to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, the disciple takes her into his home. What’s striking is that the crucifixion culminates in a scene where relationships are formed. Jesus completes his work by entrusting two people to each other, and as he does so, he forms the nucleus of a community that will continue beyond his death. ● Scholars note that John builds a kind of symmetry into the narrative. Jesus’s mother appears only twice in the gospel: once at the wedding in Cana and once at the crucifixion. At Cana, Jesus does the first of his signs, turning water into wine. And at the cross, Jesus gives people to each other before he drinks sour wine. After he drinks the wine, he speaks his final words, “It is completed,” and dies. ● The symmetry in the narrative invites readers to connect the giving of excellent wine at Cana with the drinking of sour wine at the cross. But that literary connection suggests meaning rather than making it explicit. At Cana, Jesus gives the wine as a sign of divine favor. And the scenes at the cross complete the act of giving, as Jesus gives people to each other and gives up his own life. In John’s gospel, that act of self-giving discloses the character of Jesus’s work. ‹ The final scenes in the crucifixion narrative are equally suggestive. We learn that it is late in the day, and the Jewish authorities don’t want Jesus or those crucified with him to remain on the cross until the next day. The two men crucified with Jesus are still alive, but Jesus is already dead. The soldiers pierce his side with a spear and out comes blood and water.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  But, unlike modern biblical scholars, they were not interested in recovering the original significance of a given scriptural passage. Like Daniel, they were looking for fresh meaning. In their view, there was no single authoritative reading of scripture. As events unfolded on earth, even God had to keep studying his own Torah in order to discover its full significance. 2 The rabbis called their exegesis midrash, which, as we saw in Chapter 2, derived from the verb darash: to investigate; to seek. The meaning of a text was not self-evident. The exegete had to go in search of it, because every time a Jew confronted the Word of God in scripture, it signified something different. Scripture was inexhaustible. The rabbis liked to point out that King Solomon used three thousand parables to illustrate every single verse of the Torah, and could give a thousand and five interpretations of each parable – which meant that there were three million, fifteen thousand possible expositions of each unit of scripture. 3 Indeed, a text that could not be radically reinterpreted to meet the needs of the day was dead; the written words of scripture had to be revitalized by constant exegesis. Only then could they reveal the divine presence latent within God’s Torah. Midrash was not a purely intellectual pursuit and study was never an end in itself: it had to inspire practical action in the world. The exegete had a duty to apply the Torah to his particular situation and make it speak to the condition of every single member of his community. The goal was never simply to clarify an obscure passage but to address the burning issues of the day. You did not understand a text until you had found a way of putting it into practice. 4 The rabbis called scripture miqra: a ‘summons’ that called the Jewish people to action. Above all, midrash must be guided by the principle of compassion. In the early years of the first century, the great Pharisaic sage Hillel had come from Babylonia to Jerusalem, where he had preached alongside his rival Shammai, whose version of Pharisaism was more stringent. It was said that one day a pagan had approached Hillel and promised to convert to Judaism if he could summarize the entire Torah while he stood on one leg. Standing on one leg, Hillel replied: ‘What is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go study it.’ 5 This was an astonishing and deliberately controversial piece of midrash. The essence of Torah was the disciplined refusal to inflict pain on another human being.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  Johanan consoled him by quoting words that God had spoken to Hosea: ‘Grieve not, we have atonement equal to the temple, the doing of loving deeds, as it is said: “ I desire love (hesed) and not sacrifice ”.’ 8 The practice of compassion was a priestly act that would atone for sins more effectively than the old expiatory rites, and it could be performed by ordinary lay folk, instead of being the preserve of an exclusive priestly caste. But R. Johanan’s exegesis would probably have surprised Hosea. If he had looked closely at the original context, the rabbi would have realized that God had not been speaking to Hosea of charitable deeds. Hesed should properly be translated as ‘loyalty’ rather than ‘love’. God had not been concerned with the kindness that human beings should show to one another, but with the cultic fealty that Israel owed to him. But this would not have disturbed R. Joshua, who was not attempting a historical exposition of the text, but seeking to console his traumatized community. There was no need to mourn the temple too extravagantly: practical charity could replace the old ceremonial ritual. He was building a horoz , a ‘chain’ that linked together quotations that originally had no connection to each other but which, once ‘enchained’, revealed their integral unity. 9 He began by citing a well-known maxim of Simeon the Just, a revered high priest of the third century BCE : 10 ‘Upon three things the world is based: upon the Torah, upon the temple service, and upon the doing of loving deeds.’ 11 Like the quotation from Hosea, this proved that practical compassion was as important as the Torah and temple worship. Loving kindness was, as it were, an essential leg of the tripod that supported the entire world, and now that the temple had gone, Torah and charity were more important than ever before. To back up this insight, R. Johanan quoted – or slightly misquoted – the psalmist: ‘The world is built by love.’ 12 In juxtaposing these three unrelated texts, R. Johanan had shown that, as Hillel claimed, charity was indeed central to scripture: it was the exegete’s job to elucidate this hidden principle and bring it to light. The horoz was essential to rabbinic midrash. It gave the exegete an intuition of wholeness and completeness that was similar to the shalom that Jews had found in the temple and the coincidenia oppositorum that Christians experienced in their pesher exegesis. Like the Christians, the rabbis were reading the Law and the prophets differently, giving them a meaning that often bore little relationship to the original authors’ intention. R. Akiba perfected this innovative midrash. His pupils liked to tell a story about him.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  2 The linguist Donald Davidson maintains that ‘Making sense of the utterance and behaviour of others, even their most aberrant behaviour, requires you to find a great deal of truth and reason in them.’ 3 Even though their beliefs may be very different from your own, ‘you have to assume that the alien is very much the same as you are,’ otherwise you are in danger of denying their humanity. ‘Charity is forced upon us,’ Davidson concludes. ‘Whether we like it or not, if we want to understand others, we must regard them as right in most matters.’ 4 In the public arena, however, people are often presumed to be wrong before they are proved right, and this has inevitably affected our understanding of the Bible. The ‘principle of charity’ accords with the religious ideal of compassion, the duty to ‘feel with’ the other. Some of the greatest exegetes of the past – Hillel, Jesus, Paul, Johanan ben Zakkai, Akiba and Augustine – insisted that charity and loving kindness were essential to biblical interpretation. In our dangerously polarized world, a common hermeneutics among the religions should surely emphasize this tradition. Jews, Christians and Muslims must first examine the flaws of their own scriptures and only then listen, with humility, generosity and charity to the exegesis of others. What would it mean to interpret the whole of the Bible as a ‘commentary’ on the Golden Rule? It would first demand an appreciation of other people’s scriptures. R. Meir said that any interpretation that spread hatred or denigrated other sages was illegitimate. Today these ‘other sages’ must include Muhammad, Buddha and the rishis of the Rig Veda. In the spirit of Michael Fishbane’s reading of Micah’s coda, Christians must cease regarding the Tanakh as a mere prelude to Christiantiy and learn to value the insights of the rabbis; Jews should acknowledge the Jewishness of Jesus and Paul and learn to appreciate the fathers of the Church. Augustine claimed that scripture teaches nothing but charity. How then do we interpret the massacres of Joshua, the gospel abuse of the Pharisees and the battles of Revelation? As Augustine advised, these episodes should first be placed in their historical context and studied in the way we have already considered. How have they been interpreted in the past? And do they throw light on the lack of charity in contemporary discourse and the modern political scene ? Today we see too much strident certainty in both the religious and the secular spheres. Instead of quoting the Bible in order to denigrate homosexuals, liberals or women priests, we could recall Augustine’s rule of faith: an exegete must always seek the most charitable interpretation of a text.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  When they expounded Torah, the rabbis regularly amended the words, telling their students, ‘don’t read this . . . but that.’20 By altering the text in this way, they sometimes introduced into scripture a note of compassion that had been absent from the original. This happened when R. Meir, one of R. Akiba’s most distinguished pupils, discussed a ruling in Deuteronomy: If a man guilty of a capital offence is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body must not remain on the tree overnight; you must bury him the same day, for one who has been hanged is accursed of God, [qilelat Elohim] and you must not defile the land that Yahweh your God has given you for your inheritance.21 There was self-interest in this legislation, because if the Israelites polluted the land they would lose it. But R. Meir suggested a new reading, based on a pun: ‘Do not read qilelat Elohim,’ he said, ‘but qallat Elohim (“the pain of God”)’. R. Meir explained that the new text revealed the pathos of God, who suffered with his creatures: ‘When a person is in grave trouble, what does the Shekhinah say? It says, as it were: “My head is in pain, my arm is in pain”.’22 It was possible to find love and the Golden Rule in the most unlikely parts of the Torah. As a modern scholar remarks: ‘the midrashic shuttle weaves a texture of compassion around a stern legal rule’; because the rabbi invited his pupils to change the text, they too became involved in the active process of endless reinterpretation.23 The same applied to R. Judah’s exposition of God’s words to Zechariah: ‘Whoever hurts you [i.e. Israel] is like one who hurts his own (eyno) eye.’ ‘Do not read eyno (“his”), but eyni (“my”) eye,’ R. Judah instructed his colleagues; the text now claimed that a loving God shared the pain of his own people: ‘Whoever hurts Israel is like one who hurts My [eyni] eye.’24