Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen

Meeting of January 8, 2006
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
In attendance:
Brother Peter
Brother Brendan
Peter Olson
Randy Chilton
Katie Chilton
Regina Ejmont
Imelda Terrazino
Mary (Imelda's sister)
Mary Bellmar
David Buysse

BP: It is interesting to read another book about a religious community so soon after In This House of Brede. I found Brede to be more realistic. I'm also wondering if others found this community to be a normal one into which an unusual person comes, or if this is a dysfunctional community that welcomes hysteria?
PO: They seemed to gossip more than the sisters at Brede, and their mortifications...ew!
RC: I found many joyful moments, rather than joyful persons; the evocation of the natural world and its rhythms and the way in which the community fit into that was well done.
BP: The prose is so vivid that you see the scenes unfold as if watching a film (without necessarily suggesting that the book was written as a screenplay)
RC: However, the characters themselves are flat; I found no development except perhaps in Mariette and the two Prioresses. Was this part of the style? Was there a purpose for this lack of detail in character?
PO: one similarity to Brede was the episodic nature of the plot (perhaps this is related to the fact that it is about the day-to-day round of religious life)
BB: but in Brede you came to know individual characters and care about them
KC: Randy liked it more than I (we read it last weekend); I found many characters annoying, and I had to keep flipping to the front of the book to figure out who they were.
BP: I wish there had at least been some indication of indecision among the sisters with regard to the authenticity of Mariette's mysticism; each sister seemed to take sides right away and stay there. As an example, I would have liked to see the second Prioress waver a little more and maybe start to believe; also, I think that the priest's character is more developed and more synpathetic.
RC: I wonder why Hansen chose this topic and chose to write a sensationalistic novel? Clearly the minimalistic prose is a device (it's not his normal way of writing). At the center of it (for me at least) is the question of faith: as an example, toward the end at collation when Mariette goes into ecstasy and the stigmate appear, everyone sees it. So this is either mass hysteria or they are real; and yet not everyone believes.
DB:Hansen plays his cards incredibly close; at no point can we say for certain whether the phenomena are real. It reminded me less of Brede and more of Aldous Huxley's Devils of Loudun. It is not clear to me that the phenomena were not demonic in origin, and this is a big question about such mysticism: demonic possession is the flip side of divine possession. Also, it is possible for mystics to produce physical manifestations by psychological suggestion, so it could be God, the Devil or the person him or herself.
BP: so the book is about the classic discipline of the discernment of spirits [eds note: in monastic discernment, all thoughts are believed to originate from God, demons or the self]
BB: this book was written [1991] around the time of Medjugorje and other apparitions; perhaps he is dealing with this in that historical context
IT: I did not like this book! What disturbed me was that I finished it and I didn't care about any of the characters; we were just passing through; the author owes more to his readers
MB: [Mary suggested this book, with strong reservations] I liked the prose style but the book troubled me when I first read it many years ago. The communtiy dynamics I found very troubling.
IT: Why was Mariette's sister the prioress at first? This must have meant something, but I couldnt see what.
RC: It's a very ambiguous book. Note that the stigmata appear only after Mother Celine's death, so that triggers it somehow. Was there some kind of sibling rivalry at work perhaps?
DB: This detail adds to the psychological possibilities and helps to provide more explanations so that the final answer remains obscure
IT: I would have liked to know more about her father.
DB: What disturbed me was not the characters, but simply this whole idea of spiritual experience tied to sexuality, Christ as bridegroom, the Song of Songs; very foreign to me.
KC: Hansen hints at ambiguity in her sexual history
(several persons contribute examples: her flirtatiousness, suggestions that she was seen with a young man outside the cloister...)
RE: I was confused by the use of the mass of the day instead of dates.
DB: Why is the Song of Songs even in Scripture?
BB: The Council of Jamnia settled the question for Jews; it was acknowledged that the book represents God's marital relationship with Israel. I think the problem is the word "ecstasy" a pagan concept generally avoided by the Fathers. It literally means standing outside the body or oneself
RC: It interested me that she said that Jesus spoke to her but not in words; so it is about intimacy and after all, mystic experience is by definition beyond expresssion.
My question is this: can spirituality be recognized in materiality when science can't explain it.
BP: I had stronger reservations about the book before the final 40 pages, in which the Church's usual procedures for checking these things was brought out and explained accurately. But yes: objective means must first be used to determine if there is a natural cause: Padre Pio was examined by at least a dozen doctors who couldn't explain his bleeding. Even then, there were and are those who believe he was a fraud.
BB: A rule of thumb is that there can be no contradiction between science and Church teaching. Science may not be able to explain everything, but it can't disprove
DB: In my judgement, Mariette's mysticism is false because she claims that Jesus won't let science look at her wounds--it's hysterics.
RC: But everyone saw it!
DB: Individuals can produce these psychosomatic symptoms.
RC: The book raises another question: What does the world do with a religious event? The world can't accommodate such events in its normal categories.
KC: I wondered throughout what the author believed was the truth; what was his point of view? He is a practicing Catholics

next month:
Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy