Gregorian Collect
(Latin) Sancti Nominis tui, Domine, timorem pariter et amorem fac nos habere perpetuum, quia numquam tua gubernatione destituis, quos in soliditate, tuae dilectionis instituis. Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Make us, O Lord, to have a perpetual fear and love of Thy holy name, for Thou never failest to govern those who Thou dost solidly establish in Thy love. Thou who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.
1549 Collect
LORD, make us to have a perpetuall feare and love of thy holy name: for thou never faillest to helpe and governe them whom thou doest bryng up in thy stedfast love. Graunt this,..
1662 Collect
O LORD, who never failest to help and govern them who thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love; Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection
Perpetual fear is not something that appears on our list of things we associate with Love. It is something we might rather associate with abusive relationships, where one partner dominates the other in order to exercise power in an arbitrary and dehumanising fashion. We imagine the dominant partner in taking pleasure in belittling the other, controlling their actions, punishing any deviation from their will.
On the face of it, the substance of this collect in its several versions seems to uphold a view of God which has been adequately described by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The god of the modern atheism is a capricious totalitarian who deserves not to be worshipped but ignored like any other bully. To pray for perpetual fear seems to be a prayer of submission and a disgustingly obsequious manner from human beings who need to learn to have some self-respect.
If we bother to look deeper, we still have this troubling notion of love, a steadfast love which governs those who wish to be governed. To pray this prayer is to wish for love and to recognise something great, something utterly powerful. This is the type of love that makes one weak at the knees in its power, that causes trembling and fear, but a fear born of love, not of dread. If anything this fear comes from awe, the realisation of something massive, beautiful, of something that overwhelms us to the point of losing our precious identity.
This is the love of God which sends shivers up and down the spine. This is the love of a God who wants us to know Him for our sake and for His good pleasure in us for who He created us to be, not taking pleasure in watching us jump when He says so and torturing us when we fail to jump sufficiently high. This is the love of a God who dared to become a man and whose unpredictability, untamedness, and sheer mastery of the art of creation frightens us by its power, yet draws us into deeper love and trust. This is the terror of pure love!
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Sunday, June 07, 2015
Collect for the First Sunday after Trinity
Prayer book
O GOD, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee, mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection
It is true that the weakness of God is stronger than Man's strength. Yet, Our Lord Himself took on that mortal nature with all its weakness and temptation in the fullness of that weakness. In His Holy Incarnation, Our Lord took on limits to His power, His knowledge, His strength and His invulnerability. Instead, He was soft and fleshy and easily broken.
Yet it is through the mortal nature of Christ that we find the immortality which we can put on. In Christ's mortality, good things become possible. The Cross becomes a rent in reality through which blessings pour out and the glimpse of what is truly good can be seen. We can do good because we hve now seen it with our eyes and touched it with our hands. We have the power to do it, because we have been breathed upon by Breath that gives life as well as reassembling dead bones.
We see the loveliness of God's commandments through the mortality of Christ and, as we continue to trust in Him, we participate in the performance of those commandments in the World to bring the love of God into the world. We receive an answer to our prayers through out trust in God both with us and beyond us. Yet, if we don't pray, how do we expect to receive any of this?
O GOD, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee, mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection
It is true that the weakness of God is stronger than Man's strength. Yet, Our Lord Himself took on that mortal nature with all its weakness and temptation in the fullness of that weakness. In His Holy Incarnation, Our Lord took on limits to His power, His knowledge, His strength and His invulnerability. Instead, He was soft and fleshy and easily broken.
Yet it is through the mortal nature of Christ that we find the immortality which we can put on. In Christ's mortality, good things become possible. The Cross becomes a rent in reality through which blessings pour out and the glimpse of what is truly good can be seen. We can do good because we hve now seen it with our eyes and touched it with our hands. We have the power to do it, because we have been breathed upon by Breath that gives life as well as reassembling dead bones.
We see the loveliness of God's commandments through the mortality of Christ and, as we continue to trust in Him, we participate in the performance of those commandments in the World to bring the love of God into the world. We receive an answer to our prayers through out trust in God both with us and beyond us. Yet, if we don't pray, how do we expect to receive any of this?
Indeed
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the Sunday in the Octave of Corpus Christi
Indeed.
It’s fascinating the difference one little word can make and “indeed” is a vitally important word. It’s a vitally important word indeed!
Let’s look at how we use it. If we are asked the question, “Are you going to Disney World?” we could answer with “yes”, or “yes, I am”, or “Indeed, I am.” Notice the difference in those responses. Which seems to be the strongest to you?
[PAUSE]
For many of us, to say “indeed, I am” seems to be the strongest way of saying yes without jumping up and down and nodding more fiercely than a nodding dog with St Vitus’ dance. It means something is a fact, a reality, almost a foregone conclusion. “Indeed” is the word used to translate Latin and Greek words meaning “in truth” – again a strong indication of fact. If this little word is so strong in its meaning, then how much stronger must it be if the King of the Universe uses it?
[PAUSE]
“Jesus said unto the multitude of the Jews: My Flesh is meat indeed, and my Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.”
So the Lord tells us that we are to consume His Flesh and drink His Blood. This scandalises the Jews and even His own disciples, many of whom leave Him. It’s a big deal to say this. In using the word “indeed”, Our Lord is making His point very clear.
Furthermore, He tells us clearly at the last supper, “this is my body” and “this is my blood”. He doesn’t use the word “indeed” here. Why not? Because His disciples have heard Him say that His Flesh is meat indeed, that His Blood is drink indeed. What Our Lord says, He means.
[PAUSE]
This is why the Catholic Faith holds very strongly to the fact that when we do as the Lord commands, the Host becomes His Flesh, the Wine becomes His Blood. Why then don’t we see it change?
The answer really lies in the fact that, as human beings, we are formed of soul and body. That’s why our sacraments have an outward sign, something we can experience with our bodies, and an inward grace, something that we can only experience with our souls. Angels don’t need sacraments nor do animals. They are there to bring fallen men and women back to God. For our sake, Christ becomes really present to us in His flesh, blood and divinity at the Mass but we may not see Him with our physical senses, but rather with the eyes of faith.
[PAUSE]
It may be hard for us to see this at times, and our faith may wobble because we cannot experience what is going on physically.
We trust that He is there because He tells us that He is there so that we can become more like Him by taking Him into ourselves.
If we really are what we eat, what does that mean for the faithful Catholic?
Indeed.
It’s fascinating the difference one little word can make and “indeed” is a vitally important word. It’s a vitally important word indeed!
Let’s look at how we use it. If we are asked the question, “Are you going to Disney World?” we could answer with “yes”, or “yes, I am”, or “Indeed, I am.” Notice the difference in those responses. Which seems to be the strongest to you?
[PAUSE]
For many of us, to say “indeed, I am” seems to be the strongest way of saying yes without jumping up and down and nodding more fiercely than a nodding dog with St Vitus’ dance. It means something is a fact, a reality, almost a foregone conclusion. “Indeed” is the word used to translate Latin and Greek words meaning “in truth” – again a strong indication of fact. If this little word is so strong in its meaning, then how much stronger must it be if the King of the Universe uses it?
[PAUSE]
“Jesus said unto the multitude of the Jews: My Flesh is meat indeed, and my Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.”
So the Lord tells us that we are to consume His Flesh and drink His Blood. This scandalises the Jews and even His own disciples, many of whom leave Him. It’s a big deal to say this. In using the word “indeed”, Our Lord is making His point very clear.
Furthermore, He tells us clearly at the last supper, “this is my body” and “this is my blood”. He doesn’t use the word “indeed” here. Why not? Because His disciples have heard Him say that His Flesh is meat indeed, that His Blood is drink indeed. What Our Lord says, He means.
[PAUSE]
This is why the Catholic Faith holds very strongly to the fact that when we do as the Lord commands, the Host becomes His Flesh, the Wine becomes His Blood. Why then don’t we see it change?
The answer really lies in the fact that, as human beings, we are formed of soul and body. That’s why our sacraments have an outward sign, something we can experience with our bodies, and an inward grace, something that we can only experience with our souls. Angels don’t need sacraments nor do animals. They are there to bring fallen men and women back to God. For our sake, Christ becomes really present to us in His flesh, blood and divinity at the Mass but we may not see Him with our physical senses, but rather with the eyes of faith.
[PAUSE]
It may be hard for us to see this at times, and our faith may wobble because we cannot experience what is going on physically.
We trust that He is there because He tells us that He is there so that we can become more like Him by taking Him into ourselves.
If we really are what we eat, what does that mean for the faithful Catholic?
Thursday, June 04, 2015
Collect for Corpus Christi
Breviary
O GOD, who under a wonderful Sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy Passion: Grant us we beseech thee. so to venerate the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood. that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption, who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
As we leave the time of the major feasts and move into so-called "Ordinary Time", we find that we often fall into the temptation of seeing green Sundays as being "normal," "standard," or even "humdrum." Have we overindulged upon our feasts after being overzealous in our fasts so that the green time becomes just ordinary and thus nothing special.
The feast of Corpus Christi helps to show us that "Ordinary Time" is actually something much more than ordinary. Every Sunday, we are presented with the memorial of the Passion, looking back to the pain of Holy Week, and the abstinence of Lent. We can look back further to the Incarnation and the Epiphany, and in so doing we are looking forward to Advent again. As far as the liturgical year is concerned, looking back is the same as looking forward because we find ourselves inextricably linked to the drama of our salvation.
In venerating the mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, we find that Green Time is far from not being special and that ordinary possesses the character of the extraordinary as the miracle of Christ's continued presence with us is renewed in our sight. This is the fruit of our redemption - it is always with us in fast, feast, or ordinary time. We always possess that miracle expounded in Advent: God with us, It feeds us, gives us purpose and joins us to the Eternal. In Corpus Christi, we see yet another way in which the Christian year is entwined in and around the central fact of Emmanuel.
O GOD, who under a wonderful Sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy Passion: Grant us we beseech thee. so to venerate the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood. that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption, who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
As we leave the time of the major feasts and move into so-called "Ordinary Time", we find that we often fall into the temptation of seeing green Sundays as being "normal," "standard," or even "humdrum." Have we overindulged upon our feasts after being overzealous in our fasts so that the green time becomes just ordinary and thus nothing special.
The feast of Corpus Christi helps to show us that "Ordinary Time" is actually something much more than ordinary. Every Sunday, we are presented with the memorial of the Passion, looking back to the pain of Holy Week, and the abstinence of Lent. We can look back further to the Incarnation and the Epiphany, and in so doing we are looking forward to Advent again. As far as the liturgical year is concerned, looking back is the same as looking forward because we find ourselves inextricably linked to the drama of our salvation.
In venerating the mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, we find that Green Time is far from not being special and that ordinary possesses the character of the extraordinary as the miracle of Christ's continued presence with us is renewed in our sight. This is the fruit of our redemption - it is always with us in fast, feast, or ordinary time. We always possess that miracle expounded in Advent: God with us, It feeds us, gives us purpose and joins us to the Eternal. In Corpus Christi, we see yet another way in which the Christian year is entwined in and around the central fact of Emmanuel.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Breaking the veneer
O Unity of threefold light,
Send out Thy loveliest ray,
Add scatter our transgressions’ night,
And turn it into day;
Make us those temples pure and fair
Thy glory loveth well,
The spotless tabernacles, where
Thou may’st vouchsafe to dwell.The glorious hosts of peerless might,
That ever see Thy face,
Thou mak’st the mirrors of Thy light,
The vessels of Thy grace.
Thou, when their wondrous strains they weave,
Hast pleasure in the lay:
Deign thus our praises to receive,
Albeit from lips of clay.And yet Thyself they cannot know,
Nor pierce the veil of light
That hides Thee from the thrones below,
As in profoundest night.
How then can mortal accents frame
Due tribute to their king?
Thou, only, while we praise Thy name,
Forgive us as we sing.
Archbishop Metrophanes of Smyrna c900AD
translated by Fr. J. M. Neale.
On Trinity Sunday, we sang this hymn to Tallis' Third Mode Melody which suited it rather well, I thought. It was clearly English and yet clearly Catholic, written before the Great Schism, and therefore perfectly Anglican Catholic. For me, personally, it presents the strange imagery of the Mass whereby in humble settings, with unclean lips, and sin-stained lives, the Light Incomprehensible can still shine forth into the world. I think sometimes we forget that this is possible.
There still is a sense in the world whereby people think that they are too sinful for God to be near them. They say with St Peter, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." and yet, rather than accepting His presence as the Prince of the Apostles, they continue to push God away. Now why should this be? I expect for most people who feel like this, the god that is so down on sinners is the one they try to steer clear of. Yet, this is not the God that we Christians worship.
What is certainly true is that where God is, no sin can be. This may sound like a rejection of sinners, but in fact it's more like saying that where light is, no darkness can be. We cannot get rid of sin by chasing it away any more than we try to sweep up the darkness before switching the bedside lamp on. The fact that we miss is that God loves us more than we can ever think.
As always, love is truly the key. This is a God Who, out of sheer respect of humanity, chooses to limit Himself so as to allow that Humanity to realise love without coercion. This has terrible consequences and yet those terrible consequences are allowed, as well as being provided for. Not one sparrow will fall without the eye of God beholding it and we are worth more than many sparrows. And yet, with God those terrible consequences mean more than some anodyne existence of not really being because they have a fulfillment within Himself. The suffering of Our Lord alongside us consecrates our suffering as surely as He consecrates the waters of baptism by being baptised in the Jordan.
It is in Christ that humanity finds itself completed. It was He who broke the lock of the door back to God put there by our failure to choose what is Good. It was He whose Humanity drags us back through death into life in God. Every single Eucharist holds this fact: Christ is truly present in the Mass and thus we find ourselves standing in the courts of heaven without realising it. We look around, and still see the cracks in the wall, the damaged floor tile, the slightly wonky nose on the statue of Our Lady, the frayed edge of the server's cotta. We look and we hear the priest's knee crack as he genuflects before holding up the little white disc.
Yes, that is what we see and hear and smell, and touch and taste, yet with Christ's presence it is truly consecrated, taken up out of the shabby shadow of our everyday existence and truly lying just behind the veil of God's infinite glory. If we come to church expecting just the same old boring things within the same old boring reality and fixating on the same old boring hymns and listening to the same old boring sermon, then we have forgotten the reality that lies behind what we see. Our reality is merely the dust cover to our true life. Look beyond the crack in the wall to see the golden walls of God's throne room; look beyond the damaged floor tile to see the emerald floor upon which the saints tread with steps beyond Time; look at the wonky nose on the statue and see beyond to see Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, perfect in the presence of Her Son;look beyond the frayed edge of the cotta to see the white robes given to each citizen of heaven and remember that you, yes you! have your own white robe waiting for you.
Heaven is always threatening to burst in on our little thin veneer of reality, and God Himself wants nothing better to sit down with each and every sinner so that they will cease to be sinners just by His very act of sitting with us. God loves us and He is not too proud so as to separate Himself from His Creation. His divine humility shows that He has nothing to prove about His Majesty or His Glory. Neither must we bee to proud as to separate ourselves from God because we are sinners and therefore unworthy of Him. Of course we are unworthy, that's what makes the Mystery of the Incarnation more delicious. We should just accept, repent of our sins and find ourselves always in the presence of the Divine Christ.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Collect for Trinity Sunday
Prayer book and Breviary
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of thy Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee, that thou wouldst keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
Words are often taken for granted. There are times when we send an email to someone in all innocence only to find out that it's been the cause of some offence: there has been more than one meaning and the other meaning is not intentional. Yet often we want words to mean precisely what we expect them to mean. This is not always possible.
We confess the True Faith, namely our belief in a supremely real God in perfect Trinity and perfect Unity. Three persons, One God. Each person is fully God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God. We struggle with this because we think we know what a person is. Do we really know what we mean by a person? What if it is not a human person?
Our collect reminds us that we do not pray to understand what is incomprehensible, but to do what we can by acknowledging the glory of the Trinity, the impact that God has in creation and in our lives. We acknowledge our relationship with each person of the Trinity and pray for the power to worship the One God properly. That power can only come from a Divine source.
It is only through drawing from that Divine power that we do not wander off and find ourselves separated from the Great Mystery of God.
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of thy Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee, that thou wouldst keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
Words are often taken for granted. There are times when we send an email to someone in all innocence only to find out that it's been the cause of some offence: there has been more than one meaning and the other meaning is not intentional. Yet often we want words to mean precisely what we expect them to mean. This is not always possible.
We confess the True Faith, namely our belief in a supremely real God in perfect Trinity and perfect Unity. Three persons, One God. Each person is fully God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God. We struggle with this because we think we know what a person is. Do we really know what we mean by a person? What if it is not a human person?
Our collect reminds us that we do not pray to understand what is incomprehensible, but to do what we can by acknowledging the glory of the Trinity, the impact that God has in creation and in our lives. We acknowledge our relationship with each person of the Trinity and pray for the power to worship the One God properly. That power can only come from a Divine source.
It is only through drawing from that Divine power that we do not wander off and find ourselves separated from the Great Mystery of God.
Believing how many beans make five (or three)
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Trinity Sunday 2015
It's a nightmare for the trainee teacher. You enter the classroom for the first time. You see in front of you sixty little eyes gazing at you, sizing you up and wondering what you're going to say. Then you realise you're going to have to teach them something. What do you do?
How about the twelve times table? That's fine if they know how it goes. If they understand the process of adding twelve each time, then it's not too difficult. If they know their six times table then they could double that. No matter what, a trainee teacher needs to learn that you must always start from what the children know.
So where should the Christian begin when discussing the Trinity?
[PAUSE]
We must start from what we know. We know that there is a God and there can only be one God because there can only be one Creator. We know, from His own lips, that God is a Father, that God is a Son and that God is a Holy Ghost. We know that each of these three is different from the others. We know that each is God in full.
And yet there is only one God. So one equals three. And bang goes your maths homework!
Try as we might, we simply cannot get our heads around this. Does that trouble you? Does that cause you to question your faith?
[PAUSE]
For some people, the doctrine of the Trinity is too difficult to believe. It goes against what we know to be true. We know that one apple is not the same as three apples. Either our numbering system is wrong, or the Trinity is wrong.
That sounds like that's it. Christianity's all wrong. Let's pack all this up and have a game of Snakes and Ladders instead.
However, before we do, we need to think. We're presented with either our numbering being wrong, or the doctrine of the Trinity being wrong. Can't there be another possibility? Our numbering system must apply to apples. Must our numbering system apply to God?
[PAUSE]
This is crucial. God is the Creator. He creates everything including apples and numbers. He is absolutely unique because He is not part of the Universe. If our numbering system applies to Him then it only does so at the most basic level. It doesn't touch Who He is.
It is impossible for what has been created to understand the Creator fully. If we did understand the Trinity, then God simply could not be God: He would be just something else in the Universe. Believing is not the same thing as understanding. We might be able to understand all kinds of earthly things like Economics, Mathematics and Quantum mechanics, perhaps even perfectly, but we cannot understand things Heavenly without God revealing Himself to us. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is comforting because it reminds us that God isn't Who we want Him to be, but rather beyond all knowledge.
And yet we shall indeed see Him as He really is, not through understanding, but through believing in Him.
It's a nightmare for the trainee teacher. You enter the classroom for the first time. You see in front of you sixty little eyes gazing at you, sizing you up and wondering what you're going to say. Then you realise you're going to have to teach them something. What do you do?
How about the twelve times table? That's fine if they know how it goes. If they understand the process of adding twelve each time, then it's not too difficult. If they know their six times table then they could double that. No matter what, a trainee teacher needs to learn that you must always start from what the children know.
So where should the Christian begin when discussing the Trinity?
[PAUSE]
We must start from what we know. We know that there is a God and there can only be one God because there can only be one Creator. We know, from His own lips, that God is a Father, that God is a Son and that God is a Holy Ghost. We know that each of these three is different from the others. We know that each is God in full.
And yet there is only one God. So one equals three. And bang goes your maths homework!
Try as we might, we simply cannot get our heads around this. Does that trouble you? Does that cause you to question your faith?
[PAUSE]
For some people, the doctrine of the Trinity is too difficult to believe. It goes against what we know to be true. We know that one apple is not the same as three apples. Either our numbering system is wrong, or the Trinity is wrong.
That sounds like that's it. Christianity's all wrong. Let's pack all this up and have a game of Snakes and Ladders instead.
However, before we do, we need to think. We're presented with either our numbering being wrong, or the doctrine of the Trinity being wrong. Can't there be another possibility? Our numbering system must apply to apples. Must our numbering system apply to God?
[PAUSE]
This is crucial. God is the Creator. He creates everything including apples and numbers. He is absolutely unique because He is not part of the Universe. If our numbering system applies to Him then it only does so at the most basic level. It doesn't touch Who He is.
It is impossible for what has been created to understand the Creator fully. If we did understand the Trinity, then God simply could not be God: He would be just something else in the Universe. Believing is not the same thing as understanding. We might be able to understand all kinds of earthly things like Economics, Mathematics and Quantum mechanics, perhaps even perfectly, but we cannot understand things Heavenly without God revealing Himself to us. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is comforting because it reminds us that God isn't Who we want Him to be, but rather beyond all knowledge.
And yet we shall indeed see Him as He really is, not through understanding, but through believing in Him.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Collect for Whitsunday 2015
Prayer book and breviary
GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
Why teach the hearts of faithful people, why not the minds? One might think that this is a bit of a relic of Greek physiology where the heart is the seat of emotion and the brain an unknown organ which was thought to be primarily for cooling - an oversized sweat gland.Yet this collect still refers to the teaching of the heart and not the mind.
The trouble is that human physiology is very fragile. The mind can be ravaged by illnesses just as much as the body can. Perceptions can be warped, things misunderstood, forgotten, unaccessible to reason. Likewise the body itself can be wracked with many diseases. However, while the heart still pumps,the body still lives.
The heart is the centre of one's being. It is there that God teaches us, no matter what of health we're in so that it cannot decay away from us, or make us lose that righteousness from which we must make our judgement. This is God's holy comfort. In Him, we are equipped with the light of His love and in Him we receive an inseparable dignity.
GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
Why teach the hearts of faithful people, why not the minds? One might think that this is a bit of a relic of Greek physiology where the heart is the seat of emotion and the brain an unknown organ which was thought to be primarily for cooling - an oversized sweat gland.Yet this collect still refers to the teaching of the heart and not the mind.
The trouble is that human physiology is very fragile. The mind can be ravaged by illnesses just as much as the body can. Perceptions can be warped, things misunderstood, forgotten, unaccessible to reason. Likewise the body itself can be wracked with many diseases. However, while the heart still pumps,the body still lives.
The heart is the centre of one's being. It is there that God teaches us, no matter what of health we're in so that it cannot decay away from us, or make us lose that righteousness from which we must make our judgement. This is God's holy comfort. In Him, we are equipped with the light of His love and in Him we receive an inseparable dignity.
Flammable Christianity?
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Whitsunday 2015
Abba Lot says to Abba Joseph: “Father … I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation, and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart … what more should I do?” The elder stretches up his hands to heaven and his fingers become fire. He says, “Why not become all flame?”
Would you like to become all flame?
[PAUSE]
The early Christians often say things that can baffle us rather and Abba Lot and Abba Joseph are typical of the first Christian hermits who go out into the desert in order to hear God better. Notice that, despite spending all that time in prayer, they still need to ask each other about how to live the Christian life.
The disciples too spend much of their time with Our Lord Jesus a bit confused. They listen and think and do as they are told. In His Name they cast out demons and heal the sick and preach the good news of God’s love, yet still they scatter when He is crucified and disbelieve when He rises from the dead.
These are the people whom He has taught, but teaching doesn’t seem enough.
These are the people to whom He has shown miracles, but showing them miracles doesn’t help them to hold faith.
These are the people to whom He has shown His risen self, but rising from the dead doesn’t convince them.
They need something else. Some One else.
This is why Human beings needed today. We have needed to see God walk with us and to be one of us and to bring us back to God through His death on the Cross. However, human beings are limited in time and space and Our Lord is no exception. We clearly need Him to be with us always and to know that He is with us always. This is why God sends us the Holy Ghost.
[PAUSE]
Abba Joseph shows Abba Lot that simply doing our own thing is not enough. There is no way that we can earn our way to Heaven. There is nothing that we can do that can bring us close to God. It is God that makes Himself close to us so that we can reach out for Him. Abba Joseph knows that in order to live a life that leads to God, we need to call upon God the Holy Ghost.
Abba Joseph burns with the same fire that lights upon the head of each of the disciples. It is a fire that burns, but does not burn away. This is the same fire that burns in the bush and brings Moses to God.
Our Lord calls us to be the light of the world, but it is not our light that shines. It is His and His alone. It may not be our light, but we can choose to shine with it. This means living our life according to Christian principles and by careful prayer. However, we must also pray to God daily, and pray hard, that He would show us how we can allow His light to shine through us into the world and give hope to those who need it.
[PAUSE]
If we want to, we can indeed become all flame!
Abba Lot says to Abba Joseph: “Father … I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation, and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart … what more should I do?” The elder stretches up his hands to heaven and his fingers become fire. He says, “Why not become all flame?”
Would you like to become all flame?
[PAUSE]
The early Christians often say things that can baffle us rather and Abba Lot and Abba Joseph are typical of the first Christian hermits who go out into the desert in order to hear God better. Notice that, despite spending all that time in prayer, they still need to ask each other about how to live the Christian life.
The disciples too spend much of their time with Our Lord Jesus a bit confused. They listen and think and do as they are told. In His Name they cast out demons and heal the sick and preach the good news of God’s love, yet still they scatter when He is crucified and disbelieve when He rises from the dead.
These are the people whom He has taught, but teaching doesn’t seem enough.
These are the people to whom He has shown miracles, but showing them miracles doesn’t help them to hold faith.
These are the people to whom He has shown His risen self, but rising from the dead doesn’t convince them.
They need something else. Some One else.
This is why Human beings needed today. We have needed to see God walk with us and to be one of us and to bring us back to God through His death on the Cross. However, human beings are limited in time and space and Our Lord is no exception. We clearly need Him to be with us always and to know that He is with us always. This is why God sends us the Holy Ghost.
[PAUSE]
Abba Joseph shows Abba Lot that simply doing our own thing is not enough. There is no way that we can earn our way to Heaven. There is nothing that we can do that can bring us close to God. It is God that makes Himself close to us so that we can reach out for Him. Abba Joseph knows that in order to live a life that leads to God, we need to call upon God the Holy Ghost.
Abba Joseph burns with the same fire that lights upon the head of each of the disciples. It is a fire that burns, but does not burn away. This is the same fire that burns in the bush and brings Moses to God.
Our Lord calls us to be the light of the world, but it is not our light that shines. It is His and His alone. It may not be our light, but we can choose to shine with it. This means living our life according to Christian principles and by careful prayer. However, we must also pray to God daily, and pray hard, that He would show us how we can allow His light to shine through us into the world and give hope to those who need it.
[PAUSE]
If we want to, we can indeed become all flame!
Monday, May 18, 2015
Devotion from Benediction: May 2015
My friends, we kneel before the Blessed Sacrament remembering that we are to see not with our eyes of flesh,but with our eyes of faith.
We kneel before Christ in a mystery, not before a created thing, but One Who is truly present, really Present, more present than even anyone of us can be even to ourselves.
We kneel before the ascended Christ Who keeps His promise that He will be with us until the end of the Age and Who gives us Himself in the Sacrament to honour that promise.
We kneel before Christ whose ascension pulls our little humanity up into the heights of heaven yet still shrouded by a sacred veil.
As Our Lord willingly presents Himself to us, so we present ourselves to Him bringing our concerns and our joys, remembering those who need our prayers and those who have passed behind the veil.
Therefore we before him bending...
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Collects for the Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension
Prayer book
O GOD the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
Breviary
Almighty, everlasting God, grant that we may always devote our wills to thy service, and wait upon thy Majesty with singleness of heart. Through
Reflection
The Prayer Book addresses our feeling of loss and confusion after the departure of Our Lord. The Breviary tries to be stoic with its "Keep calm and carry on" attitude. Many of us feel the same way.
When we learn to ride a bike, we do so with the comfort of stabilisers which prevent us from falling over. Then our parent takes away our stabilisers to encourage us to learn to keep our balance and ride our bike properly. That moment when the stabilisers are off is a worry, yet if we are to continue riding, we must keep calm and carry on, despite the worry and anxiety we have in our hearts.
With the breviary, we pray that we may keep our focus on serving God as we try and do what's right without seeing Him stand there and looking for His approval. With the Prayer Book, we lift up that anxiety of living without seeing Christ and asking for that different type of support which will enable us precisely to serve Him and thus keep riding on that same path. We will not have stabilisers, but we will have the knowledge that there is Someone there continually guiding us and drawing us forward. That knowledge and comfort will be strengthened by praying these collects more sincerely.
O GOD the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
Breviary
Almighty, everlasting God, grant that we may always devote our wills to thy service, and wait upon thy Majesty with singleness of heart. Through
Reflection
The Prayer Book addresses our feeling of loss and confusion after the departure of Our Lord. The Breviary tries to be stoic with its "Keep calm and carry on" attitude. Many of us feel the same way.
When we learn to ride a bike, we do so with the comfort of stabilisers which prevent us from falling over. Then our parent takes away our stabilisers to encourage us to learn to keep our balance and ride our bike properly. That moment when the stabilisers are off is a worry, yet if we are to continue riding, we must keep calm and carry on, despite the worry and anxiety we have in our hearts.
With the breviary, we pray that we may keep our focus on serving God as we try and do what's right without seeing Him stand there and looking for His approval. With the Prayer Book, we lift up that anxiety of living without seeing Christ and asking for that different type of support which will enable us precisely to serve Him and thus keep riding on that same path. We will not have stabilisers, but we will have the knowledge that there is Someone there continually guiding us and drawing us forward. That knowledge and comfort will be strengthened by praying these collects more sincerely.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Ascension, the end of the humdrum
It's amazing how easily bored we can get. There is an interesting trend that, as soon as boredom sets in, our heads sink into chests, either to nod off, or to consult the delights of the all-knowing, all-entertaining mobile phone.
Interestingly, we get bored with pretty much everything. Animals get bored too. There are some very sad videos of horses pacing around their stables desperate to leave the shackles of their stable and to get into the paddock for a run around and explore. For animals, there is usually an alternative to being bored, some activity which will result in stimulation and thus some form of happiness. Animals' boredom usually results from a restriction imposed upon them (usually by human beings) which, when removed, allows that animal to be what it is.
Pain, hunger, thirst and fear have very clear causes and very clear methods of alleviation. To alleviate the boredom of the horse, you just need to open the stable door. To alleviate our boredom, we need to find the cause. Yet, does boredom have a cause? What sort of stimulation do we need?
As soon as a task becomes repetitive or samey, we lose interest and boredom sets in. Yet it doesn't feel as urgent as pain or fear. It's almost as if the very task of existing is repetitive or samey. The fact that humans can indeed suffer from ennui and weltschmerz points to our unease of just simply being. They are both recognized sensations. We know that weltschmerz is, by definition, a dissatisfaction with the world as it appears. Some people avoid it, finding everything in life to amuse them and give life meaning, yet still, we all seem to suffer some form of boredom. As the horse transcends her stable, do we transcend our own environment? Do we transcend the very world in which we live?
Christians believe so, and the Ascension of Our Lord points to that most definitely.
In descending to us, Our Lord empties Himself of that which would set Him apart from humanity. He becomes limited in ability, in power, in endurance, in duration and in space. Was he ever bored? Given that He wrote in the sand while the Powers-that-be sought to condemn a woman taken in adultery and in doing so seek to discredit His ministry, one might conclude that Our Lord was indeed bored with the interminable legal gnat-straining of those who believed themselves to be the arbiters of knowledge, truth and righteousness. We can only speculate with Our Lord. If He ever was bored, He never showed it and perhaps He was able to work against it.
How? By prayer? That would seem reasonable. If you seek an end to your boredom, you seek to transcend the situation that you're in. Prayer might not cure the boredom, but it might keep it in perspective by giving yourself more fully to the One Who is completely transcendent and, precisely because He is transcendent, is completely immanent.
In ascending, Our Lord is re-clothed with everything that he stripped off in order to be with us. He ascends in His Humanity showing that humanity is not destroyed by ascending. In Our Lord Jesus it is not only possible but it is a fact that Humanity and Divinity can be indivisibly entwined. In ascending Our Lord steps off of the page of the drawing that He drew in order to be present with it without limitation.
In ascending, He offers us the chance too to cease being drawings on the page, but to gain substance, depth, to become more solid and to step off the page in Him. In being with God we find ourselves given a place in His Being, in His substance that can only come from Ascension. This is not just a time of farewell to One Whose love for us gave us redemption, but a demonstration of the Christian's true fate - a gaol-break out from the stable and into Reality itself! And we'll never be bored again!
Interestingly, we get bored with pretty much everything. Animals get bored too. There are some very sad videos of horses pacing around their stables desperate to leave the shackles of their stable and to get into the paddock for a run around and explore. For animals, there is usually an alternative to being bored, some activity which will result in stimulation and thus some form of happiness. Animals' boredom usually results from a restriction imposed upon them (usually by human beings) which, when removed, allows that animal to be what it is.
Pain, hunger, thirst and fear have very clear causes and very clear methods of alleviation. To alleviate the boredom of the horse, you just need to open the stable door. To alleviate our boredom, we need to find the cause. Yet, does boredom have a cause? What sort of stimulation do we need?
As soon as a task becomes repetitive or samey, we lose interest and boredom sets in. Yet it doesn't feel as urgent as pain or fear. It's almost as if the very task of existing is repetitive or samey. The fact that humans can indeed suffer from ennui and weltschmerz points to our unease of just simply being. They are both recognized sensations. We know that weltschmerz is, by definition, a dissatisfaction with the world as it appears. Some people avoid it, finding everything in life to amuse them and give life meaning, yet still, we all seem to suffer some form of boredom. As the horse transcends her stable, do we transcend our own environment? Do we transcend the very world in which we live?
Christians believe so, and the Ascension of Our Lord points to that most definitely.
In descending to us, Our Lord empties Himself of that which would set Him apart from humanity. He becomes limited in ability, in power, in endurance, in duration and in space. Was he ever bored? Given that He wrote in the sand while the Powers-that-be sought to condemn a woman taken in adultery and in doing so seek to discredit His ministry, one might conclude that Our Lord was indeed bored with the interminable legal gnat-straining of those who believed themselves to be the arbiters of knowledge, truth and righteousness. We can only speculate with Our Lord. If He ever was bored, He never showed it and perhaps He was able to work against it.
How? By prayer? That would seem reasonable. If you seek an end to your boredom, you seek to transcend the situation that you're in. Prayer might not cure the boredom, but it might keep it in perspective by giving yourself more fully to the One Who is completely transcendent and, precisely because He is transcendent, is completely immanent.
In ascending, Our Lord is re-clothed with everything that he stripped off in order to be with us. He ascends in His Humanity showing that humanity is not destroyed by ascending. In Our Lord Jesus it is not only possible but it is a fact that Humanity and Divinity can be indivisibly entwined. In ascending Our Lord steps off of the page of the drawing that He drew in order to be present with it without limitation.
In ascending, He offers us the chance too to cease being drawings on the page, but to gain substance, depth, to become more solid and to step off the page in Him. In being with God we find ourselves given a place in His Being, in His substance that can only come from Ascension. This is not just a time of farewell to One Whose love for us gave us redemption, but a demonstration of the Christian's true fate - a gaol-break out from the stable and into Reality itself! And we'll never be bored again!
Collect for Ascension Day
Prayer book and Breviary
GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
The Ascension of Our Lord is very revealing. Until we see the Lord ascend, there is no reason to suppose that He has descended. In rising again from the dead, He shows that it is possible for human beings to rise from the dead, and therefore, if he promises that we will rise again from the dead He has given us some physical handle to back up that promise.
But he ascends into Heaven. He shows that it is possible for a human being to ascend into Heaven and that gives a physical handle to back up the promise that we will see Him again in Heaven, or at least in an existence that transcends but does not obliterate our present existence. It also gives us a physical handle into the truth of His promise that He is God Himself, the Son of God, the Word Incarnate. We see proof that He is precisely Who He has always claimed to be. If He ascends, then He must have descended first. What comes down must go up!
In ascending, Our Lord pulls humanity up with Him, pulling its fabric up into the Godhead like a carpet. If our hearts and minds are with Him, then they will be lifted with Him into the Heavens. That is the promise that He gives us, and the promise that we seek in seeking God in Christ.
GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
The Ascension of Our Lord is very revealing. Until we see the Lord ascend, there is no reason to suppose that He has descended. In rising again from the dead, He shows that it is possible for human beings to rise from the dead, and therefore, if he promises that we will rise again from the dead He has given us some physical handle to back up that promise.
But he ascends into Heaven. He shows that it is possible for a human being to ascend into Heaven and that gives a physical handle to back up the promise that we will see Him again in Heaven, or at least in an existence that transcends but does not obliterate our present existence. It also gives us a physical handle into the truth of His promise that He is God Himself, the Son of God, the Word Incarnate. We see proof that He is precisely Who He has always claimed to be. If He ascends, then He must have descended first. What comes down must go up!
In ascending, Our Lord pulls humanity up with Him, pulling its fabric up into the Godhead like a carpet. If our hearts and minds are with Him, then they will be lifted with Him into the Heavens. That is the promise that He gives us, and the promise that we seek in seeking God in Christ.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Recognising Habits
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the Fifth Sunday after Easter
Schoolboys have some disgusting habits which are not going to be divulged at length. Shirts untucked, misplaced apostrophes, two plus two is five, et c. You can probably think of many of your own. Pity the poor teachers who have to try and break those habits so that schoolboys can grow to be part of society.
Why are habits so hard to break?
[PAUSE]
Habits are so called because they become part of how we live our lives. They are the things we do every day that we don’t even think about. Once upon a time, it was a struggle to tie our shoelaces or catch a train because we weren’t used to it. Now, it’s second nature to us. When we are little, everything seems difficult, yet with lots of times to practice, we don’t even think about what we do. That’s where our habits come in; they are things that we do on auto-pilot. We don’t think about them, and because we don’t think about them, it becomes very difficult to break them.
Have you noticed, though, how much you can recognise someone by their habits?
[PAUSE]
Think of it. You notice a plate in the washing up bowl with tomato ketchup residue, and you know that your husband put it there because a) he loves tomato ketchup and b) he never does the washing up. You can tell who is at home without actually seeing them because you know how people in your house move around. That familiarity is comforting and forms part of each person’s identity, whether they are good habits or bad. Indeed, we often miss someone the most when we don’t see those little habits.
For us Christians, the whole business of repentance is the forming of new Christian habits to replace old sinful habits. St James tells us, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”
Unless we practice what we hear and what we preach, we never really become the people that God wants us to be. If we live in the bad habits of sin, then we will never really see the person that God created us to be. We simply won’t be recognisable as Christians.
Our Lord says, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
[PAUSE]
We have to make living our faith a good habit. We should pray daily ideally in the morning and in the evening. We should seek to love people as best as we can and to ensure that we make it a good habit to think of others’ well-being. Our faith must be visible for it to be recognisable because, if it is recognisable from what we do on the outside, our hearts must be in the right place on the inside.
This clearly matters to God who showed us His true self, and asks us to show Him our true selves willingly. Of course, He already know our true selves. That is not the point.
He wants us to show Him from our own desire for Him. God wants to know us through those habits which show that we want to know Him. And we get to know God by His habits. And they are very good habits indeed!
Schoolboys have some disgusting habits which are not going to be divulged at length. Shirts untucked, misplaced apostrophes, two plus two is five, et c. You can probably think of many of your own. Pity the poor teachers who have to try and break those habits so that schoolboys can grow to be part of society.
Why are habits so hard to break?
[PAUSE]
Habits are so called because they become part of how we live our lives. They are the things we do every day that we don’t even think about. Once upon a time, it was a struggle to tie our shoelaces or catch a train because we weren’t used to it. Now, it’s second nature to us. When we are little, everything seems difficult, yet with lots of times to practice, we don’t even think about what we do. That’s where our habits come in; they are things that we do on auto-pilot. We don’t think about them, and because we don’t think about them, it becomes very difficult to break them.
Have you noticed, though, how much you can recognise someone by their habits?
[PAUSE]
Think of it. You notice a plate in the washing up bowl with tomato ketchup residue, and you know that your husband put it there because a) he loves tomato ketchup and b) he never does the washing up. You can tell who is at home without actually seeing them because you know how people in your house move around. That familiarity is comforting and forms part of each person’s identity, whether they are good habits or bad. Indeed, we often miss someone the most when we don’t see those little habits.
For us Christians, the whole business of repentance is the forming of new Christian habits to replace old sinful habits. St James tells us, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”
Unless we practice what we hear and what we preach, we never really become the people that God wants us to be. If we live in the bad habits of sin, then we will never really see the person that God created us to be. We simply won’t be recognisable as Christians.
Our Lord says, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
[PAUSE]
We have to make living our faith a good habit. We should pray daily ideally in the morning and in the evening. We should seek to love people as best as we can and to ensure that we make it a good habit to think of others’ well-being. Our faith must be visible for it to be recognisable because, if it is recognisable from what we do on the outside, our hearts must be in the right place on the inside.
This clearly matters to God who showed us His true self, and asks us to show Him our true selves willingly. Of course, He already know our true selves. That is not the point.
He wants us to show Him from our own desire for Him. God wants to know us through those habits which show that we want to know Him. And we get to know God by His habits. And they are very good habits indeed!
Collect for the fifth Sunday after Easter
Prayer book
O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Reflection
This is the last collect before the Ascension and we recall that, before ascending to the Father, Our Lord breathes the Holy Ghost upon His disciples. For them, this is His holy inspiration and from this holy inspiration comes the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: One Breath, One Church.
In this act of outpouring the Holy Ghost, prefiguring the day of Pentecost, our fallen wills are given guidance. We no longer have to do bad things, for we are able to choose the way of the Holy Ghost which presents us with the ways that are good and the ways that are bad. The Church has full possession of these ways, even though there are times when her members fall away from them.
Indeed, the fact that the Church now possesses knowledge of good and evil through the gift of God means that it is her members that can be truly shown up for being sinful. Her very existence exposes Christians for being the hypocrites that they are, but to their good and thus the good of the whole world. The true Christian needs to repent actively, and the Inspired Church possesses the ability and authority to help that repentance happen. This ability and authority can only be used if the ministers of God follow that same programme of active repentance and keep to the pattern that Our Lord set for us. In praying this collect, we pray ourselves to be true to the gospel we have received and submit ourselves to the authority of Christ.
O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Reflection
This is the last collect before the Ascension and we recall that, before ascending to the Father, Our Lord breathes the Holy Ghost upon His disciples. For them, this is His holy inspiration and from this holy inspiration comes the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: One Breath, One Church.
In this act of outpouring the Holy Ghost, prefiguring the day of Pentecost, our fallen wills are given guidance. We no longer have to do bad things, for we are able to choose the way of the Holy Ghost which presents us with the ways that are good and the ways that are bad. The Church has full possession of these ways, even though there are times when her members fall away from them.
Indeed, the fact that the Church now possesses knowledge of good and evil through the gift of God means that it is her members that can be truly shown up for being sinful. Her very existence exposes Christians for being the hypocrites that they are, but to their good and thus the good of the whole world. The true Christian needs to repent actively, and the Inspired Church possesses the ability and authority to help that repentance happen. This ability and authority can only be used if the ministers of God follow that same programme of active repentance and keep to the pattern that Our Lord set for us. In praying this collect, we pray ourselves to be true to the gospel we have received and submit ourselves to the authority of Christ.
Sunday, May 03, 2015
Collect for the fourth Sunday after Easter
Prayer book
O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection
St Peter reminds us to forget our fleshly lusts in preference of that which lies above. We are fallen and our ability to choose the good in life is completely impaired while we do not know what good is. We are unable to choose good without knowing that God is good and that He created us of His goodness. Our fall from grace means that we are blinded, and our eyes only opened by the grace given to us by God in baptism which rids us of our inherited separation from God.
The beauty is that the sacrament of Baptism transcends the ages and does not change because God has not changed and neither has human nature. We still sin in the same way as Adam and Eve, yet we are saved in the same way through the second Adam, namely Our Lord Jesus Christ. The world changes around us, and we are caught up in its currents and torrents. We find ourselves confused and battered by tides and tempests.
However, God is our Rock and we cling to Him by faith and cooperating with His grace, going where He goes and staying where He stays despite the raging of the times. God gives us the opportunity to be limpets and barnacles upon His being so that we may indeed endure to the end and be saved.
O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men; Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection
St Peter reminds us to forget our fleshly lusts in preference of that which lies above. We are fallen and our ability to choose the good in life is completely impaired while we do not know what good is. We are unable to choose good without knowing that God is good and that He created us of His goodness. Our fall from grace means that we are blinded, and our eyes only opened by the grace given to us by God in baptism which rids us of our inherited separation from God.
The beauty is that the sacrament of Baptism transcends the ages and does not change because God has not changed and neither has human nature. We still sin in the same way as Adam and Eve, yet we are saved in the same way through the second Adam, namely Our Lord Jesus Christ. The world changes around us, and we are caught up in its currents and torrents. We find ourselves confused and battered by tides and tempests.
However, God is our Rock and we cling to Him by faith and cooperating with His grace, going where He goes and staying where He stays despite the raging of the times. God gives us the opportunity to be limpets and barnacles upon His being so that we may indeed endure to the end and be saved.
Spoiling the Wrath
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the fourth Sunday after Easter
Let’s face it, we Christians are just not supposed to get angry are we?
If we start to look just that little bit cross that things aren’t going our way, we hear people say “you’ve got to turn the other cheek”, “love thine enemies” and other such things, especially from people who aren’t Christian and expect us Christians to conform to a given stereotype of being all meek and mild and gentle and complete push-overs. Yet, each of us gets angry, does that mean that we are necessarily in sin, after all Anger is one of the seven Deadly Sins, is it not?
[PAUSE]
Well, actually, no it isn’t. Anger is not a deadly sin. People think that it is, but in fact when Christians reflect upon what is truly sinful it isn’t anger that’s the sin, it’s an uncontrolled anger – an anger that boils over into violence and hatred. It’s an anger that spills into the desire for destruction and complete obliteration. This type of anger is called often called wrath.
Perhaps you will have heard a teacher speak of breathing the wrath of God into a naughty schoolboy. It’s true that there is something called “the wrath of God”. Why is it that God gets wrath and we don’t?
That’s easy to answer: God is God and we are not God. God’s wrath is a very simple hatred for all evil and it’s perfectly reasonable for us to hate evil. There are lots of passages in Holy Scripture in which God is described in terms of a soldier waging war upon his enemies. The Psalmist says, “Stand up, O Lord, in thy wrath, and lift up thyself, because of the indignation of mine enemies: arise up for me in the judgement that thou hast commanded.” It seems that the wrath of God is exactly what we Christians want!
[PAUSE]
Let us be clear. Only God can control His anger. Since Evil is precisely a lack of any good at all, God can overcome Evil just by putting Good in its place. Human beings can’t actually do that. We are created by God and therefore it is good for us to exist – in our very selves we are good because we are created by God – but we are not able to work out what is truly evil and how it is truly evil. For God, wrath brings about more Good. For us human beings, well, you only have to look at the violence in the world around us to see that our wrath does not bring about Good.
[PAUSE]
That does not prevent us from being angry though. Our Lord shows His anger when He casts the money-changers out of the temple. Also, St Mark tells us:
“[Jesus] entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.”
Notice how Jesus controls his anger and uses it to allow His Father to do Good. This is how we repent of the sin of wrath, how we turn back to God. We step back and look for what the problem really is and then work out what good we can put in its place. Often, all we need to say is “get thee behind me Satan” to rid us of the temptation to hate and destroy. We must not allow our anger to overcome us, but control it remembering that we must in all things do the will of God.
[PAUSE]
It is not a sin to be angry, but is it a sin not to be angry? What do you think? This is a question for another time, perhaps.
Let’s face it, we Christians are just not supposed to get angry are we?
If we start to look just that little bit cross that things aren’t going our way, we hear people say “you’ve got to turn the other cheek”, “love thine enemies” and other such things, especially from people who aren’t Christian and expect us Christians to conform to a given stereotype of being all meek and mild and gentle and complete push-overs. Yet, each of us gets angry, does that mean that we are necessarily in sin, after all Anger is one of the seven Deadly Sins, is it not?
[PAUSE]
Well, actually, no it isn’t. Anger is not a deadly sin. People think that it is, but in fact when Christians reflect upon what is truly sinful it isn’t anger that’s the sin, it’s an uncontrolled anger – an anger that boils over into violence and hatred. It’s an anger that spills into the desire for destruction and complete obliteration. This type of anger is called often called wrath.
Perhaps you will have heard a teacher speak of breathing the wrath of God into a naughty schoolboy. It’s true that there is something called “the wrath of God”. Why is it that God gets wrath and we don’t?
That’s easy to answer: God is God and we are not God. God’s wrath is a very simple hatred for all evil and it’s perfectly reasonable for us to hate evil. There are lots of passages in Holy Scripture in which God is described in terms of a soldier waging war upon his enemies. The Psalmist says, “Stand up, O Lord, in thy wrath, and lift up thyself, because of the indignation of mine enemies: arise up for me in the judgement that thou hast commanded.” It seems that the wrath of God is exactly what we Christians want!
[PAUSE]
Let us be clear. Only God can control His anger. Since Evil is precisely a lack of any good at all, God can overcome Evil just by putting Good in its place. Human beings can’t actually do that. We are created by God and therefore it is good for us to exist – in our very selves we are good because we are created by God – but we are not able to work out what is truly evil and how it is truly evil. For God, wrath brings about more Good. For us human beings, well, you only have to look at the violence in the world around us to see that our wrath does not bring about Good.
[PAUSE]
That does not prevent us from being angry though. Our Lord shows His anger when He casts the money-changers out of the temple. Also, St Mark tells us:
“[Jesus] entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.”
Notice how Jesus controls his anger and uses it to allow His Father to do Good. This is how we repent of the sin of wrath, how we turn back to God. We step back and look for what the problem really is and then work out what good we can put in its place. Often, all we need to say is “get thee behind me Satan” to rid us of the temptation to hate and destroy. We must not allow our anger to overcome us, but control it remembering that we must in all things do the will of God.
[PAUSE]
It is not a sin to be angry, but is it a sin not to be angry? What do you think? This is a question for another time, perhaps.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Pointed point points
When you ask the question, "how did the universe begin?" you should be able to get a range of really good answers ranging for the scientific (the Big Bang), the religious (God made it), and the etiological (Odin, Vili and Ve built it from the body of Ymir). Of course, the answers are themselves fascinating points of study. The one answer you really don't want to hear is "who cares?"
"Who cares?" is a response that seems to be quite prevalent in Society. What does it really mean? Clearly, for this answer to be given, one really has to have the mindset that the answer has to matter, it has to be something to care about. Since when is "who cares?" the response to the question, "would you like a million pounds?"? (Crikey, my question marks are becoming convoluted! I must have broken so many rules of grammar that my English teacher is quietly weeping into her marking!) The one who answers "who cares?" clearly doesn't care, but it also gives the impression that he thinks that no-one else ought to care either.
Does anyone really care how the universe began? What's the point of knowing?
Clearly, many people do from all sorts of walks of life: that is why there are answers to the question. These folk are still capable of feeling the sense of awe and wonder about the universe around them. Their beliefs may differ, but they still share that sense of thrill at the mysteries and wonder about this thing called being.
Yet, for many others, we should not be wasting our time with such questions: there is no money in them, they are hard work to think about and knowing the answer doesn't affect anything.
Doesn't affect anything?
"Anything" clearly means the individual's subjective universe. If your subjective universe consists only of home, work and the pub, then knowing of galactic superclusters, Einstein's Cosmological Constant, the Origin of the Species, the disputed existence of universals does not affect your universe - at least until the pub is destroyed by radiation from a quasar emanating from a galactic supercluster.
What happens then?
For these individuals, God does not matter, Death does not matter, Dark Matter doesn't... matter (oops), just the price of beer and a good game on the box otherwise there is no point to life. I would be very interested to hear what happens to them when they have their first brush with Death, after all, we're all going to be dead a very long time. To lack the curiosity to ask the big questions in life may not be necessary for living, but it betrays the endeavour of humanity as something more than a biological machine. While I struggle to understand the philosophy of the Material Realist, I am convinced that they too would be dismayed at the level of uninterest that some people seem to show in the bigger picture.
It is true that many people would like the opportunity to look for the bigger picture. These are the folks for whom life is hard and painful. One cannot determine whether the Ontological Argument is logically circular or modally informative if one is working all the hours God sends trying to make ends meet. One cannot do spin geometry when one's mother is on the operating table. One cannot contemplate how a bridge can be built by Hanuman and his monkeys, when one is frantically trying to pull one's baby out from the rubble of what once used to be one's home. The questions that arise from the lamentation of human suffering also deserve answers and theodicies and some form of address if only to do justice to the value of human life.
There are indeed times and places for asking the big questions. The big questions themselves take a lot of sacrifice and effort to answer. Using the intellect requires just as much effort as any physical activity. Maybe there is a point to asking such hard questions, but maybe they are the point in themselves. Maybe the point is precisely that which gives value to human life. If there is no value to human life, then one can probably be justified in taking no pains to think outside one's subjective universe.
To say, "who cares?" dismisses all human endeavour as ultimately worthless and pointless. It reduces the human condition beyond mere biological machinery but to a basic organism of stimulus-response.
Who cares? I care!
"Who cares?" is a response that seems to be quite prevalent in Society. What does it really mean? Clearly, for this answer to be given, one really has to have the mindset that the answer has to matter, it has to be something to care about. Since when is "who cares?" the response to the question, "would you like a million pounds?"? (Crikey, my question marks are becoming convoluted! I must have broken so many rules of grammar that my English teacher is quietly weeping into her marking!) The one who answers "who cares?" clearly doesn't care, but it also gives the impression that he thinks that no-one else ought to care either.
Does anyone really care how the universe began? What's the point of knowing?
Clearly, many people do from all sorts of walks of life: that is why there are answers to the question. These folk are still capable of feeling the sense of awe and wonder about the universe around them. Their beliefs may differ, but they still share that sense of thrill at the mysteries and wonder about this thing called being.
Yet, for many others, we should not be wasting our time with such questions: there is no money in them, they are hard work to think about and knowing the answer doesn't affect anything.
Doesn't affect anything?
"Anything" clearly means the individual's subjective universe. If your subjective universe consists only of home, work and the pub, then knowing of galactic superclusters, Einstein's Cosmological Constant, the Origin of the Species, the disputed existence of universals does not affect your universe - at least until the pub is destroyed by radiation from a quasar emanating from a galactic supercluster.
What happens then?
For these individuals, God does not matter, Death does not matter, Dark Matter doesn't... matter (oops), just the price of beer and a good game on the box otherwise there is no point to life. I would be very interested to hear what happens to them when they have their first brush with Death, after all, we're all going to be dead a very long time. To lack the curiosity to ask the big questions in life may not be necessary for living, but it betrays the endeavour of humanity as something more than a biological machine. While I struggle to understand the philosophy of the Material Realist, I am convinced that they too would be dismayed at the level of uninterest that some people seem to show in the bigger picture.
It is true that many people would like the opportunity to look for the bigger picture. These are the folks for whom life is hard and painful. One cannot determine whether the Ontological Argument is logically circular or modally informative if one is working all the hours God sends trying to make ends meet. One cannot do spin geometry when one's mother is on the operating table. One cannot contemplate how a bridge can be built by Hanuman and his monkeys, when one is frantically trying to pull one's baby out from the rubble of what once used to be one's home. The questions that arise from the lamentation of human suffering also deserve answers and theodicies and some form of address if only to do justice to the value of human life.
There are indeed times and places for asking the big questions. The big questions themselves take a lot of sacrifice and effort to answer. Using the intellect requires just as much effort as any physical activity. Maybe there is a point to asking such hard questions, but maybe they are the point in themselves. Maybe the point is precisely that which gives value to human life. If there is no value to human life, then one can probably be justified in taking no pains to think outside one's subjective universe.
To say, "who cares?" dismisses all human endeavour as ultimately worthless and pointless. It reduces the human condition beyond mere biological machinery but to a basic organism of stimulus-response.
Who cares? I care!
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Collect for the third Sunday after Easter
Prayer book
ALMIGHTY God, who shewest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion, that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Reflection
It is incredibly difficult for human beings not to be in error. We are often off target and distracted by our own blind following of what we think to be the truth. God is certainly transcendent, but we can know of Him better by reflecting upon what He is not, and drawing analogies.
The danger is that we may reflect too much on what God is not, and thus lose what He is, or else may fix ourselves on our analogies past their breaking points. These can lead folk on the paths to atheism or idolatry, We must be prepared to admit that there are times where we can only just sink to our knees and say, "Lord, I am in error. Guide me!"
The central fact of Christ's Religion is very simple: Repent of your sins and you will be forgiven through Christ our Lord and God. Repentance is an activity which must accompany our faith. We have to keep turning, even if that means, at times, we spin faster than a whirligig beetle on a carousel! When that happens, we must focus ourselves on Christ Himself and bind ourselves to Him. This is the true meaning of religion: if we are bound to Christ, then we go where He goes.
ALMIGHTY God, who shewest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion, that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Reflection
It is incredibly difficult for human beings not to be in error. We are often off target and distracted by our own blind following of what we think to be the truth. God is certainly transcendent, but we can know of Him better by reflecting upon what He is not, and drawing analogies.
The danger is that we may reflect too much on what God is not, and thus lose what He is, or else may fix ourselves on our analogies past their breaking points. These can lead folk on the paths to atheism or idolatry, We must be prepared to admit that there are times where we can only just sink to our knees and say, "Lord, I am in error. Guide me!"
The central fact of Christ's Religion is very simple: Repent of your sins and you will be forgiven through Christ our Lord and God. Repentance is an activity which must accompany our faith. We have to keep turning, even if that means, at times, we spin faster than a whirligig beetle on a carousel! When that happens, we must focus ourselves on Christ Himself and bind ourselves to Him. This is the true meaning of religion: if we are bound to Christ, then we go where He goes.
Mummy, the vicar said "Lust". What's that?
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on the third Sunday after Easter
Mention the word “lust” and we Christians seem to go a bit awkward and nervous and try and change the subject. However, it’s interesting to note that the word has rather changed its meaning over time. The words that St Peter is using when he talks of “fleshly lusts” have a much more general meaning. The deadly sin of Lust really is an uncontrolled desire for anything and walks alongside avarice and envy as something that can take over one’s life. While avarice is the uncontrolled desire for things, and envy the uncontrolled desire for things that other people have, lust is more concerned with a desire for pleasure. The Latin word for it is luxuria from which we get the word luxury.
What comes into your mind when you hear the word luxury?
[PAUSE]
Perhaps you think of lying on a couch of silken sheets while servants feed you grapes, fan you and rub your feet. But then, perhaps you think of a lie-in, a weekend away, a nice piece of cake or a bit of peace and quiet. Perhaps when we think of luxury, we think of little pleasures, nothing big or dramatic.
Surely, though we all have a desire for pleasure. Is that really such a bad thing?
[PAUSE]
The fact is that God has created this world for us to live in, and He wants us to be happy. However, He doesn’t just want us to be happy for a bit, He wants us to be eternally happy and this means that we simply cannot afford to be completely happy with created things. Things of this world pass away. There is a saying, “after ecstasy, the laundry”, there must always be an end to idle pleasures – the empty chocolate bar wrapper, the plate that now needs washing up, the process of checking out of the hotel and paying the bill. We want this happiness to continue, but it can’t. Everything of this world must pass.
Even Our Lord Jesus has to cope with this. He takes pleasure in living. He eats with people, makes friends, and loves His family. These pleasures end: He gets tired, frustrated, even angry, and we all know about the awful things He goes through before He dies. His earthy mission ends. Our happiness with Him on earth is also limited. “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.”
[PAUSE]
While we live in this world, we have to hold fast to the reality that whatever we experience must pass away. Whatever you have or desire, this, too, shall pass, even down to our own bodies. They, too, shall pass.
However, Our Lord Himself tells us “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” This is how we repent of the sin of Lust. If Lust is an uncontrolled desire for pleasure, then we need to learn to control our desire for pleasure. We need to remember that any pleasure we have in life is fleeting and that only God is Eternal. If we can make God the central object of our desire, then any other pleasures in life will still be good, but they will be completed by God’s presence in our lives.
St Paul reminds us that greater pleasures await for us. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard , neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Mention the word “lust” and we Christians seem to go a bit awkward and nervous and try and change the subject. However, it’s interesting to note that the word has rather changed its meaning over time. The words that St Peter is using when he talks of “fleshly lusts” have a much more general meaning. The deadly sin of Lust really is an uncontrolled desire for anything and walks alongside avarice and envy as something that can take over one’s life. While avarice is the uncontrolled desire for things, and envy the uncontrolled desire for things that other people have, lust is more concerned with a desire for pleasure. The Latin word for it is luxuria from which we get the word luxury.
What comes into your mind when you hear the word luxury?
[PAUSE]
Perhaps you think of lying on a couch of silken sheets while servants feed you grapes, fan you and rub your feet. But then, perhaps you think of a lie-in, a weekend away, a nice piece of cake or a bit of peace and quiet. Perhaps when we think of luxury, we think of little pleasures, nothing big or dramatic.
Surely, though we all have a desire for pleasure. Is that really such a bad thing?
[PAUSE]
The fact is that God has created this world for us to live in, and He wants us to be happy. However, He doesn’t just want us to be happy for a bit, He wants us to be eternally happy and this means that we simply cannot afford to be completely happy with created things. Things of this world pass away. There is a saying, “after ecstasy, the laundry”, there must always be an end to idle pleasures – the empty chocolate bar wrapper, the plate that now needs washing up, the process of checking out of the hotel and paying the bill. We want this happiness to continue, but it can’t. Everything of this world must pass.
Even Our Lord Jesus has to cope with this. He takes pleasure in living. He eats with people, makes friends, and loves His family. These pleasures end: He gets tired, frustrated, even angry, and we all know about the awful things He goes through before He dies. His earthy mission ends. Our happiness with Him on earth is also limited. “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.”
[PAUSE]
While we live in this world, we have to hold fast to the reality that whatever we experience must pass away. Whatever you have or desire, this, too, shall pass, even down to our own bodies. They, too, shall pass.
However, Our Lord Himself tells us “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” This is how we repent of the sin of Lust. If Lust is an uncontrolled desire for pleasure, then we need to learn to control our desire for pleasure. We need to remember that any pleasure we have in life is fleeting and that only God is Eternal. If we can make God the central object of our desire, then any other pleasures in life will still be good, but they will be completed by God’s presence in our lives.
St Paul reminds us that greater pleasures await for us. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard , neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Friday, April 24, 2015
ACC Diocesan Synod 2015: Impressions of smallness
That's how it is supposed to sound, I believe.
This was the anthem our little choir of three sang at the Synod Mass in Bolton this year. It was so good to go up north for once and see the folk who cannot normally come south for the Synod in London. It was also good to see, as always, Fr. Charlie and Fr. Howard, who made us soft southerners very welcome.
What has always impressed me about the ACC is that we do make a valiant attempt to turn even the smallest thing to a Holy purpose. A hall stage can become a sanctuary; a table can become an altar; a keyboard powered with batteries can become a church organ, and three singers can become a cathedral choir. Of course, there are such severe limitations caused by our modest means, however we try our best. What we do would not impress the Ritual Notes purist, but then we're not out to impress the Ritual Notes purist; we are seeking to do that which the Church has always done.
Most of us realize that we're just not that impressive. We're not recognized as a church, nor are we taken seriously. This is bound to happen: we reject innovations in the Established Church and so we are, in turn, rejected. We need to know how that feels if only to remember that what we must reject is heretical doctrine - we must seek never to reject people. Yet, we do our best despite the limitations. Many would think that, because we're in the U.K. we're mega-rich and capable of spending big bucks on all kinds of projects. I can state quite categorically, as the ex-Treasurer of the Diocese, we are poorer than the church mice: church mice at least have a church building to scurry around in.
All of us, in the Diocese, perhaps dream of bigger things. We'd like a classical stone building with all the fittings and priests and servers and choirs capable of singing Alessandro Striggio, but these are unavailable to us and will be for the foreseeable future. In fact, worrying about them is a distraction from our true purpose. And what is that purpose?
As a blogger, I recognize the limitations of my blog. It has a small readership, and a rather small range of posting. I look around and I see other blogs devoted to "setting the record straight" or "exposing the truth" or "replying to those in error". Lots of hot air is being wasted on old arguments, and old arguments are not going to go away, just like old heresies: Montanism is the heresy a la mode, but Arianism, Pelagianism, and even Nestorianism are still very much alive and kicking, even within larger Churches. However, these are distractions from the purpose. The Devil wants us to keep arguing so that we don't notice what is really happening.
While we focus on the latest outrage from the CofE, we miss the latest outrage from ISIS. One, of course, could argue that some churches, by promulgating heresy, are spiritually killing people in this country, whereas ISIS are physically killing people in the Middle East, and I take that point. One has the potential for eternal damnation, the other has the potential to raise one up to the level of the Martyr and so we should focus on the spiritual.
And yet, we do miss the point. Our argument with heresy is, by and large, done thanks to the work of Christians of more than 1000 years ago. We really don't have to argue it any more: we have nailed our colours to the mast. All we have to do is live the orthodox faith and allow God's true light to shine through us. If we concentrate ourselves on seeking God in our lives and building the Church, then we really don't have to worry too much about contributing to 1001 blog arguments. If anything, the constant spiritual defending is off-putting for new Christians. The Gospel, however, commits us to the present suffering of our brethren. There may be spiritual works of mercy, but there are also corporate works of mercy. Online bloggers can tend towards "instructing the ignorant" and "admonishing the sinner" to the exclusion of everything else. I'm very much with Fr. Hart and Harpo Marx on this matter.
This is why I think that the more pressing problem is not the heresy within big churches, but the physical oppression coming from ISIS and its ilk. Hatred is the worst heresy of them all. Those in ISIS are presently spiritually dead and will remain so until they repent of that hatred. While we weep for our Christian Martyrs, we remember the promises of Christ and the hope He gives us. Yet, our tears are more relevant for the ISIS members who, nonetheless precious creatures of God, are destroying their precious selves.
The spread of hatred being spewed by these Islamic Fundamentalists is sickening and oppressive, and the most important corporate act of mercy here is to ransom the captive with the concomitant act of comforting the afflicted. These works can be done by everyone in small ways and big ways and we need to see how we in our tiny little ways can allow love to spread and conquer hatred.
Our purpose in the Anglican Catholic Church should not be to browbeat those with whom we disagree or waste time trying to defend what we have already defended: we should allow our faith to speak for itself. Our altar cloths may be a bit frayed, our candles a bit wonky and the lace uneven, but we want one thing: that, in the smallness of our being, the powerful love of God shine more radiantly into a world that is dark and doomed. The host is tiny, and yet God in Christ is most powerfully present in that smallness whether we're in a cathedral or a shoebox chapel.
Of course, we want to grow, and that's not easy in a world that takes exception to some of our rigid stances. We can just carry on and be friendly and open and honest and true to ourselves, working both spiritual and corporate works of mercy for our neighbours however far away they may be. It may even be possible that a tiny Church defeats the combined forces of ISIS. Why not? By one man came Death, by one man came the defeat of Death. With man things are impossible, with God all things are possible.
The message of the ACC really is "In Christ, keep calm, and carry on!" That's what we should be living up to!
This was the anthem our little choir of three sang at the Synod Mass in Bolton this year. It was so good to go up north for once and see the folk who cannot normally come south for the Synod in London. It was also good to see, as always, Fr. Charlie and Fr. Howard, who made us soft southerners very welcome.
What has always impressed me about the ACC is that we do make a valiant attempt to turn even the smallest thing to a Holy purpose. A hall stage can become a sanctuary; a table can become an altar; a keyboard powered with batteries can become a church organ, and three singers can become a cathedral choir. Of course, there are such severe limitations caused by our modest means, however we try our best. What we do would not impress the Ritual Notes purist, but then we're not out to impress the Ritual Notes purist; we are seeking to do that which the Church has always done.
Most of us realize that we're just not that impressive. We're not recognized as a church, nor are we taken seriously. This is bound to happen: we reject innovations in the Established Church and so we are, in turn, rejected. We need to know how that feels if only to remember that what we must reject is heretical doctrine - we must seek never to reject people. Yet, we do our best despite the limitations. Many would think that, because we're in the U.K. we're mega-rich and capable of spending big bucks on all kinds of projects. I can state quite categorically, as the ex-Treasurer of the Diocese, we are poorer than the church mice: church mice at least have a church building to scurry around in.
All of us, in the Diocese, perhaps dream of bigger things. We'd like a classical stone building with all the fittings and priests and servers and choirs capable of singing Alessandro Striggio, but these are unavailable to us and will be for the foreseeable future. In fact, worrying about them is a distraction from our true purpose. And what is that purpose?
As a blogger, I recognize the limitations of my blog. It has a small readership, and a rather small range of posting. I look around and I see other blogs devoted to "setting the record straight" or "exposing the truth" or "replying to those in error". Lots of hot air is being wasted on old arguments, and old arguments are not going to go away, just like old heresies: Montanism is the heresy a la mode, but Arianism, Pelagianism, and even Nestorianism are still very much alive and kicking, even within larger Churches. However, these are distractions from the purpose. The Devil wants us to keep arguing so that we don't notice what is really happening.
While we focus on the latest outrage from the CofE, we miss the latest outrage from ISIS. One, of course, could argue that some churches, by promulgating heresy, are spiritually killing people in this country, whereas ISIS are physically killing people in the Middle East, and I take that point. One has the potential for eternal damnation, the other has the potential to raise one up to the level of the Martyr and so we should focus on the spiritual.
And yet, we do miss the point. Our argument with heresy is, by and large, done thanks to the work of Christians of more than 1000 years ago. We really don't have to argue it any more: we have nailed our colours to the mast. All we have to do is live the orthodox faith and allow God's true light to shine through us. If we concentrate ourselves on seeking God in our lives and building the Church, then we really don't have to worry too much about contributing to 1001 blog arguments. If anything, the constant spiritual defending is off-putting for new Christians. The Gospel, however, commits us to the present suffering of our brethren. There may be spiritual works of mercy, but there are also corporate works of mercy. Online bloggers can tend towards "instructing the ignorant" and "admonishing the sinner" to the exclusion of everything else. I'm very much with Fr. Hart and Harpo Marx on this matter.
This is why I think that the more pressing problem is not the heresy within big churches, but the physical oppression coming from ISIS and its ilk. Hatred is the worst heresy of them all. Those in ISIS are presently spiritually dead and will remain so until they repent of that hatred. While we weep for our Christian Martyrs, we remember the promises of Christ and the hope He gives us. Yet, our tears are more relevant for the ISIS members who, nonetheless precious creatures of God, are destroying their precious selves.
The spread of hatred being spewed by these Islamic Fundamentalists is sickening and oppressive, and the most important corporate act of mercy here is to ransom the captive with the concomitant act of comforting the afflicted. These works can be done by everyone in small ways and big ways and we need to see how we in our tiny little ways can allow love to spread and conquer hatred.
Our purpose in the Anglican Catholic Church should not be to browbeat those with whom we disagree or waste time trying to defend what we have already defended: we should allow our faith to speak for itself. Our altar cloths may be a bit frayed, our candles a bit wonky and the lace uneven, but we want one thing: that, in the smallness of our being, the powerful love of God shine more radiantly into a world that is dark and doomed. The host is tiny, and yet God in Christ is most powerfully present in that smallness whether we're in a cathedral or a shoebox chapel.
Of course, we want to grow, and that's not easy in a world that takes exception to some of our rigid stances. We can just carry on and be friendly and open and honest and true to ourselves, working both spiritual and corporate works of mercy for our neighbours however far away they may be. It may even be possible that a tiny Church defeats the combined forces of ISIS. Why not? By one man came Death, by one man came the defeat of Death. With man things are impossible, with God all things are possible.
The message of the ACC really is "In Christ, keep calm, and carry on!" That's what we should be living up to!
Thursday, April 23, 2015
A mast full of colours
Most hammers have two sides: the first is the side that knocks the nail into the wood; the other side is used to prise an incorrectly hammered nail out of the wood again. Clearly, the latter is rather more difficult. An incorrect nail will seldom come out of the wood without sustaining some damage - or at least in my experience, but then my DIY is about as successful as trying to get a hungry cat to befriend a fat little mouse.
Fr Anthony will no doubt fill in the full significance of nailing one's colours to the mast. Clearly, the intention is to display prominently the message that you're trying to convey AND make the further statement that it's going to take a lot to change your mind. In these days when displaying any degree of certainty is somewhat frowned upon, doing the nailing is a big deal.
On his blog, Fr Anthony makes a comment about how we Christians have a tendency to label ourselves. I've mentioned several times about the "Alphabet Soup" of the Anglican Continuum. I once used that idea to excuse myself from joining the ACC earlier. Of course, at the most basic level, to wit as one seeking union with God the Father in Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost, my label does not matter in the slightest. I am what God declares me to be, after all, God created me so He gets to call the shots. I can only guess about my true self. I think that I have a better idea about who I am than others do, but it's also true that others may know things about me that I don't know about myself. It seems very difficult then for me to label myself as anything with any degree of certainty.
I am a Christian - I'm pretty certain about that because I fulfill the definition of what a Christian is. I believe in the three Creeds and they are Christian Creeds, so that is sufficient to convince me that I am very probably a Christian. Would I nail that statement to the mast? Yes.
What good, then, is having a label which is nailed to the mast? Often we are labelled by others and not always complimentarily. I certainly have been on the receiving end of some interesting labels such as "crackers" and "autistic" and "OCD" which were given to me so that the people using them had some easy excuse for dismissing whatever I had to say. The idea of a label is to bring together things of the same type or category and establish common properties. I used to fulfill the label of bachelor, but now I fulfill the label of husband. I might not be the world's best husband, but I can say with some certainty that I am a husband nonetheless.
Yet, while labels bring us together, they also can tear us apart especially when we disagree as to what the label means. One such label is that of "Anglican". I've mused on this problem a lot over the years. Archbishop Haverland spoke quite some time ago on the matter. His argument is to look carefully at the Elizabethan settlement, and note that this was an attempt to prevent the established church from splintering into diverse factions. The sixteenth century Church of England had to house, evangelicals, Lutherans, high church sacramentarians, Calvinists and Church Papists, all in their own way pulling against each other. On the continent, Protestants were fighting each other and the Roman Catholics too. With a new queen (who was not always in the best of health and who had no children) these factions had to be brought to bear for the sake of the realm. The XXXIX articles were composed in such a way as to allow for some wiggle room and soothe troubled consciences.
The trouble is, that this umbrella has become so broad as, now, it means very little. In the UK, one parish now uses a markedly different liturgy to its neighbor. If lex orandi, lex credendi is true and that the way we pray does reflect our belief, then the Church of England is a collection of separate congregations held together by affiliations which cross dioceses. Some parishes do not recognize another's priest or even bishop as being what they are. Some are not even in communion with their own diocesan bishop. St Cyprian would prove that any sense of being properly catholic, or even a church, is now in the gravest of doubt.
Our Archbishop states that the only way forward is to nail our colours to the mast, i.e. to say clearly what we mean by Anglican and thus establish some bedrock for our expression of Orthodox Christianity. I've said it before that when I refer to myself as an Anglican, I mean that I continue the Catholic faith in the light of the English tradition. Anglican means English and qualifies my sense of Catholicism.
Of course, there will be those who profoundly disagree with this. They will nail their colours to the mast too. Archbishop Robinson of our sister Church, the United Episcopal Church of North America, will roll his eyes at any definition of Anglicanism which does not incorporate the full Book of Common Prayer including the Articles. Yet the fact remains of UECNA's fundamental relationship with the ACC and the Anglican Province of Christ the King in being the original Continuing Anglican Church born of the great lapse of U.S. Episcopal Church in the 1970s. It might be argued that being born of the same fire, the ACC, the UECNA and the APCK have nailed their colours to the same mast. The colours are different, but they all come from the Affirmation of St Louis.
The ACC has chosen to interpret Anglicanism in a particularly Anglo-Catholic way, as opposed to that Romanising Anglican Papalist way which produced the Ordinariate. The ACC has an Anglican Papalism of more orthodox nuances based on the Councils, but these nuances do not lie in accepting the Roman Catholic definition of what a Pope is. UECNA has preferred to retain a confessional Protestant definition. Does that mean that there is disagreement between the two jurisdictions? Of course there is! Does that mean hostility and hatred? No, both jurisdictions have ensured that whatever the disagreements may be, we recognise each other to be deeply related and entwined. After all, "the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you".
However, nailing our colours to the mast does make things clear and it does mean that any desire for unity must be met in the right way. In the ACC, the principles of unity are stated clearly:
To some, the refinement of the definition of Anglicanism is historical revisionism. I don't believe it to be so, given that most popular historians who make that claim see "Catholic" as meaning exclusively "Roman Catholic". While I see Anglicanism as being the former, I would heartily say that it is not the latter. Even through the Reformation, its doctrine and definition are something unique and separate from the continental reform, though of course there were influences. On the whole, whether it is or is not revisionism does not matter: we have made our decision and we stick to it for the love of God,
However, others have made their definition. Some, like the Reformed Episcopal Church, made their decision long ago as a stand against the Anglo-Catholic and Anglican Papalism in the Church of England in the Nineteenth Century. Some still make that definition in reaction against our lack of confessional method. We should not hate, snipe or criticise unjustly those who cannot accept our definition, but seek to let live in generosity of spirit and love and remember that it is entirely possible that we have got it wrong. Our job now is to make the best of that definition and accept the consequences that come with the nailing. The ACC needs to grow and explore its identity, not for the purpose of revelling in that identity to shut people out and crush them with labels, but rather to provide the framework in which the Grace of God might be better extended to the World.
Our nailing is only the scaffolding which will hold up our building of the Church. Once that building is complete, the scaffolding will no longer be needed. We must accept our limitations but build on them, just as the God we worship accepted our limitations when we nailed Him to the cross and built the Way for us out of Death's prison.
Fr Anthony will no doubt fill in the full significance of nailing one's colours to the mast. Clearly, the intention is to display prominently the message that you're trying to convey AND make the further statement that it's going to take a lot to change your mind. In these days when displaying any degree of certainty is somewhat frowned upon, doing the nailing is a big deal.
On his blog, Fr Anthony makes a comment about how we Christians have a tendency to label ourselves. I've mentioned several times about the "Alphabet Soup" of the Anglican Continuum. I once used that idea to excuse myself from joining the ACC earlier. Of course, at the most basic level, to wit as one seeking union with God the Father in Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost, my label does not matter in the slightest. I am what God declares me to be, after all, God created me so He gets to call the shots. I can only guess about my true self. I think that I have a better idea about who I am than others do, but it's also true that others may know things about me that I don't know about myself. It seems very difficult then for me to label myself as anything with any degree of certainty.
I am a Christian - I'm pretty certain about that because I fulfill the definition of what a Christian is. I believe in the three Creeds and they are Christian Creeds, so that is sufficient to convince me that I am very probably a Christian. Would I nail that statement to the mast? Yes.
What good, then, is having a label which is nailed to the mast? Often we are labelled by others and not always complimentarily. I certainly have been on the receiving end of some interesting labels such as "crackers" and "autistic" and "OCD" which were given to me so that the people using them had some easy excuse for dismissing whatever I had to say. The idea of a label is to bring together things of the same type or category and establish common properties. I used to fulfill the label of bachelor, but now I fulfill the label of husband. I might not be the world's best husband, but I can say with some certainty that I am a husband nonetheless.
Yet, while labels bring us together, they also can tear us apart especially when we disagree as to what the label means. One such label is that of "Anglican". I've mused on this problem a lot over the years. Archbishop Haverland spoke quite some time ago on the matter. His argument is to look carefully at the Elizabethan settlement, and note that this was an attempt to prevent the established church from splintering into diverse factions. The sixteenth century Church of England had to house, evangelicals, Lutherans, high church sacramentarians, Calvinists and Church Papists, all in their own way pulling against each other. On the continent, Protestants were fighting each other and the Roman Catholics too. With a new queen (who was not always in the best of health and who had no children) these factions had to be brought to bear for the sake of the realm. The XXXIX articles were composed in such a way as to allow for some wiggle room and soothe troubled consciences.
The trouble is, that this umbrella has become so broad as, now, it means very little. In the UK, one parish now uses a markedly different liturgy to its neighbor. If lex orandi, lex credendi is true and that the way we pray does reflect our belief, then the Church of England is a collection of separate congregations held together by affiliations which cross dioceses. Some parishes do not recognize another's priest or even bishop as being what they are. Some are not even in communion with their own diocesan bishop. St Cyprian would prove that any sense of being properly catholic, or even a church, is now in the gravest of doubt.
Our Archbishop states that the only way forward is to nail our colours to the mast, i.e. to say clearly what we mean by Anglican and thus establish some bedrock for our expression of Orthodox Christianity. I've said it before that when I refer to myself as an Anglican, I mean that I continue the Catholic faith in the light of the English tradition. Anglican means English and qualifies my sense of Catholicism.
Of course, there will be those who profoundly disagree with this. They will nail their colours to the mast too. Archbishop Robinson of our sister Church, the United Episcopal Church of North America, will roll his eyes at any definition of Anglicanism which does not incorporate the full Book of Common Prayer including the Articles. Yet the fact remains of UECNA's fundamental relationship with the ACC and the Anglican Province of Christ the King in being the original Continuing Anglican Church born of the great lapse of U.S. Episcopal Church in the 1970s. It might be argued that being born of the same fire, the ACC, the UECNA and the APCK have nailed their colours to the same mast. The colours are different, but they all come from the Affirmation of St Louis.
The ACC has chosen to interpret Anglicanism in a particularly Anglo-Catholic way, as opposed to that Romanising Anglican Papalist way which produced the Ordinariate. The ACC has an Anglican Papalism of more orthodox nuances based on the Councils, but these nuances do not lie in accepting the Roman Catholic definition of what a Pope is. UECNA has preferred to retain a confessional Protestant definition. Does that mean that there is disagreement between the two jurisdictions? Of course there is! Does that mean hostility and hatred? No, both jurisdictions have ensured that whatever the disagreements may be, we recognise each other to be deeply related and entwined. After all, "the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you".
However, nailing our colours to the mast does make things clear and it does mean that any desire for unity must be met in the right way. In the ACC, the principles of unity are stated clearly:
As criteria for engaging in formal dialogue with other Churches aimed at achieving full communion or ultimately organic unity, we would see their possession of historic continuity in Catholic Faith and Apostolic Order, including doctrine and discipline faithfully reflecting the canons and decrees of the seven Ecumenical Councils, with recognizably common Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments and Ministry, as the starting point, not the conclusion, of such endeavors. These are the minimum requirements for the recovery of authentic Christian unity, and we have no authority to alter or reduce them. To those who embrace them we will gladly extend the right hand of fellowship.The fastness of the nails restricts our movement greatly. That's not to say that we do not desire unity, but we have to be realistic, especially as the Continuing Anglican movement has existed only in a tiny blip of time in comparison with the Christian Faith. We may only ever exist as a little anomaly in time, but we do exist now. As Archbishop Haverland says, we even have to be careful when we use the term "Continuing Anglican". Just what are we continuing? If we continue in the same error as the CofE, then we will end up like the CofE or, more likely return to the CofE rather sheepishly. We cannot continue the mistakes, but we can continue what we believe to be the Truth, namely the Catholic Faith as held by the Church in England from the start and read through its lens of history.
To some, the refinement of the definition of Anglicanism is historical revisionism. I don't believe it to be so, given that most popular historians who make that claim see "Catholic" as meaning exclusively "Roman Catholic". While I see Anglicanism as being the former, I would heartily say that it is not the latter. Even through the Reformation, its doctrine and definition are something unique and separate from the continental reform, though of course there were influences. On the whole, whether it is or is not revisionism does not matter: we have made our decision and we stick to it for the love of God,
However, others have made their definition. Some, like the Reformed Episcopal Church, made their decision long ago as a stand against the Anglo-Catholic and Anglican Papalism in the Church of England in the Nineteenth Century. Some still make that definition in reaction against our lack of confessional method. We should not hate, snipe or criticise unjustly those who cannot accept our definition, but seek to let live in generosity of spirit and love and remember that it is entirely possible that we have got it wrong. Our job now is to make the best of that definition and accept the consequences that come with the nailing. The ACC needs to grow and explore its identity, not for the purpose of revelling in that identity to shut people out and crush them with labels, but rather to provide the framework in which the Grace of God might be better extended to the World.
Our nailing is only the scaffolding which will hold up our building of the Church. Once that building is complete, the scaffolding will no longer be needed. We must accept our limitations but build on them, just as the God we worship accepted our limitations when we nailed Him to the cross and built the Way for us out of Death's prison.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Collects for the second Sunday after Easter
Prayer book
ALMIGHTY God, who has given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life; Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Breviary
O God, who by the humiliation of thy Son didst raise up a fallen world: grant unto thy faithful people perpetual gladness; that those whom thou hast rescued from the peril of everlasting death may have the fruition of eternal joy. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Reflection
We can't really say that Christ sacrificed His Divinity to become human, because that which is already holy cannot be made holy. Humans sacrifice to God to offer something of His back in order to express true worship. The offering is set apart for God and thus made holy in that separation. In offering himself as the sacrifice for our sins, Our Lord Jesus makes his human nature holy.
You have to see that whatever Christ touches, He sanctifies. He is baptised like us, and in being baptised, He sanctifies the waters of Baptism so that everyone may be allowed to receive the regenerative grace of Baptism. He is anointed ready for His death by St Mary Magdalene, and in such an anointing, He sanctifies the Unction for those who are passing from this world.
In offering Himself as a sacrifice for our sins upon the altar of the cross, He not only sanctifies the bread of life in the Holy Eucharist, but also sanctifies human nature ready for its salvation. His death means that all humanity can be saved by dying in Him and thus rising in Him. This is how eternal happiness is communicated to the world. This is how the Word of God spreads the Gospel by His free gift of sanctification.
ALMIGHTY God, who has given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life; Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Breviary
O God, who by the humiliation of thy Son didst raise up a fallen world: grant unto thy faithful people perpetual gladness; that those whom thou hast rescued from the peril of everlasting death may have the fruition of eternal joy. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Reflection
We can't really say that Christ sacrificed His Divinity to become human, because that which is already holy cannot be made holy. Humans sacrifice to God to offer something of His back in order to express true worship. The offering is set apart for God and thus made holy in that separation. In offering himself as the sacrifice for our sins, Our Lord Jesus makes his human nature holy.
You have to see that whatever Christ touches, He sanctifies. He is baptised like us, and in being baptised, He sanctifies the waters of Baptism so that everyone may be allowed to receive the regenerative grace of Baptism. He is anointed ready for His death by St Mary Magdalene, and in such an anointing, He sanctifies the Unction for those who are passing from this world.
In offering Himself as a sacrifice for our sins upon the altar of the cross, He not only sanctifies the bread of life in the Holy Eucharist, but also sanctifies human nature ready for its salvation. His death means that all humanity can be saved by dying in Him and thus rising in Him. This is how eternal happiness is communicated to the world. This is how the Word of God spreads the Gospel by His free gift of sanctification.
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Happiness in a monstrance
For the third time since my ordination, I officiated at the office of Benediction today. I know that there are many Anglicans who will be somewhat uncomfortable with the idea, but for me, this office is an opportunity for me to stop and take in more of the Sacred mystery of the Sacrament.
You see, it's all very well coming forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, but you have to take and eat, or take and drink, and then it's gone. Of course, once we have returned to our seats or are engaged in ablutions, one ought to be focusing on what we have just done namely, taken into ourselves the very substance of God. The liturgy is there to draw us ever closer into the Mystery, and to prepare us for leading a new life in a new week with God. However, it's all over in a moment.
As I stand there beating my chest to "Lord, I am not worthy", the time for me to gaze at the Body of Christ broken for me and for the rest of the world is short. The congregation are waiting for Christ to feed them using my poor little hands. They need their sustenance, but they don't really have time to eat their host and have it. That might sound rather glib and positively scandalous to speak like that about truly holy things, but there is a real point here: do we have enough time to take in as much of the Reality of Christ's presence with us before we receive our Communion and go out into our busy-ness?
For me, Benediction is an opportunity to focus on realities beyond my eyes. I know what my eyes are seeing, but what are the eyes of my soul really seeing? I gaze upon something small, white and round set in the middle of the monstrance, but I know through faith that I am seeing Our Lord Himself. Of course, I can't take in a millionth of the presence of God, but I can take in something. I can comprehend the fact that, as the Church fulfills its side of the New Covenant by doing this in remembrance, Our Lord is being faithful to His side and revealing Himself to be present, though I may not know how.
And this makes me happy, and that is the point of Benediction.
Benediction is an opportunity of us to be blessed. How many of us know what blessing really is?
"Blessed" is how we translate the Greek word makarios which is beatus in Latin. The sense of the word is that of being happy but the word happy really isn't big enough to give the full sense. The happiness which i meant here is true happiness, the thing for which all human beings ultimately long, a state of contentment and joy which lasts forever, not just for a time. At Benediction, the priest blesses the congregation with the Host. What does this mean?
It's rather beautiful in its simplicity. Humanity can only ever be truly happy when it is reconciled with its Creator. Most of the time, we crave happiness in all kinds of weird and not-so-wonderful places rather than looking for our true happiness in being ourselves by looking to the One Who truly knows who we are and loves us for it. It is He who calls us to repent of our meanderings away from false and empty happinesses which cloy and rot and fall apart. We can only ever be happy when we are perfected, and this means being perfected in God.
At Benediction, we are given a glimpse through a glass darkly of the Way of true happiness. With the eyes of faith, we see our end, completion and perfection.
We are blessed many times in our lives. At the hands of our priests and bishops we receive blessings from Christ acting through the weak and imperfect bodies of His ministers. Again, in this action we are able to see the drawing of Christ as the light of our true happiness.
Herein lies the mission of the Church. There are many ways outside of the Church in which human beings are blessed. We are blessed with family, friends, houses and homes, children, et c. Some people are not so blessed and it is their unhappiness that we must all share in some way. It is the job of the Church to bring happiness into the lives of others by allowing them the opportunity to see that everlasting joy of God.
This is such hard work, and we often fall short. So what do we do? We must bless God.
How can we bless God? God is already blessed simply by being himself. He is His own happiness! The fact is that we bless God by affirming that He is precisely that - our happiness, our end, our perfection, our joy. We bless God by affirming what He truly is and express our longing for that Being with us, We are going to fail at making people happy, but that is not our mission. We can only show people where happiness is by the way that we live our lives, even in the times of darkness when it is difficult to see the end.
Little things help us glimpse that end, though - like monstrances.
Collects for the first Sunday after Easter
Prayer book
ALMIGHTY Father, who has given thine only Son to die for our sins, and to rise again for our justification; Grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may alway serve thee in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Breviary
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God; that we who have fulfilled the Paschal Feast, may of thy bounty show forth its effects in our life and actions. Through.
Reflection
God makes us truly right by transforming our lives if we fulfill our part in the New Covenant. The bread that we eat is unleavened because it does not need to rise. By His very nature, God's purity needs nothing to give it substance for He is the Bread of Life itself. An additions to our bread take substanc away from us. The evil that we do makes holes in our very being. Our wickedness makes us insubstantial and more like a phantom or a shade doomed to fade away into lifelessess.
Our Life is His gift to us, He gives us His grace that we may live for His pleasure and respond to that love He shows us. He gives us Himself to make us like Him so that one day, we may be able to see Him as He really is and know true Love.
ALMIGHTY Father, who has given thine only Son to die for our sins, and to rise again for our justification; Grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may alway serve thee in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Breviary
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God; that we who have fulfilled the Paschal Feast, may of thy bounty show forth its effects in our life and actions. Through.
Reflection
God makes us truly right by transforming our lives if we fulfill our part in the New Covenant. The bread that we eat is unleavened because it does not need to rise. By His very nature, God's purity needs nothing to give it substance for He is the Bread of Life itself. An additions to our bread take substanc away from us. The evil that we do makes holes in our very being. Our wickedness makes us insubstantial and more like a phantom or a shade doomed to fade away into lifelessess.
Our Life is His gift to us, He gives us His grace that we may live for His pleasure and respond to that love He shows us. He gives us Himself to make us like Him so that one day, we may be able to see Him as He really is and know true Love.
Wednesday, April 08, 2015
For whom doth the bell toll?
I wonder if you heard the bells rung during the Gloria on Maundy Thursday? It's certainly a bit of a wake-up call if you're not expecting it, but then, that's just what bells are for. They wake us up!
Working in a school, the day is punctuated by the ringing of bells. Of course, they are signals to the teacher and not signals to my students. They might object that since everyone can hear the bell that the bell is their signal to pack away and get ready to go. Yet, it is a matter of good discipline for students to wait until they are told before they move. Like Pavlov's dogs, when a schoolboy hears the bell, his hand instinctively reaches to close the pages on algebraic fractions. Since a schoolboy is in the process of becoming a rational, disciplined individual, it is good for him to remember that he must remember that he is not at liberty to do as he pleases but must wait to receive instruction.
It may seem rather an arbitrary and unnecessary piece of ritual, yet that ritual is part of the character forming that differentiates between a spoiled brat and a decent young person. We learn not by being attentive to the bell itself, but what the bell signifies. We have to ask for whom the bell tolls!
For Pavlov's dogs, the bell signifies the imminent arrival of food. Yet, those poor dogs were being treated appallingly (and I do mean appallingly) for Pavlov to reach his conclusion about conditioning. These dogs' mindless association of bell with food demonstrate that lack of thought but mere expectation. Human beings, in their understanding of their condition, ought to seek beyond the signal itself and its associations and see how they fit in with the whole thing rather than become slaves to mindless conditioning. I do not intend for any of my students to become mindless amoebas who live on the principle of stimulus-response. They need to see that the bell is indeed a signal to me to end my lesson and thus wait for me to finish that lesson as appropriate.
However, all this being said, I'd dearly love a watch or clock that would chime the monastic hours for me - not a digital or electronic device, a proper clockwork mechanism. Does this mean that I intend to condition myself to prayer at certain times of day? Have I now just undone my tirade against students who want to leave my lesson as soon as the bell goes?
The bells we use in Church, like the school bell, act as a wake-up call. They draw our attention to the time and thus bring us back to a stark reality that we need to be vigilant. The bells at the Consecration are there to call people's mind to focus on the sacramental presence of God. Just as the bell reminds a schoolboy to look to his teacher for guidance, so does the Church bell wake us to the necessity of looking to God. Too often, we allow our days to go by without such punctuation. We forget to set our alarms to call us to prayer.
Perhaps I should be posting this on Advent Sunday, the annual wake-up call of the Church to the sleepers. Yet, here at Easter so far away in time and space from Our Lord's awaking from death, we should look to this great one-off, never to be repeated, Resurrection as our wake-up call to look at our lives as they are now and how H would want them to be. We must never become mindless as soon as we hear the bell toll, but allow that bell to ring us to our senses.
John Donne was right. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee! But can you hear it ringing?
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Collect for Easter Day
Prayer book
ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without en. Amen.
Reflection
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Our Saviour always prevents us. The word has changed its meaning over time, but it literally means "going before". We use the word to mean, "putting obstacles in the way," but this is certainly not what Our Lord does, for He goes before us, opening doors, vanquishing enemies, preparing a place for us.
It is by His grace preventing us that we can come to faith in the first place for it is in His revelation to us that we come to belief in Him. We cannot achieve salvation by our own works, we have to follow the path that Our Lord has trod if we truly desire to be with Him. The path is that of Love itself - a path of toil and uphill struggle, but a path that can only be trod in the first place because we have been loved first. It is our turn to respond to that Love, to take the hand, to walk that path with all its tiral and tribulation. The effect of that trial and tribulation no longer leads to Death, but rather to where He reigns as king for al Eternity!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without en. Amen.
Reflection
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Our Saviour always prevents us. The word has changed its meaning over time, but it literally means "going before". We use the word to mean, "putting obstacles in the way," but this is certainly not what Our Lord does, for He goes before us, opening doors, vanquishing enemies, preparing a place for us.
It is by His grace preventing us that we can come to faith in the first place for it is in His revelation to us that we come to belief in Him. We cannot achieve salvation by our own works, we have to follow the path that Our Lord has trod if we truly desire to be with Him. The path is that of Love itself - a path of toil and uphill struggle, but a path that can only be trod in the first place because we have been loved first. It is our turn to respond to that Love, to take the hand, to walk that path with all its tiral and tribulation. The effect of that trial and tribulation no longer leads to Death, but rather to where He reigns as king for al Eternity!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Easter Day 2015
T.S.Eliot reports that, in their journey to see the newborn King, one of the the Magi says, "I have seen birth and death, but had thought they were different."Both birth and death are the great mysteries of the human condition into which human consciousness and intellect cannot probe.From the cavern of the womb we emerge, only after a time to return to the cradle of the grave. One can look at this reality with horror and seek to stave off the moment where our grasp of the world fades into the uncertainty of darkness, and our lives end without respect for labour, happiness, love or justice. "At the end of the game, it all goes back into the box."
Or we can look to a one-off event, never repeated, standing so far away in the mists of Time, and see that, just once, just once in the history of humanity, that a man came back from the Dead simply to show us that in Him humanity can be lifted from the c\res of worrying about life's meaning in the face of the blackness of Death. This is the light that shines in that darkness reminding us that,while we are indeed a long time dead, we can be beyond the distinctions of alive and dead by taking into ourselves the life of God.
This is the ransom paid for our redemption, a ransom paid to the frailty of our human condition which without God cannot but die, so that with God's substance in our bodies we cannot but live. The final temptation we fall into is the temptation to think that we are not loved,that we don't matter, that we are destined for a long time dead.
The tomb is empty. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
An intimate little spectacle?
Sermon preached at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis on Easter Day 2015
Why early in the morning?
If you’re going to rise from the dead, why not a big spectacle such as the raising of Lazarus with large crowds? Surely a big stone being rolled out of the way, coupled with a bang and a flash would convince even the hardest atheist that Our Lord has risen from the tomb.
As we’ve been through Lent examining our temptation, the most pressing temptation is to doubt that it’s all true in the first place. The Devil likes to whisper in our ear things like, “how can a man rise from the dead? It’s silly,” or “it’s all a bit of a joke, isn’t it? A monumental misunderstanding.” You can hear people saying just that, can’t you?
Surely, if the Lord were to rise in full view of Pharisees and Romans and all who hate him, there would be no doubt at all that He is precisely Who He has claimed to be all the time – the Son of God. So why not?
[PAUSE]
Human beings are very good at hardening their hearts. Our Lord Himself warns us that there are those people who “hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” They will always find an excuse not to believe in the Resurrection.
“People don’t rise from the dead.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t. It doesn’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because there are no records of people rising from the dead.”
“Aren’t the Gospels a record of someone rising from the dead?”
“They can’t be trusted.”
“Why not?”
“Because people don’t rise from the dead.”
So the argument repeats itself indefinitely.
[PAUSE]
Yet the fact of the matter is that as many as 500 people saw Jesus after His Death and not as a ghost. It happened! It is an historical fact which is only denied by people whose understanding of the world is limited by the bounds of their own experience.
Yet, only 500 people have seen the Risen Lord, and they went to be with Him a long time ago. So what about us? Don’t we get to see Him?
We do, but not yet. Our Lord reminds us that we must not be faithless, but believe. Human beings are limited in Space and Time, so Jesus Himself is limited by His Humanity. It clearly shouldn’t matter to us that we have to take the word of the Church passed down through two thousand years. It’s the same faith as the apostles receive when they see Our Lord standing in His Risen Glory, the scars on His hands, feet and side as badges of honour. The people of the Church are fallible and frail, but the faith of the Church is strong and infallible.
[PAUSE]
Our Lord doesn’t need to make the Resurrection bigger. It’s already enormous in that through it, the whole World can be saved. Yet, it is something He only wishes to share with those who want to respond to His love. The Resurrection, then, far from being loud and brash and noisy, becomes intimate, just between friends, a precious secret shared between lovers. That surely says more about the Resurrection than any Noisy Spectacle, doesn’t it?
Why early in the morning?
If you’re going to rise from the dead, why not a big spectacle such as the raising of Lazarus with large crowds? Surely a big stone being rolled out of the way, coupled with a bang and a flash would convince even the hardest atheist that Our Lord has risen from the tomb.
As we’ve been through Lent examining our temptation, the most pressing temptation is to doubt that it’s all true in the first place. The Devil likes to whisper in our ear things like, “how can a man rise from the dead? It’s silly,” or “it’s all a bit of a joke, isn’t it? A monumental misunderstanding.” You can hear people saying just that, can’t you?
Surely, if the Lord were to rise in full view of Pharisees and Romans and all who hate him, there would be no doubt at all that He is precisely Who He has claimed to be all the time – the Son of God. So why not?
[PAUSE]
Human beings are very good at hardening their hearts. Our Lord Himself warns us that there are those people who “hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” They will always find an excuse not to believe in the Resurrection.
“People don’t rise from the dead.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t. It doesn’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because there are no records of people rising from the dead.”
“Aren’t the Gospels a record of someone rising from the dead?”
“They can’t be trusted.”
“Why not?”
“Because people don’t rise from the dead.”
So the argument repeats itself indefinitely.
[PAUSE]
Yet the fact of the matter is that as many as 500 people saw Jesus after His Death and not as a ghost. It happened! It is an historical fact which is only denied by people whose understanding of the world is limited by the bounds of their own experience.
Yet, only 500 people have seen the Risen Lord, and they went to be with Him a long time ago. So what about us? Don’t we get to see Him?
We do, but not yet. Our Lord reminds us that we must not be faithless, but believe. Human beings are limited in Space and Time, so Jesus Himself is limited by His Humanity. It clearly shouldn’t matter to us that we have to take the word of the Church passed down through two thousand years. It’s the same faith as the apostles receive when they see Our Lord standing in His Risen Glory, the scars on His hands, feet and side as badges of honour. The people of the Church are fallible and frail, but the faith of the Church is strong and infallible.
[PAUSE]
Our Lord doesn’t need to make the Resurrection bigger. It’s already enormous in that through it, the whole World can be saved. Yet, it is something He only wishes to share with those who want to respond to His love. The Resurrection, then, far from being loud and brash and noisy, becomes intimate, just between friends, a precious secret shared between lovers. That surely says more about the Resurrection than any Noisy Spectacle, doesn’t it?
Saturday, April 04, 2015
Collects for Easter Even
Prayer book
GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him : and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection ; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Breviary
Pour forth upon us, O Lord, the spirit of Thy love, that, by Thy loving kindness, Thou mayest make to be of one mind those whom Thou hast satisfied with the Paschal Sacraments. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen
Reflection
Baptism seems to be relegated in the folk memory to a celebration of the life of a newborn baby. A simple splash of water and then the beer and wine can be opened. How many times do we fail to look beyond the outward sign and seek the invisible grace?
When we are baptised, we die. As our Lord sanctified the waters of Baptism by being baptised Himself even though He was without sin, he also sanctified the oil of Holy Unction when St Mary Magdalene anointed Him for His death. It is in His death that we die to sin, that our tendency to sin ceases to draw us inexorably to death, and that in the midst of death we are in life with the water of life welling up within us.
We lie with God in the tomb, waiting for that moment of Resurrection, for the first breath to return to His lifeless body, for the death of death itself as an enemy to be feared but rather the passage to everlasting joy in the punctured hands of the One Who was dead but is no longer so.
GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him : and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection ; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Breviary
Pour forth upon us, O Lord, the spirit of Thy love, that, by Thy loving kindness, Thou mayest make to be of one mind those whom Thou hast satisfied with the Paschal Sacraments. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen
Reflection
Baptism seems to be relegated in the folk memory to a celebration of the life of a newborn baby. A simple splash of water and then the beer and wine can be opened. How many times do we fail to look beyond the outward sign and seek the invisible grace?
When we are baptised, we die. As our Lord sanctified the waters of Baptism by being baptised Himself even though He was without sin, he also sanctified the oil of Holy Unction when St Mary Magdalene anointed Him for His death. It is in His death that we die to sin, that our tendency to sin ceases to draw us inexorably to death, and that in the midst of death we are in life with the water of life welling up within us.
We lie with God in the tomb, waiting for that moment of Resurrection, for the first breath to return to His lifeless body, for the death of death itself as an enemy to be feared but rather the passage to everlasting joy in the punctured hands of the One Who was dead but is no longer so.
Holy Saturday 2015
They thought He wanted to destroy their authority. He wants them to have authority in Him.
They thought He wanted to ruin their lives. He wants them to live more fully.
They thought He would make them look silly. He wants them not to have to worry about trivialities.
They thought He would undermine their teaching. He wants them to continue His teaching but with love and generosity rather than power and arbitrary ruling.
They thought He would denounce the Law. He wants to fulfill the Law and give it the means to bring people to Him.
They thought He would die...
Friday, April 03, 2015
Collects for Good Friday
Prayer book
ALMIGHTY God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified; Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy Church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry may truly and godly serve thee; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
O MERCIFUL God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
There are no collects from the Breviary since, for the whole of the Triduum, the drama is continuous and the offices begin on Maundy Thursday and end at None on Easter Even. The Divine Office becomes one long observation in the heart of the Passion and Death of Our Lord.
In these collects we see again the theme of the desire of Love to bring the people of God together. One might feel scandalised at the "political incorrectness" of the third collect, especially with the archaic terminology for the followers of Islam. However, why Jews, Moslems and Heretics?
The fact of the matter is that Jews, Moslems and Heretics are our brothers. They are our brothers in Abraham and they are our brothers in our humanity. We cannot dare forget them and we cannot dare dismiss them. Their salvation matters to us - it MUST matter to us if we are to say that we have any ounce of love within us. Love seeks to bind us in confraternity, not consign the other to Hell. We believe them to be wrong, mistaken, holding to a falsehood or not embracing the fulness of the truth, They will say the same about us. One fact remains, each one of us, no matter what we believe, is a sinner, riddled with evil and in danger of Eternal Death.
Having a belief does separate people, and that seems to go against Love. Love rejoices only in the truth and believing that one is right can only work if we believe in Love and that desire of Love to reach out even to those who do not believe as we do, and remember that we share the same flesh and blood. In believing in the truth of the Catholic Faith, we pray that those who do not hold it may indeed hold it, even as we ourselves seek to grow our faith by serving God in His Church according to the vocations that we have received.
Today, we see the vocation of Our Lord and Saviour fulfilled in agony upon a cross. We see His skin torn, His hands ripped, His feet split, His side pierced, and His precious blood spilled for each and every one of us regardless of who we are and what we believe. However, it is only in Christ that this Death has any point, has any lasting effect. It is only through the death upon the cross that the Church can carry people to Salvation as it plots its course through the wounds of Christ. It is fitting, then, that we pray for all people to join us on the same course.
ALMIGHTY God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified; Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy Church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry may truly and godly serve thee; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
O MERCIFUL God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Reflection
There are no collects from the Breviary since, for the whole of the Triduum, the drama is continuous and the offices begin on Maundy Thursday and end at None on Easter Even. The Divine Office becomes one long observation in the heart of the Passion and Death of Our Lord.
In these collects we see again the theme of the desire of Love to bring the people of God together. One might feel scandalised at the "political incorrectness" of the third collect, especially with the archaic terminology for the followers of Islam. However, why Jews, Moslems and Heretics?
The fact of the matter is that Jews, Moslems and Heretics are our brothers. They are our brothers in Abraham and they are our brothers in our humanity. We cannot dare forget them and we cannot dare dismiss them. Their salvation matters to us - it MUST matter to us if we are to say that we have any ounce of love within us. Love seeks to bind us in confraternity, not consign the other to Hell. We believe them to be wrong, mistaken, holding to a falsehood or not embracing the fulness of the truth, They will say the same about us. One fact remains, each one of us, no matter what we believe, is a sinner, riddled with evil and in danger of Eternal Death.
Having a belief does separate people, and that seems to go against Love. Love rejoices only in the truth and believing that one is right can only work if we believe in Love and that desire of Love to reach out even to those who do not believe as we do, and remember that we share the same flesh and blood. In believing in the truth of the Catholic Faith, we pray that those who do not hold it may indeed hold it, even as we ourselves seek to grow our faith by serving God in His Church according to the vocations that we have received.
Today, we see the vocation of Our Lord and Saviour fulfilled in agony upon a cross. We see His skin torn, His hands ripped, His feet split, His side pierced, and His precious blood spilled for each and every one of us regardless of who we are and what we believe. However, it is only in Christ that this Death has any point, has any lasting effect. It is only through the death upon the cross that the Church can carry people to Salvation as it plots its course through the wounds of Christ. It is fitting, then, that we pray for all people to join us on the same course.
Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crucifixion
Darkness covers the land. Darkness covers the hearts of the lovers of Jesus. Darkness covers the Holy eyes.
The Mystery here is "Why?" The Answer is "Love."
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries:The Carrying of the Cross
Our Lord has received His sentence and must carry the instrument of His own death upon his bruised and bloody shoulders. It is here that the powers-that-be seek to demonstrate that the burden of going against their authority is too great a burden for any man to bear. The weight of the world will crush all who dare to oppose its might.
The Mystery is that the yoke of Our Lord is easy and His burden is light. He has made the carrying of our crosses bearable by shouldering them with us. Should we fall, He is there to help us if we allow Him to do so. The sufferings of this world are nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in us. The burden of proof is on those who would say that our existence is empty and doomed to darkness. With God it is light in more senses of the word than one.
Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Holy Week 2015, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries: The Crowning with Thorns
Our Lord's Kingship is treated in precisely this fashion. He is not the King of Heaven, He is merely King of the Jews, an empty title for Israel is under Roman rule; an empty title for Herod holds that privilege; an empty title for none of rhe civil authorities would see that in an itinerant preacher; an empty title for this is not the Kingship He claims.
The straw man is decorated with thorns and reeds to demonstrate His lack of substance and credibility to the world. The teaching of a fool does not need to be refuted, just ignored, and what greater fool than one who would seek to make fools out of the wise men of the world by pointing out their misreading of the Holy Scriptures?
The Mystery here is that the "straw man" has more substance than any who dress Him up and parade Him in His fragility. It is a Mystery in which we partake when we refuse to rest with appearances and seek the love that lies beneath the thorns, purple robe, spittle and bruise. We too must be laughed at for our belief because if the world were to listen, it would stumble and fall exposing its true lack of substance to all.
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