Open Thou Our Lips

Advent Days 2006

2006-11-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

As the beautiful and mysterious season of Advent approaches, I link to some good new articles at Full Homely Divinity.

An excerpt from "Rediscovering Advent":

As the culture of the Church yields more and more to the priorities and the attitudes of the secular culture, and as Christmas becomes for many people a secular holiday that begins at Thanksgiving (at the end of November in the U.S.) and comes to an end shortly after dinner on December 25th, it becomes more and more difficult to observe the season of Advent with any integrity, even within the Church. Christmas concerts, Christmas parties, even Christmas services of lessons and carols are held from early December on, building to an almost anti-climactic series of services on December 24th and 25th. Those who insist on waiting to celebrate Christmas when it actually arrives are regarded as dreary pedants who are simply out-of-step with reality or insensitive to the feelings of those who prefer to follow their own traditions rather than the ancient cadences of the Church year. Although they have a high view of the faith and the feast, they are often dismissed as modern day Ebenezer Scrooges, who thought Christmas was humbug and did not even care that Advent existed.

Sadly, much is lost in this popular reordering of the Church year. In fact, Christmas itself is impoverished. The Church has appointed twelve days for the celebration of Christmas, from December 25th through January 5th. Those days include important feasts, including St. Stephen the first martyr, St. John the Evangelist, the Holy Innocents, and the Holy Name, which help to illuminate more fully the meaning of Christmas. If the celebration of Christmas ends after dinner on December 25th, we lose those great days and the mysteries they unfold. Moreover, by celebrating Christmas from the beginning of December on, we override Advent and lose it. And this is a terrible loss. Advent sets before us the powerful unfolding of God's plan for all of history, a plan that culminates not in the first coming of Christ, but in his second coming. Without Advent, Christmas is all too easily reduced to a sentimental story about a baby, and even Good Friday and Easter are in danger of losing their meaning. Christmas is the celebration of the mystery of the divine Redeemer who dwelt among us on earth. But he is truly the Redeemer only if he comes again to judge the world and establish for ever his new creation. Pascha, i.e., Good Friday and Easter, is the celebration of the mystery of the divine King who reigns from the Cross and rises from the dead on the third day. But he is truly the King only if he ascends the throne prepared for him by his Father from the beginning of time, the throne of his eternal Kingdom which will not be fully realized until the end of time.

There is also a long section in that article on the "Jesse Tree," something that's completely new to me. Not new, but worth reading: A Devotion for the Last Days of Advent and, on the same topic, The Great O Antiphons, an external link.

An expanded article for later in the season is the "Twelve Days of Christmas."

From another site, ChristusRex.org, here are the (Latin) chanted propers of the Mass for Advent 1, as sung by the Benedictine monks of Brazil. (Note: these are actual recordings of the monks in choir, so they are not "recording studio" quality.)

To me, the Graduale (an mp3 file) in particular ("Universi, qui te exspectant") is stunningly beautiful - full of gorgeous melismatic musical lines and lovely lilting phrases. Very evocative of the Advent hope and expectant waiting. Also glorious: the Alleluia (mp3), Ostende Nobis; this is taken from Psalm 85.

Here's an mp3 of the Introit, Ad te levavi, taken from Psalm 25, which is listed on the website as 24. (Caelius notes that "The numbering difference [between the Catholic and Protestant enumeration of the Psalms] is because Psalm 9 and 10 are one psalm in the LXX, but are apparently separate in the Hebrew manuscripts. There's probably a story there, especially since the two psalms form an alphabetic acrostic in Hebrew, just not a perfect one, suggesting a few errors in transmission.")

Psalm 25

1 Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.

2 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.

3 Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

4 Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.

5 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

6 Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.

Notes on Collect for Proper 17

2006-09-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Structurally, this collect has an more lengthy naming of God than most: “Lord of all power and might” and extended attribute: “who art the author and giver of all good things”. The petition is fourfold; there are four different petitions that are roughly parallel. There is no result clause in the current version.

Alliterative pairs are fairly common: “art…author”, “giver…good”, “increase in us”, forth…fruit”.

Historically, this collect is based on the Sarum collect for the 7th Sunday after Trinity and was translated for the 1549 and subsequent books. It was not until this prayer book that it was moved to its present position.

Theologically, an interesting feature of this collect is the relation of the fourfold petitions. Are four different things being asked or are they shades or facets of the same request? This issue is cast into relief by this year’s (RCL) Epistle: James 1:17-27. Not only does the attribute resonate with James 1:17 (“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above”) but the emphasis on good works as the product of true faith are reinforced and fully connected in v. 27: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world” uniting the second and the fourth petitions.

Office Quick-Reference

2006-08-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

Check out this neat two-page PDF guide to the offices: here.

It follows a standard Rite II format and lays out the table of suggested canticles. Some of the suggestions--like saying the Jubilate Deo in place of the Venite in Christmas, Epiphany, and Saints' days--may come from Galley's The Prayer Book Office, an out of print work by the working editor of the American '79 BCP.

Notes on Collect for Proper 16

2006-08-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Grant, we beseech thee, merciful God, that thy Church, being gathered together in unity by thy Holy Spirit, may manifest thy power among all peoples, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

This collect has a familiar shape to it; there is no attribute and the naming of God ("merciful God") is embedded within the petition. The majority of the collect is the petition itself, with the result being the final prepositional phrase ("to the glory of thy Name") before a standard doxological conclusion.

Only two alliterative pairs appear here, both clustered in the same phrase: "may manifest" and "power...people".

The beginning part of the collect comes from the old Gelasian Sacramentary (7th cent.) but the original petition for the protection of the church was altered for its inclusion in the American '28 BCP for Tuesday in Whitsun-Week (the Tuesday after Pentecost). The resulting prayer is decidedly evangelical in character. There's a vague resonance with the end of Romans--compare Rom 16:25-26:

25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, 26 But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith

The only theological note I'll make (because I think it speaks for itself without the need for further comment) is to note the naming of God. Consider how the epithet "merciful" shapes the rest of it and configures the work of mission.

Notes on Collect for Proper 15

2006-08-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

Almighty God, who hast given thy only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavor ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This is a great collect and should be mandatory reading for those who believe that the Episcopal Church doesn't have any theology--just a prayer book. Clearly, this one touches on the atonement debate, one that has heated up a bit in recent years. Does the church have a stance on atonement? According to this collect it does... But we'll get to that in a second.

Structurally, this collect starts off with the naming of God and moves into a lengthy attribute--it stretches from the beginning to the first colon. The petition proper is short, a mere three words, and the lengthy result section takes us all the way to the semicolon and the doxological conclusion. (Confused? Review the collect parts here.)

Alliterative pairs are less common in this than other collects but we still have got some here: "sacrifice for sin", "Give us grace", "endeavor ourselves". In terms of verbal and theological resonances, this prayer shares some similarities with language in the Eucharistic prayers (note corresponding sense of "benefits" in the Prayer of Humble Access). The phrase "both as a sacrifice for sin and a model of the godly life" is quite familiar to me from its adoption into the Lutheran (LBW) liturgy.

Theology-wise, I'd first like to note this phrase: "to be unto us". For me, it implies that this isn't all that Jesus is; these two roles are not the sum total of his being. Here we speak of him who is, as Paul puts it, "the very image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, the head of the church and the author of our salvation." He isn't just an idea whipped up by God to save things after the original plan fell through--as some (deficient) theories of atonement seem to suggest.

Now perhaps the theological heart of the collect. A Roman Catholic mentor of mine has suggested that the catholic path is not the "either/or" but the "both/and". In this colect, we've got a both/and. Both Anselm's notion of Christ as substitutionary atonement and Abelard's idea of Christ as moral exemplar are upheld, not as contradictory opposites but as parts of a whole. The prayer book chooses not one nor the other--but both. Indeed, one without the other might well be incomplete... I dare say that the Christus Victor theology of the patristic church--Christ as the one who,through the cross, conquers death and hell shattering the brazen gates and binding the fiend--rounds it out nicely.

Spend some time with the dual result clause. The first reminds me of the post-communion collect (prayer 67 on p. 834); the second calls us to the work of imitation. As the Church has taught from the earliest times, our surest path is the imitation of Christ in all things. And I think I'll end on that note, borrowing again the words of Paul, this time the words at the heart of his mystical theology: "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." (Eph 5:1-2)

Really Brief Notes on Proper 12

2006-07-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

At the beach--so I'm not kidding about the brief part...

* Notice the interesting naming of God in this collect--without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy. I can't help wondering if it doesn't come from the Eastern acclamation, Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal one. (Strong and Mighty both being acceptable translations of the Greek word.)
* I like the treatment of "things temporal". It doesn't denigrate them--they're not bad or to be avoided. Rather, they must keep their proper place in reference to "things eternal". We don't hate the body or its needs, it just must keep a proper place as we strive towards our homeland.

The beach calls... ;-)

Really Brief Notes on Collect for Proper 11

2006-07-25T06:19:00.000-07:00

* Note alliteration: "knowest our necessities" and "ignorance in asking" (all vowels alliterate by the old rules)
* Note parallels: "necessities...those things which for our unworthiness..." and ignorance...for our blindness..."
* Contrast our unworthiness with the worthiness of Christ. I'm seeing here two complimentary takes on salvation: 1) the alien righteousness that comes from God outside of ourselves, 2) the benefits of inclusion into the Body of Christ and participation in his risen life.

Hopefully more later... ;-)

Collects

2006-07-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

For those of us who pray the Daily Offices on a more-or-less regular basis and who try to attend mid-week masses as we're able, one piece of this process is the weekly collect. Generally speaking, the collect for Sunday is used twice or more a day for the rest of the week. This either means allocating one of your prayer book ribbons to the collect page (not a real hardship by any stretch but it is one more set of page flips)--or memorizing it. If our theology is in our common prayer, then the collect is an important part of that process. To memorize and internalize the collects is to work at actively assimilating the faith and morals that lie passively awaiting our consumption.

Some texts we memorize passively. The Gloria in excelsis, the Collect for Purity, the post-communion prayer, all tend to get absorbed by osmosis. As a result, we know them, we can recall them to active memory, but without expending much effort on our part. Memorizing a collect requires some active effort that, at least in my case, means focusing on what words are used, how they balance one another, what the structure is, etc. As far as I'm concerned, the process of active memorization allows us to encounter the collect mnore fully than just hearing or just reading it.

Once we memorize them, we use them for a week, then it's on to a new one until the same time next year. In the intervening time, I'm sure that the collect will drop out of active memory. When you hear it again you may say--oh yeah, I remember that one... but you probably won't be able to haul it up again after a month or two have passed. And that's ok! The more BCP collects you have stuffed in your passive memory, they more they will arise naturally. You'll find their shape and character flavoring your own prayer and devotional thought.

Proper 10:
O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

* We'll note briefly a typical feature of prayer book prayer, doubles: "perceive and know" and "grace and power"
* We'll also note an alliterative moment, also pretty common: "faithfully to fulfill"
* Overall, the theology of the prayers reminds me strongly of a line from Augustine--the Confessions, I believe,--but I'm not positive of that.
* One final note--I find it interesting that while the prayer is 1st person plural, "we", it prays on behalf of a rather generic third-person plural: "they" with the antecendent of "thy people who call upon thee". So, here we're not praying for "me"; we're not even praying for "we"; rather it is a more general and anonymous "they" in whom we are included through the very act of prayer. Hmm, inclusion through common prayer. Not a bad thought for these days.

Plainchant Thoughts

2006-05-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

I put up some thoughts on my blog abut chanting the Gospels/Lessons and about psalmtones. Rather than split any interesting comments between both sites, I thought I'd direct you there. Part of the function of this post is an unabashed goad to bls and/or Charlotte to post intros to Chant which they've mentioned a time or two but never put up... ;-)

The Rogation Days

2006-05-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Today is the first of the Rogation Days, known in the Latin as the "Litaniae minores ". These were days of fasting and great processions in the medieval period. Their establishment is describe by Gregory of Tours in his History of the Franks (Book 2, ch. 34—regrettably not on-line as far as I can tell).

These three days before the Ascension were a time of blessing the crops—naturally, modern liturgical churches have taken this is a good opportunity to celebrate creation and the need for good stewardship of the environment. However, there is another aspect of these days that should not be ignored. According to much patristic and early medieval exegesis Acts 1:11:

"Men of Galilee," [the angels] said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."

Was widely interpreted to mean that Jesus would return for the Day of Judgment on the Feast of the Ascension. Thus, these three days were, for the Anglo-Saxon Church, days of intense catechesis and preparation. The evidence for preaching to laity in the vernacular is sketchy. We have plenty of Old English sermons, but we know little about when and where they were preached. That there was public preaching to the laity on the Rogation Days is not in doubt; a greatly disproportionate number of the vernacular sermons that survive are for these days. Their topics are basic: things like the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments (a list that should sound really familiar to Lutherans…just glance back at the Small Catechism).

So, despite being in Easter, these days might be worthily celebrated by including the Exhortation and General Confession before the Offices and concluding Morning Prayer with the Litany. In addition, this would be a great opportunity to meditate on the basics of our faith—the Ten Commandments, the Creeds, the Lord's Prayer. Come to think of it, re-reading that Small Catechism might not be a bad idea—even for us Anglicans…

Lenten Sermon Excerpt

2006-03-23T07:04:00.000-08:00

This is an excerpt from my wife's sermon for Lent 2. I'm a little tardy in posting it, but here it is:

. . .

The season of Lent is often associated with deprivation or giving something up. Our Prayer Book reminds us that Lent in the Early Church was about fasting and penitence and invites us today into a period of prayer, fasting, repentance, and self-denial. But Lent can also be a time to add things to our lives, especially holy habits. The Prayer Book also invites us into a period of self-examination, reading and meditating on God’s Word. If you’re like me, though, the idea of adding just one more thing to your life is almost unbearable. I mean—life is hard enough as it is with juggling children, jobs, and relationships. How can you hope to fit in more spiritual things?

The word Lent comes from an old word meaning springtime. One way to think about Lent without stressing yourself out is to think about it like an early springtime garden. In the early spring last year’s beautiful garden can look like quite a mess. Heaps of leaves from the fall lay around, dead plants from the previous year poke up, and maybe some industrious weeds have already gotten a head start on you. If you want a beautiful garden again this year, then it’s time to begin again. You have to start by getting rid of the stuff that’s there—maybe even stuff that once was living, vibrant, and beautiful but isn’t anymore. So you start raking…what activities in your life seem to just exist to fill space—and don’t really add anything to your life? And you start pulling up last year’s dead plants…what are those intentions that you always wanted to do but never got around to and now feel guilty about? Or those things that you use to do because they gave you joy and peace, but now don’t? Finally you go after those little weeds…what new little things are poking up in your life that you’re not terribly proud of?

Once all of the clutter has been cleared away, it’s time to put in some new plants. Now some people may just put in fully-grown plants right away but most start with new plants, with young plants that require care and nurturing or else they will die right a way. They have to be tended for a while until they can live on their own without constant watering and care. This is the helpful way to think about adding things to your life—not piling yet another thing onto an already full schedule. If you’re going to give something up, give away something that sucks up your time and energy, and plant something beautiful and life-giving in its place. Like taking a few minutes to read the Bible with your morning cup of coffee or reading one or more of the daily devotions in the Prayer Book with your kids, spouse, or a friend.

So instead of thinking just about giving things up or piling things on, think of Lent as your early springtime garden that needs cleaning up the old overgrowth and putting in some new things. These are the holy habits. Holy habits are the things that we are called to nurture and, like young plants, habits really do have to be nurtured before they become natural. These are the holy habits that discipleship demands and that today’s Gospel tells us to take up during Lent.

. . .

"The Lenten Fast"

2006-02-15T15:59:00.000-08:00

From Project Canterbury, an article by by the Rev. Charles T. Stout (Milwaukee: Morehouse, no date [but sometime around the turn of the 20th Century, as Stout was a priest working in 1911]):

1. The Scripturalness of prayer and fasting is undoubted:

And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights (St. Matt. iv. 2).
Moreover, when ye fast be not as the hypocrites (St. Matt. vi. 16).
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted (Acts xiii. 2).
And when they had fasted and prayed (Acts xii, 3).
And when they had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord (Acts xvi. 23).
In stripes ... in fastings (II. Cor. vi. 5).

The testimony and practice of the Church from. Apostolic days is just as strong. But men are still found who repeat the trite objections to the observance of Lent. They say, "Dissipation is increased before and after as compensation for its restraints." This objection proves too much. It amounts simply to this: Worldly people in the Church abuse Lent, hence it ought to be abolished. The argument, if good for anything, is good enough to abolish Christianity. Sunday is a day of rest, spiritual enjoyment and peace, for many; some abuse it in every possible way. Hence Sunday ought to be abolished. The Bible is precious and sacred to the Church; but irreverent and unbelieving and fanatical persons have despoiled its pages, perverted its pure precepts, disregarded its teaching, abused it in every way. Hence, abolish the Bible! Services in God's house are made occasions for ostentation and display. Hence, close the churches! The only logical stopping place is to abolish Christianity because crimes have been done and are done in its name. We are thus left in a dangerous predicament.

2. "Uniform moderation of life is the Church's need."

True, it is. But that this can be better secured without Lent than with it, is not proven. All experience corroborates the Lenten principle that some period must be taken to examine our lives, and see whether they conform to the doctrines professed. The reasoning used above is applicable here. Sunday is a day set apart for religious work and worship. But uniform moderation of life can be better secured by making Sunday just like any other day--be religious every day and no need of Sunday! Now, nobody wants this except evil men. Lent is an opportunity a man can waste and abuse just as he wastes Sunday or any religious help. All days should be lived in accordance with Christ's teaching, but the duties of days and seasons differ.

3. The use and principle of Lent is denial of self for a certain season and for a certain purpose. These days of worship and self-denial are to make us strong with new spiritual power. That our daily life should be so lived weighs nothing against having a special season for the training of one's self into this habit. The idea involved is recognized in other ways by those who scoff at Lent. The athlete who hopes to win must submit to abstinence and training greater than he can get in ordinary life. The lawyer preparing for an important case shuts himself up with his books and papers, denies himself the usual harmless pleasures and even comforts until he is ready for trial. The artist who would reach a high place in art thinks the sacrifice of all that interferes with his special purpose none too great for the benefit gained. Illustrative cases are endless.

4. When bodies of Christians who dislike this yearly season for training, discipline, and spiritual culture, keep even one day set apart for special services they yield the whole principle on which Lenten observances rest. Instead of forty days they keep only one day of Lent. So by their revival seasons, when extraordinary services and means are used to awaken spiritual life and power. For such a season, too often a fictitious and violent excitement that must have a harmful reaction, the Church orders a regular and stated revival season wherein can be regained spiritual life and power by such quiet and well-ordered means as are not exposed to the danger of destructive reaction. Following the teaching of Apostolic days, she believes that religion founded on fact and principle and perpetually re-taught by the recurrence of festivals and fasts, is more likely to be lasting and of spiritual edification, than religion the inspiration of which is feeling, and opinions of theology too often its foundation. The Church Year founded on great facts forming our redemption, presents the Person of Christ for study and contemplation; hence actualities take the place of speculations.

5. Christ speaks of fasting as He speaks of prayer and almsgiving--as a matter of course for the Christian. We have largely lost the literalness of the first, as we are in increasing danger of losing the literalness of the others. The last two will increase when the first is made more real. Alone denying the stomach certain kinds of food, without a spiritual purpose, will issue in no moral strength. The denial must be a real struggle against appetite, pride, sin of life, or desire of whatever kind. Self-righteousness may starve the stomach and feed its unspiritual self. Fasting, in its broad meaning, is to cut the communications of the enemy with his base of supplies. Prayer is the bringing in of the stronger Spirit of God to assault the foe in his citadel and cast him out. The neglected Bible hunted up and studied, closets revisited for prayer and self-searching examination, the soul to recover its thoughtfulness and earnestness, public worship resumed, Christian work zealously done, the Sacraments made, in reality, means of Grace by the abiding presence and power of the Holy Ghost, will issue in a good, healthful, fruitful Lent. What was helpful to the Master will be helpful to His disciples.

Lent

2006-02-15T15:41:00.000-08:00

From Pascha Nostrum, the newsletter of the Church of the Resurrection, New York City, a kind of Lent Plan and Checklist, which I thought people might find interesting and/or helpful.

MY LENTEN RULE

1. FASTING. The weekdays of Lent (not the Sundays) are all fast days, meaning that the amount of food eaten is reduced. A good rule might be no snacks, no seconds, no desserts and no alcohol. If you don't normally eat snacks or desserts or drink, you may want to consider giving up some favourite food. The idea is to undertake something sacrificial, yet not overwhelming. In addition, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are strict fasts: one full meal in the evening, and a light meal or collation in the afternoon. All those whose health, work, and age permit should fast.

This Lent I resolve to:

2. MASS. Lent is a good time to add a weekday Mass to your usual observance. The weekday Masses are of a rather more intimate and quiet nature than the Sunday ones. and this can be a great blessing. Masses are at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, and Noon Saturday.

This Lent I resolve to:

3. STATIONS OF THE CROSS. Each Friday in Lent at 7.00 p.m., we will follow Our Lord's way to the Cross, using the stations in the Church. This devotion makes His crucifixion ever more real for us. If you cannot be present with the parish for Stations, you can do the devotion privately. Stations closes with Benediction.

This Lent I resolve to:

4. SPIRITUAL READING. An ancient custom is to take a spiritual book for regular reading during Lent. This can be a book of Scripture. or one of the spiritual classics. Some are available from the bookshop. If you are not sure what might be good, ask Father Swain.

This Lent I resolve to:

5. DAILY OFFICE. If you do not now read Matins or Evensong from the Prayer Book, Lent is a good time to start. It takes a little effort and discipline to get the habit established, but once it is there, it can bear great fruit. The regular prayers and psalms and Scripture draw us out of our narrow spiritual views, and nourish us with the riches of the Faith.

This Lent I resolve to:

6. CONFESSION. A sacramental confession at the beginning and end of Lent is not only an opportunity for a thorough self-examination, but also a powerful weapon against the temptations which come our way in Lent. Nothing helps a shop-keeper plan for the future like a good stock taking.

This Lent I resolve to:

7. SERVICE. As well as giving-up in Lent, some wish to take on some special service, such as visiting the sick or shut-in, volunteering at a hospital, taking special care for a neighbour who may need it, or some special project at church.

This Lent I resolve to:

8. ABSTINENCE. Abstaining from flesh meat on Wednesdays in Lent as well as Fridays (required by the Prayer Book) is a common discipline for Lent. At the very least, no flesh meat should be eaten on the Fridays of Lent.

This Lent I resolve to:

9. SELF-DENIAL. You may want to give up some special pleasure or recreation for Lent, and perhaps give what you would have spent on it (if anything) to the Church.

This Lent I resolve to:

10. SCRIPTURE READING & CLASSES. Lent is a good time to take on Scripture reading and study, or indeed any study of the Faith. There will be an adult class offered in Lent on Tuesday nights at 7.00 p.m.

This Lent I resolve to:

A LENTEN QUIET DAY will be offered on a Saturday in Lent to be announced soon. These last from about 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m., and include Mass, a silent luncheon, three meditations and Benediction at the close. Setting aside five hours for God this Lent, no matter what else happens, is a very good plan.

This Lent I resolve to:

In addition to the above, I would like to:

Achieve:

Overcome:

Renounce:

"The Liturgical Spectrum"

2006-02-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

A recently-published Full Homely Divinity article that discusses the use of color in worship and liturgy:

As the Church moves through the year, it provides many symbols to remind us of the significance of seasons and days. Color can be highly expressive and reflective of mood and meaning and colored vestments and hangings have been among the most prominent symbols used in many churches. However, as Percy Dearmer pointed out a good many years ago in his classic book, The Parson's Handbook, there is a great deal of misunderstanding, and sometimes even a misinformed dogmatism, about particular colors and color sequences. The aim of this article is to provide information about the history and meaning of the liturgical spectrum, particularly in Anglican use, and to encourage a practical and also creative approach to the use of color in divine service.

You'll find quite a number of nice color photos of vestments of all sorts, and discussions of current and historical customs.

As noted above, in the medieval English use, one of the ruling principles was that the best vestments a church owned were to be used on major feasts, no matter what color they were. This is a principle that would seem to make a good deal of sense. It need not be taken to extremes. For example, the use of black on a major feast, no matter how rich the vestments might be, would be too great a departure from conventional expectations to be acceptable in most situations. On the other hand, too strict an adherence to that which is familiar and conventional can have the effect of robbing liturgy of its natural and appropriate drama. Furthermore, feast days, "holidays", are supposed to interrupt ordinary routines, to provide relief. But if every day is a feast day, the extraordinary soon becomes ordinary, and this means that ultimately the significance of the occasion will also be lost.

In the Middle Ages, when the cult of the saints was in full flower, virtually every day was a feast day of some sort. In that context, the festal vestments would have been in perpetual use. Even allowing for the distinction between saints who were martyrs and saints who were not martyrs, red and white would have been the only colors in use outside of Advent and Lent. In smaller and poorer foundations, this almost certainly was the case. However, in cathedrals and other great churches, much greater variety of use was often found. Not only were there different vestments (i.e., different colors) for the feasts of martyrs and confessors (saints who were not martyrs), but there were distinctions for virgins and virgin martyrs, for matrons, for angels, and even more specific directions for particular saints such as John the Baptist (violet on the feast of his beheading because he went to Limbo) and Mary Magdalene (azure in some places, saffron in others).

The Office--what's the point?

2006-02-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder *why* we do the Office?

Sometimes I forget and need to be reminded, and I think the very best quick summary is found in the exhortation to confession...

Rite I version:

Dearly beloved, we have come together in the presence of
Almighty God our heavenly Father, to render thanks for the
great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth
his most worthy praise, to hear this holy Word, and to ask, for
ourselves and on behalf of others, those things that are
necessary for our life and our salvation.

Rite II Version:

Dearly beloved, we have come together in the presence of
Almighty God our heavenly Father, to set forth his praise, to
hear his holy Word, and to ask, for ourselves and on behalf
of others, those things that are necessary for our life and our
salvation.

[I have no idea why we no longer "render thanks"...]

And--just to round it out--the 1662 version:

And although we ought, at all times, humbly to acknowledge our sins before God; yet ought we chiefly so to do, when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul.

Thoughts?

Burping Up the Liturgy

2006-01-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, in her audiotaped series on Singing the Psalms (Sounds True), relates that the Latin translation of Psalm 45 (or 44, depending on whose psalter you're using), "My heart overflows with a goodly theme," uses the Latin verb eructavit, which can be translated, "to burp up." She goes on to note that, when we immerse ourselves in the Psalms (and other prayers of the Daily Office), bits of them tend to bubble up into our conscious minds at opportune times.

I was listening to this recording in my car, and her comments made me laugh out loud -- because I had my own experience of "burping up" liturgy. At the time I did not identify myself as a Christian. I had gone through a kind of half-hearted exploration of neopaganism that did not satisfy, and had decided that I was postmodernly irreligious. That's enough of that, I told myself.

Except that the prayers of my childhood kept inserting themselves into my consciousness -- as I was driving, as I was watching television, as I was doing my work.

Sometimes it would be the liturgy that we used (really) in our old Sunday School pre-class prayer:

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him;
all that call upon Him in truth.
O Lord, open Thou my lips.
And my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.

Sometimes it would be the Agnus Dei:

O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.

Sometimes it would even be whole sections of the Eucharistic prayers, popping into my head:

It is truly meet, right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, holy Father, almighty, everlasting God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord...therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious name, ever more praising Thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy...

Why? Why is this happening to me? Stop it! Stopitstopitstopit!

Well...obviously it didn't stop. But if the Spirit can speak to us through these words even at our most obstinate and antagonistic points, how much more can they speak to us, encourage us, comfort us, remind us, inspire us when we continually nourish ourselves with them and invite them to keep coming back?

Playing in the Psalter

2005-12-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Psalter is its function as a scriptural and theological nexus. Many different strands of theology and tradition create the Old Testament--most of them are represented in the Psalms. Indeed, a shared phrase, image or concept in a psalm can lead the astute reader to make connections between certain psalms and certain traditions, illuminating a host of texts through careful reading. Furthermore, citation of the psalms in the New Testament give the careful readers clues both as to how the early church interpreted Scripture and to how the psalms themselves shaped the Church's theology. I could go on about this, but I think that an illustrative example--some playing around with a couple of psalms-- will be more instructive.

Let's take a look at two psalms; we'll start with Ps 74.

A few initial notes:
· First off, we can position it in the Psalter overall by its superscription. We don't know much about the history of the composition and collection of the Psalter. There are superscriptions that assign various psalms to certain people or groups. The antiquity of these is debated; some may be original, some may have been added by the editors of the collection; some may refer to earlier collections which were absorbed into the Psalter. There's a lot we don't know *but* the superscription does group this psalm with Pss 50, 73-83. Are these by the same person, the scribe mentioned in 2 Kings or the singer of Chronicles? Hard to say; it is perhaps safest to see them as coming from the same period of time
· Watch v. 5--the text is difficult there.
· Vv. 3-7 give us our main clue as to the circumstance and situation of the psalm: This appears to be referring to the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 587 BC. Thus, we can set this psalm in relation to 2 Kings 25 and 2 Chr 36 which recount these events. Too, we can connect it with the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel who lived in those times and consider how they may be referring or relating to the same events. Lamentations as well is a crucial conversation partner.
· Vv. 12-17 are fascinating. Here the psalmist is reminding God of the primal work of creation--but it is a very different notion of creation than what we find in Gen 1 or 2-3 or even Prov 8 or Job 38. Here creation comes through combat, destroying the great Leviathan, chaos embodied. The psalmist calls upon God to act in the same way--to use His mighty right arm against the enemies. Is there a tie-in here? Indeed--Isa 27 and 51 use the same image; Ezek 29's oracle against Egypt casts that state in the same way, the dragon that God will subdue.
· Note also v. 9. This seems rather odd to us modern readers, knowing as we do of the great 6th century prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel...

We shall turn now to Ps 79 and notice some things there as well.

· This psalm is quite similar. Certainly it has many resonances and is talking about the same event--the destruction of the temple. So--first we note an overall similarity of theme.
· Vv. 2-3 focus on the image of bodies. This in turn reminds us of Lam, especially chs. 2 and 4.
· Vv. 8-9 beg for the forgiveness of God because of the sins of the people.

Now, for some blanket summarizations:
· Ps 74: It focuses upon Zion, the destruction of the physical space of the temple, makes no reference to sin (denying the presence of prophets) and makes an interesting mythic appeal for God's help.
· Ps 79: Talks about Jerusalem--not Zion--mentions the people's iniquities as a cause of the destruction, and focuses on the slaughter of the congregation.

The parallel of the two psalms makes for a very interesting contrast. Both of them are doing essentially the same thing--beseeching God to get off His duff and do something about the destruction of the Temple (ah, the refreshing honesty of the psalms...), but they do it in different ways and focus on different things.

In short, Ps 74 really strongly reminds us of the Zion theology of Isaiah. That is, Isaiah puts a lot of emphasis on the Zion Temple as the seat of God (think Isa 6 etc.). When foreign enemies threaten and Hezekiah wants to go running to other foreign allies, Isaiah's advice is--do nothing; fear not, for the Temple of the Lord is in Zion. The facility itself was important for him. Furthermore, the book of Isaiah is well-known for its frequent use of poetic and mythic imagery just like we have in this psalm.

Ps 79 reminds us much more of Jeremiah's style. Jeremiah literally poo-pooed a simplistic form of Isaiah's theological foreign policy. In his famous Temple Sermon in Jer 7ff, Jeremiah presents God's word reproaching and rebuking the people for their various sins--both social injustice and idolatry--and warns them that the presence of the Temple alone will not save them in their iniquity. The focus on people instead of place reminds us of Jer 9ff and a host of other passages including most of Lam (Lam has been attributed to Jeremiah mostly on stylistic and theological grounds. We can't say for sure, but it sure does sound like him...).

Well--that's enough for now. This is a taste of the fun to be had when we put the history of the text and the other parts of the Bible in play with one another. I just love a little romp through the OT! :-) This is the way I like to lead Bible Studies—I’m not necessarily sure how to help others replicate it, though, since it tends to come out all stream-of-consciousness… I’ll have to think about it…

Reading the Psalms

2005-12-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of the foray begun here on a curriculum for teaching people about the Psalms and the Offices... Again, improvements are needed.

I find that I tend to read very quickly, scanning for pertinent information. What I--and I imagine many of us--have gained through this practice is the ability to digest large amounts of information quickly. What I and perhaps we have lost is the ability to focus and to conduct a close reading of a text, living in it and absorbing nuances, turns of phrase, and the sheer beauty of the language. To read the Psalter profitably, this is a skill that needs to be rediscovered. Thus, here are a few nuts and bolts suggestions about how to read--specifically, how to slow down and to be truly attentive to the text.

I don't want this to be a theoretical reflection but a practical one; this is a lab portion. In that spirit, you might want to have at hand a piece of paper, a pencil, and--of course--a Psalter. If I going to show you something probably new and hopefully profitable, I want you to see as quickly as possible its application. Thus, we're going to turn to a text that I am sure all of us know so well that we no longer pay attention to it. We'll see if this exercise will actually help us read it and glean new insights. So--let's flip to Ps 23.

If I had to give this method a name, I'd call it a grammatical reading. This is because in this process we will attend closely to the grammar, structure, and compositional details that make up the text in order to see it more closely and carefully.

We will start by identifying some matters that relate to nouns and verbs, subjects, predicates, and objects in the parlance of grammar (but don't worry if it's been a while since your last English class--this isn't as hard or onerous as it sounds. If you really feel the need, though, check out these definitions with helpful exercises on the parts of speech and syntax...and feel free to teach yourself OE while you're there! ;-))

Two basic characteristics that all verbs have are person and number. Person identifies who is doing the speaking, number identifies how many. In terms of number, modern English only distinguishes between two possibilities: singular or plural; either one person speaks or a bunch do--we don't form our words a different way if two people are talking (like some languages do). Person identifies between three basic options: me, you, or somebody else. This can be summarized with this chart--one that may well be familiar if you've ever taken a foreign language:

Singular Plural
1st Person I We
2nd Person You (sing.) You (pl.)
3rd Person He/She/It They

Note that standard Modern English does not distinguish between the singular and plural--a potential source of misunderstanding since the biblical languages did. [nb: Southern American, of course, in the vocative/nominative cases recognizes a distinction between a small second person plural (y'all) and a large second person plural (all y'all).]

Two more characteristics of the verb should be addressed, tense and voice [yes, classicist friends, I'm omitting mood for now...] The tense is simply the time when the verb occurs--past, present, or future at its most basic. Voice is whether the verb is active or passive. That is, is the subject doing the action or receiving the action (Peter hit the ball: active; Peter was hit by the ball: passive)?

Moving from the verb to the nouns of the sentence, we must identify what is the subject and what are the objects. In the Psalter in particular this often becomes *who* is the subject and the objects. Pay particular attention to the speaker of the Psalm and God. Looking at the various pronouns will also aid in this task. Don't worry if this seems confusing right now, I'll demonstrate it in just a moment.

That's the basics in terms of grammar--analyze the verbs, identify how the nouns are functioning in the sentence with an eye on the pronouns for assistance.

The last part of the procedure is to look for figures of speech. In Antiquity and the Medieval period, the identification of schemes and tropes was considered advanced grammar and often served as a segue into the art of rhetoric. Careful attention to and identification of schemes, tropes, and figures of speech can assist in answering whether a certain passage is to be understood "literally" or not.

Alright--enough theoretical talk--it's time to turn to your Psalter. Keep the pencil and paper handy for jotting down notes or things that occur to you as you go. The best way I know to do this is to read the psalm three times. First, just read it to get an overall sense, not looking for anything in particular. Then, read it through paying close attention to the grammar. Then, read it through looking for figures of speech that may help you illuminate the meaning.

As an aside, I'm using the KJV here for a number of reasons. One, it's beautiful; two, the brackets let you know what words have been supplied by the translators; three, the Early Modern English of the KJV preserves the distinction between the plural and singular you. The singular is thou/thine/thee while the plural is you/your/you. If you don't have access to the original languages, the KJV has a degree of transparency that other English translations don't. (I'll write about its problems another time...)

So--go ahead and read Ps 23 through. I'll wait...

Okay. Now we'll start again, analyzing as we go.

23:1 (A Psalm of David.) The LORD [is] my shepherd;

We start with the simplest possible verb--"is"--which in the original is completely lacking (Hebrew doesn't require it). It's a third person singular present active. The Lord is the subject; shepherd is a predicate nominative. The "my" sends a signal. The speaker is in the picture but it's not about him...yet. To whom is the speaker speaking? We don't know.

I shall not want.

There "I" am... Here we've got a first person singular active. The "shall" seems future...but is it a statement or a wish [herein I rethink not discussing moods...]? It could be a statement, or a wish, or a hope--or even a command to myself (a jussive...). [Technically, I think that Early Modern English uses "shall" for subjunctives but I'm an Early Medieval guy, not an Early Modern guy...] What's our object? We don't have one...we don't know what we might want/lack; "everything" seems implied.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

"Maketh" is a third person singular present active. The Lord is the subject; "me" is the direct object. "To lie down" serves like a verbal object providing more info on the "maketh" bit. The concluding prepositional phrase adds some nice color.

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Same as above; Lord as subject of a 3rd sing pres act with "me" as the object. The prepositional phrase again rounds it out.

3 He restoreth my soul:

Ditto but no prep phrase and the object has changed. The focus is still on "me" but has shifted slightly.

he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Same as before but now there's some variation. In addition to the prep phrase, there's another one that touches on motive. We finally have a sense of why the Lord does these things--it seems the focus is still on Him...

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me;

Major shift. We have a sort of conditional sentence here with two clauses. Now "I" become the subject and the verb is a 1st sing act. While the first verb looks like a regular present verb, we know it has a conditional (subjunctive) sense that does care when it is that "I" go there...the important verb is in the second half and it's a future--when ever this occurs in the future it won't be a problem. This second part is modified by an explanatory clause that further changes things. Not only is "I" the subject, now "thou" art the object. Up until this point we've had no idea who the speaker was speaking to, we just knew that it couldn't be "the Lord" (Since the psalm *doesn't* lead off "Thou art my shepherd...") Now the speaker is speaking directly to "the Lord."

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The pronouns identify that the shift has remained. The "rod" and "staff" are now the subject and our verb is a fairly predictable 3rd pl pres act with "me" as the object.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Here's another alteration congruent with the previous shift... We now have "Thou" as the subject and a 2nd sing pres act verb with "me" as the indirect object.

thou anointest my head with oil;

Similarly, another 2nd sing pres act verb with "me" receiving the action.

my cup runneth over.

A basic 3rd sing pres act.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

Here's another 3rd pl act verb--but the same question remains as in the first verb. Is it a statement or a wish?

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

This seems to be a pretty definite statement issued with a 1st sing fut act verb. One final question, though; with the reappearance of "the Lord"--to whom is the speaker speaking? A quick look back confirms that verse 5 still has "me" speaking to the Lord; the shift logically occurs at "Surely..." [and by the way, while verse divisions are handy, don't make the mistake of thinking they're inherent to the text; they were added in the mid sixteenth-century. That having been said, they're more dependable in poetic texts like the Psalter than in narrative because Hebrew poetry *does* use discernable line patternings. ]

So...what have we noticed in reading the psalm this way? At the most basic level, we've noticed the psalm itself because we took the time to read it carefully. Beyond that, we note the way that the audience shifts in the middle of the psalm. The speaker begins by addressing no one/everyone at the start of the psalm. At the interjection "Yea" in v. 4, the psalmist addresses God directly. The address to God continues until the beginning of v. 6; just as the beginning is addressed generally, so is the end.

We also note that the speaker plays an essentially passive role. The most active thing he does is to "walk" (v. 4). Predominately, the speaker plays the role of the direct or indirect object, receiving the action rather than generating it.

So--does this give us anything that we didn't know before? Not necessarily; but it's worth taking the time to be intentional about it and to identify features like audience shifts.

Please note one thing, though, before we move on. I was intentional in referring to the speaker and never used "I' or "me" without putting them in quotes. There was also no "us" or "our" in there either. Why? Because I'm resisting an standard *unconscious* act of interpretation. Often we assume that whenever the text says "I", "me", or "we", we should substitute ourselves into the text. But we shouldn't. At least, not without thinking about it before we do. Don't leap too quickly in identifying or finding yourself in the text. Let the text be the text first...

Now let's go through it again. This time, we'll use a combination of individual lines and chunks to look at the figures of speech and a few other literary items that catch our attention.

23:1 (A Psalm of David.) The LORD [is] my shepherd; I shall not want.

Looking for figures of speech, are we? Then you can't miss that first sentence. There's a big whopping metaphor clear as day here; the psalm begins by setting forth a premise: The Lord is my shepherd. Duly noted. Now that the author has been explicit about this metaphor, we'll see how long it lasts...

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
name's sake.

In English, at least, we seem to have quite a bit of parallelism. The subject-verb-object structure of these verses builds on the metaphor and continues it. The sentences are simple--simplistic, even. Sheep-like. So far, everything's consistent. In v. 2 the psalmist comes across as quite sheep-like. Physical needs (v. 1) certainly are being provided for. V. 3 brings a shift and reminds us that we're dealing with a metaphor that is actually pointing to something else. How exactly is "soul" functioning? Is it a synecdoche (referring to the whole by means of a part or vice versa) for the whole body or is the psalmist literally just talking about his soul here? Do we have a shift from physical to spiritual sustenance? The text doesn't tell us, but it's still a useful question to consider briefly. As v. 3 continues, a bit more reality starts showing through the metaphor. Sheep don't go in paths "of righteousness," nor do the actions of the sheep reflect upon the shepherd's honor--for "name's sake" is a metonymy (using a closely related thing to signify another thing) for honor

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

In our grammatical run through we noticed a shift at this verse. This time around we notice another--we have a break from the simple subject (He)-verb-object (me) pattern. Instead of another simple sentence, we have a rather complex multipart one. The metaphor holds; the imagery continues to be pastoral invoking the "valley," the shepherd's rod and staff.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

We're back to more simple, more parallel constructions, but suddenly we notice that something has happened. Sheep don't eat at tables nor do shepherds set them. We've had a metaphor shift. Suddenly, our psalmist is human again and our controlling metaphor for the Lord has changed. "Table" is another metonymy. It's not really a table, it's a feast. Our suspicion is confirmed by the presence of other guests--albeit enemies--and a cup. We might take a guess that anointing takes place at feasts--and that it's probably an honor bestowed upon a favored guest. Another metonymy involves the cup--the cup isn't running, the wine in the cup is. Certainly a sign of bounty as well as favor. (We may recall from other passages in the Psalter that the cup is a way of honoring someone at a feast--see Ps 116:13) The metaphor for God isn't explicit but it sure seems to be "The Lord is a generous host." This is different from but quite related to the first. In both cases, a la v. 1b, all wants are supplied.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

We recall from above that there was another shift here in who is being addressed. Is there a shift in the metaphor as well or is it holding true? Goodness and mercy are personifications--abstract qualities can't follow one around otherwise. Do these connect to the feast/host concept? Hard to say... Dwelling in the house of the Lord is equally tricky. One familiar with the biblical language will recognize "house of the Lord" as a standard antonomasia (an epithet disconnected from its object) for the temple in Jerusalem. But, if we take it as a literal-metaphor, dwelling in another's house without restriction clearly is the action of a generous host. This last line here is a good example of a multivalent passage, one that can legitimately be read in more than one way. Does it continue the hospitality metaphor, does it express a desire to remain in the Jerusalem temple--or is it doing both at the same time? Resolution need not occur; there may not only be one right answer...

So--what did we see in this run through the psalm? We saw the use of two main metaphors. The psalm began with God as a shepherd, used simple parallel sentences to develop the idea, then presented us with the most complex part of the metaphor, and the part of it that we tend to remember the most, the valley of the shadow of death. Then, the metaphor transitions in v. 5 to that of God as a magnanimous host. Again, some simple sentences build the metaphor and end with the other major concept, dwelling in the house of the Lord which is the exact opposite kind of action and place than walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Thus, we have two metaphors of generous protection (shepherd/host) paralleled with one another.

There you have it--my proposal of a relatively simple method for reading the psalms. It needs some fine-tune (or perhaps over-haul) but that's where you come in… What parts of this did and didn't make sense? I'm still trying to figure out a way to communicate the basic and most common figures of speech without turning it into an English class…

Reflection on the Change of Seasons

2005-11-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

Whilst composing chapter 2 of my dissertation, I wrote a paragraph that struck me as particularly pertinent for this venue. It reflects on the importance of the seasons of the Church Year. As most are aware, we are about to turn the year of the Church, moving from Trinity-tide to Advent. I thought it might be an appropriate time to consider what the seasons do for us theologically, so here's a selection from the paragraph that struck me...

Within the life of the early medieval monastic establishment, a change of liturgical seasons signalled a change in life--liturgical and otherwise. The beginning of a season marked a change in the biblical texts that a community read, a change in the musical settings and the textual contents of the life of prayer, possibly changes in the colors of vestments in the oratory, even changes in what the monastics ate and wore. The changes of seasons affected life around the monastery; as a result, they affected thinking around the monastery. The seasons were comprehensive periods of formation, mimetic modeling of an aspect of Israel, her Christ, or his Church that engaged the mind with doctrines, the heart with religious affections, and the body with acts of penance, ascesis, or holy joy.

My point here is equally applicable to modern-day liturgically minded Christians although it doesn't hit us with the same daily impact as it did the early medieval monastics. A church season isn't just about what color stole the pastor/priest wears, it's a whole body/whole self engagement with theology, affections, and actions that fundamentally model for us one aspect of what it means to be a Christian. (That's what the 50c word mimesis is about--imitation or modelling.) It's from focused reflections on these doctrines and affections that we learn what it looks like and what it feels like to be Christian and to enter deeper into the mind of Christ.

Book 'Em

2005-11-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

I just found out about this book,, The Daily Prayer of the Church by Philip H. Pfatteicher. It looks like a very promising ecumenical resource for daily prayer, for individuals as well as faith communities.

Breathing the Psalms

2005-11-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

This is an initial foray into constructing a curriculum on Psalmody and the Daily Office. Comments and criticisms of all sorts are appreciated...

The traditional monastic practice of chanted psalmody--inherited by the Anglican tradition--is a form of breath meditation. That is, the psalms are read in such a way that the text corresponds to the breath, particularly deep, elongated breathing that assists the body in falling into a restful receptive state enabling deep contemplation of the texts. First, I shall discuss the traditional technique for breathing the psalm used for congregational singing and speaking of the Psalter. Second, I shall discuss how these breathing techniques may be adapted for solo use, either in reading the psalms aloud or silently. (Note: Anything that I say about the psalms here is also directly applicable to the canticles of the Church.)

Singing the Psalms
The traditional Gregorian chant of the Western Church uses nine psalm tones: eight correspond to the eight modes, the last is a tonus peregrinus (see below). Even if you do not sing the psalms on a regular basis, it is important to know the structure of the process because it influences how the psalms are read aloud communally.

Parts of the Psalm Tone
The typical psalm tone has six parts. The first part is called the incipit and typically contains two or three notes that move in an upward direction. When a psalm is being sung, the incipit is only used at the very beginning of the psalm or when psalm verses begin again after an antiphon. (Gospel canticles are different in that the incipit is sung at the beginning of each verse.)

The second part is the reciting tone. This is a note on which the majority of the psalm verse is sung. The psalm is recited on this note until it hits one of the next two parts.

The third part is the flex. This is a single note which drops either a second or a third. In the case of a psalm verse with a long first half, the flex is used as a brief break along the choir to catch a quick breath before returning again to the reciting tone. If, in the BCP's printing, a psalm verse goes to a new full line before the asterisk, a flex would be used (E.g. Ps 1:3; 2:2, but not Ps 1:1, 5; 2:8 because the line break does not start a full line).

The fourth part is the mediant. The mediant comes shortly before the asterisk which marks the middle of the psalm verse. The exact distance from the asterisk depends on the number of stressed syllables in the final words; the required number varies by psalm tone.

The fifth part is actually the reciting tone again. In the eight psalm tones that correspond with the eight modes, this reciting tone is exactly the same as the first reciting tone. Tonus peregrinus, the ninth tone, which means "wandering tone" has a different reciting tone in the second half than in the first half.

Note that there is no equivalent to the flex in the second half of the psalm verse. For instance, you might expect the equivalent of a flex at the end of the second line in Ps 1:1—but there is no such part.

The sixth part is the final cadence. Like the mediant, when it begins in the last line of the psalm is based on the number and placement of stressed syllables in relation to the psalm tone itself.

Communal Psalmody
Communal Chanting
Chanting the psalms in the traditional manner attends to breath. One designated person--the cantor--begins the psalm and sings from the incipit to the first mediant alone. Then, the rest of the congregation joins in on the last half of the verse. From that point, the two sides (facing each other in a traditional choir set-up) alternate verses.

As one side comes the end of a verse, the other side inhales, preparing to take up the next verse. As the verse ends, the other side picks it up smoothly, leaving no break or gap between the two. If the verse does not directly follow an antiphon, the verse begins directly on the reciting tone. Singing, clearly, expends the breath that the side had taken before the verse started. If there is a flex, the side snatches a quick catch breath before continuing on.

By the time the side reaches the mediant, there is not much breath left. There is a significant pause at the mediant because at the point the side exhales the remaining breath, then inhales a full new breath. As a community or a new person begins singing the psalms in this way the break—which may last five, six beats or even longer—will seem too long. Resist the temptation to rush; take the time to breathe.

With a full new breath in their lungs, the side then comes to the end of the verse and exhales the remaining breath after the final cadence. The other side then smoothly moves to the next verse.

Communal Speaking
Speaking the psalms in community follows essentially the same pattern. The mechanics of the breath work in exactly the same way. Because speaking requires less breath-control than singing, the urge to rush the breathing pause at the mediant is greater. Again, resist the urge.

Individual Psalmody
Individual Chanting
If you chant the psalms by yourself, the pattern is basically the same as singing them communally. The difference is that at the end of every other verse there is no alternate side to begin where you leave off. As a result, the end of each line must be treated in the same manner as the mediant. Exhale all of the breath left in your lungs and breathe in a new breath. Then continue on to the next verse.

Reading AloudIf you are reading the psalms aloud by yourself, the pattern again follows that of singing. Take a full breath, read to the asterisk/mediant, exhale, breathe in a new breath, then read the second half of the verse. Exhale again, inhale, then start the next verse. If a flex occurs, grab a quick catch breath.

Reading Silently
Reading silently is the only form of reading that is not fundamentally based on the communal singing pattern. Basically, the difference between reading silently and reading or singing aloud is that no breath is expended in the process. As a result, exhalations and inhalations must be balanced differently. The best way to proceed is to simply alternate half-verses. Inhale slowly as you silently read to the mediant; exhale slowly as you read to the end of the verse.

Conclusion
Following these directions for encountering the psalms will accomplish several things. First, tying the psalms to the breath forces you to slow your reading pace and to pay more attention to what you are reading. It is easy to let the words flow beneath your eyes and for the attention to wander. Tying the text to the breath will make you read more slowly even if you are reading silently (when you are more prone to rush).

Second, tying the two together also slows down and regulates your breathing. Regulation of the breathing is regulation of the whole body. The slower, deeper breaths will encourage a meditative state of mind that will enable you to relax and concentrate more completely on the text. The more you concentrate, the more your mind retains and passively memorizes.

Third, when read or sung in community, following the breath will tie the whole community together in closer harmony. Listening and being attentive to the breath patterns of those around you so that you begin and end the mediant pauses at the same time will yoke the community closer together in common prayer. There is an indescribable harmony that accompanies a non-anxious attention to the communities breath--a true discerning of the spirit that moves within the gathered people at prayer.

Renewing Worship: Part IIa, Anglican Rite

2005-10-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

In thinking about renewing worship, I keep coming back to some fine words by Fr. Aidan Kavanagh:

A liturgical act is not simply a creed, a prayer, or worship without qualification. A liturgical act which is the convergence, meeting, entwining, and melding of Christian worship and belief—in other words an enactment of that lex supplicandi which forms and constitutes but does not “produce” the lex credendi—is a fourth thing. It is rite. Rite involves creeds and prayers and worship, but it is not any one of these things, nor all of these things together, and it orchestrates more than these things. Rite can be called a whole style of Christian living found in the myriad particularities of worship, of laws called “canonical”, of ascetical and monastic structures, of evangelical and catechetical endeavors, and in particular ways of doing secondary theological reflection. A liturgical act concretizes all these and in doing so makes them accessible to the community assembled in a given time and place before the living God for the life of the world. (On Liturgical Theology, 100)

A rite is a “whole style of Christian living”. A way Christian living in particular times and places with particular traditions and commonalities before the living G-d for the life of the world.

What of Anglican rite?

That question itself is likely not one all Anglicans would answer with a uniform response—I hope! I do, however, notice a tendency in our tradition that has held fairly constant through the centuries regardless of party line:

Authorized Common Prayer

Authorized common prayer in the form of a book decided upon by a lengthy process of revision by liturgical experts in seminaries, in pastorates, in the pews often with a healthy regard for the pastoral care issues arising in a given historical period among G-d's holy people. Many of us still carry that book with us, have one or two sitting on our shelves, memorize its words, chew on its poetry, strengthen our daily eucharistic living with its Psalms and prayers.

Within the framework of authorized common prayer, we have of course fleshed out the words on the page in a variety of fashions from Anglo-catholic and high ceremonial to Evangelical and low ceremonial with all of their attendant theological promises and possibilities, perspectives and prejudices.

While theological interpretation of our common prayer has remained open—and there is reason for this—within the converse of shared dogma, there is much room for enfleshment in particular theological theories and directions, pieties, styles, and tastes. In other words, keeping to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as the expression of dogmatic formulae (Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral), I can hold to a Theotic interpretation of Atonement while my brother in Christ may hold to a Substitutionary interpretation of Atonement. And we can worship together at the same time in the same space, taking our place amongst sinners humbly called before the Living G-d who gives himself to us and calls us friends.

The 1549 BCP is a beautiful example of common prayer purposely ambiguously catholic and reformed in form and content (+Gardiner was pleased with its catholic possibilities and sensibilities, ++Cranmer was joyous at its subversive reform and evangelical potential). I cannot say the same for every subsequent BCP. 1552 would please only the very reformed. 1559 returns us to the question of how reformed, how catholic? We end though with two basic usages that have spread throughout the world, the Scottish 1637 usage and the English 1662 usage. The Scottish is beholden more to 1549, the English to 1552 with corrections. We have inherited two usages one more decidedly reformed, the other more decidedly catholic, and yet, we have continued across nations to recognize our common rite.

Caelius is quite correct to point out this flexibility. What has remained most constant is the use of authorized common prayer at least as established for an ethnos, a people, a nation in ordering our lives godwardly. Within this framework, the prayer books of an ethnos have drawn upon a common inheritance in pre-Reformation materials (Sarum and other usages of the Roman rite, and in the case of 1637 some Eastern materials), the various prayer books of the Reformations period in Great Britain (which themselves are heavily influenced by the Roman rite and German materials), and more recently, pre-Reformation materials from other parts of the Church catholic (Hippolytus/Apostolic Tradition, Antioch, even East Syria in Enriching Our Worship).

This richness of sources keeps mindful that we are blessed to have such an amazing array to draw upon and it prevents us from hardening into a particular confession or demanding a once-for-all meaning to any given dogma. Incarnation always has more to say to us as we live out the rite. As does Trinity. And Crucifixion. And Resurrection. And Ascension. And Pentecost. We dare not limit our Encounter overly or we dare miss out on how G-d wishes to change us. Frames, yes; blinders, no.

In some cases revision is infrequent, in others more frequent—but not too frequent. Every 50 to one hundred years seems to be our safest bet. And certainly the time to revise is not in the midst of major debate over other matters. Continued use of shared forms may hold together all but the most intractable among us in such times. I think our experience of 1979 must remind us of this lesson. Fr. Kavanaugh writes:

The taxonomy [of rite], finally, has an effect. It is a life of orthodoxia which has been called one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. These adjectives, worn slick with use, mean that a life of right worship is a life of communion in all God’s holy things and among his holy persons. That it is open unalterably to all people everywhere without let or hindrance. That its memory is not short but long, stretching back through all those whom Jesus Christ sent first, encompassing all those he has sent since, and mindful of all those whom he will send in the future. The only way in which such a life can be sustained in all its openness, totality, sacredness, and sent purpose is by the constancy of its standing in the presence of its Source, of its suffering whatever change that Source chooses to work within it, and of its painful coming to terms with that change. (On Liturgical Theology, 95)

Suffering change is not easy for us human beings. We long for constancy, constancy, of course, that in the end can only be G-d, but I would suggest that the relative constancy of our rite allows us to take our hip injuries with less protest. While other services and rites of the Church arise in particular pastoral manner in the meantime (preparations for changes G-d may be inviting us to make), as we wrestle, we’ve generally placed these in books of occasional services or supplementary materials for occasional use depending on the discretion of the bishop and presbyters. The change to authorized common prayer is long because we dare not pull the rug of constancy out from under our sisters and brothers or ourselves as we suffer change in response to the Living G-d.

The matter is not so much then that we will at all times in all places say exactly the same thing in exactly the same way unless we envision an über-BCP with a well-equipped liturgy police and worship wars the size of which we can nigh ne’er imagine, but that we have authorized common prayer for a particular ethnos, people, nation. We draw upon common sources in its making, and we use it regularly as the normative and norming way we live our lives, hoping in fact that it gets in our bones, raises our hearts, shifts our minds in the indiscernible way rites do as we encounter the Most High. And in making revisions to our common prayer, we keep mindful of our sources, pastoral responsibilities, and those around us—other nations.

After all, if our hope is an increase in unity through greater uniformity of common prayer across nations, I think we will find ourselves in for a surprise. Even in those nations that still use 1662, we are most likely to find tones of theology quite distinct, sadly sometimes even at odds, with one another. Indeed, we can find this within a given ethnos, people, nation. England is a classic example of this state of affairs. Our fleshing out in fact highlights that gesture, posture are adiophora, undifferentiated matters, but not inconsequential matters. What grounds us is a normative and norming way of praying that allows for a diversity of ways of this being done and even of thinking about how we do it and what this all means. We are more concerned with the ongoing public work rather than finally narrowing down to a once-for-all meaning. This is quite catholic, and fitting for leitourgia or public divine service.

It would be quite dangerous were one or another party come to dominate the shaping of our authorized common prayer. And that gives me pause as an Anglo-catholic sort who would really like things to be a certain way everywhere I went. Our rite is not for folks who share my preference alone. This necessitates a certain ambiguity, compromise, diversity, and freedom that founds our unity not in our uniformity of theological perspective or pious practices or doing of prayer, but in being encountered by the Living G-d through the same means. A particular authorized common way of praying that does that in which Christ has promised us he will be present—bath and meal (see Gordon Lathrop, Holy Things). All other ritualizing and ways of life must look to and participate in these for their orientation and completion.

What are some of the primary enactments of this principle of common prayer? The two enactments that I see as primary are twice-daily Office and regular Sunday Eucharist, both, of course, grounded in Baptism. Regardless of our theological persuasion catholic or reformed, our point-of-view on a particular response to G-d (morals/ethics), we can join one another in the Psalms be they said or plain chant or Ambrosian chant and at the Table be it bedecked with a simple cloth and a loaf of bread or all manner of paraments, candles, icons, and wheaten wafers.

G-d has promised us encounter in such enactments; G-d did not say that we would do it all the same, nor did G-d promise that in our encounter we would all respond in a uniform manner in our way of living the Anglican rite in daily life. When we make our response normative and norming rather than continued Encounter we risk putting asunder what G-d has joined, and we foreclose our wrestling with G-d so as to be beyond change. We become our own god.

Our ancestors in the faith deemed it wise that we have a rite, a way of life, to ensure that we could continue to come together in facing the Living G-d kept by certain bounds to face our change, so that we are unable to run away from one another simply because we don’t recognize we’re doing the same things. Indeed, these bounds be they rubrics calling for the saying of the Creed at principal Sunday Eucharist or the opening of the divine service in the name of the Holy Trinity: Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit allow us to embrace the heterodox amongst us (and let me be quite clear, in some way or another, all of us are heterodox; in some way or another in our lives, we are not rightly praising) and not fear that we’ll all become unitarian or adoptionist. Our rite rights our praise slowly, imperceptibly, patiently.

What does this mean for renewing worship?

Fr. Kavanagh has some powerful words about the creativity and rite in out time:

Rite is sustained by rote and obedience far more than by restless creativity, and obedience is a subordinate part of the larger virtue of justice while creativity is not. In our day it seems to require more courage to obey a rubric or law than to break it. Creativity of the Spontaneous Me variety condemns rite and symbol to lingering deaths by trivialization, bemusing those who would communicate by rite and symbol to a point where they finally wander away in search of something which appears to be more stable and power-laden. (On Liturgical Theology, 102)

I would differ slightly with Kavanagh on creativity. Since Romanticism, we have interpreted creativity as the opposite of form. Creativity rather than rooting itself in rite, has come to be seen as something separate from the ongoing rhythms of a people. When this happens we fail to see how the creativity of the prophets renewed rite, how the creativity of Christ renewed interpretation of the Torah.

Forms rather than being the enemy of creativity, a central characteristic of G-d, I might add, provide helpful frameworks for sensible renewal. Indeed, the Incarnation teaches us quite explicity, G-d works through, with, and in form. Derek notes this beautifully. Creativity need not be in opposition to the circle of obedience or in service to justice. We see this perhaps most substantially in the singing of the Spirituals at Civil Rights demonstrations. And after all, some of the greatest literature and art draws richly upon the forms of common prayer and scripture and hymnody and image. Dickinson’s poems are measured in the metre of hymns. Michelangelo’s masterpieces are wonderous embodiment of Holy Writ.

But a “Spontaneous Me” creativity, which has become the very definition of creativity in American life, I would suggest, as Kavanagh does, in the end cuts all ties to our ancestors in the faith for a present moment self-expression forgetting that our divine service is not an expression of self, but a faithful response of the ecclesia of which we are part to G-d who pitches his tent among us. Creativity of the “Spontaneous Me” variety risks docetism of a most serious kind, cutting off the Body from our Head as we all go about expressing ourselves in an ever louder crash of noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.

Now we can imagine a rite that might in fact attempt to be based in spontaneity and constant change and the vision of one or two worship leaders, and that is in fact the direction we are seeing in renewing worship these days. The deep structure or ordo is overtaking our connection to historical forms. In my opinion, this threatens common prayer, not so much in the sense that we may no longer be offering service to the same Living G-d in diverse manner, but in the sense that we risk abandoning agreed upon formulae, so that we may come not to recognize what it is we are doing across our divides. We may decide that we are not doing the same things, making walking away from one another quite easy.

Not that all that arises from pondering the ordo of a particular rite is negative. Notice what I wrote: Not all that arises from pondering the ordo OF A PARTICULAR RITE. This can provide us with bounds alongside fourth century theological commitments for creativity in response to changes G-d is calling us to.

When deep structure loses contact with particularities, however, so as to generalize and universalize we negate the response to encounter of other parts of the Church catholic throughout history and we render mute our own rite, stopping up the voices of our ancestors in the Anglican rite for the latest trend. Rather than entering the ongoing rhythm, we offer our own without obedience to anyone besides ourselves. In the end, we may come not to recognize one another, we may also come not to recognize our ancestors in the faith. And this is a rather easy thing in the 21st century United States where our historical memory, our connections to the ancestors are readily and happily unraveled often in a rather frenzied feast on the dead who could never have gotten anything right! Muchless rite.

Pondering ordo also can provide us with wonderful guidelines for in extremis moments when we may not have our prayer book memorized or on hand (G-d forbid!). We can come to better understand the flow of our own divine service. We can better share in the recognition of commonalities and differences of fellow practitioners of the Anglican rite be they 1637 or 1662 in their grounding usage. We can better share in the recognition of commonalities and differences of fellow Christians across the Church catholic in time and space. We can perhaps better understand how others in the Body are formed differently given the distinctiveness of their own rite.

When this ordo, however, proposes to exchange perhaps the guiding principle of the Anglican rite, authorized common prayer especially in the two primary loci I named—Daily Office and Sunday Eucharist, we may in the end come not to recognize one another. And our creativity, rather than building one another up, may tear us apart.

Again, not because I’m suspicious of creativity per se. But because I am concerned for that unity founded in these central matters which common prayer has capably maintained despite our disagreements (but all for the most rigid of a given party) be they about theology, ethics, or anything else. By keeping this principle of common prayer central, we’ve held ourselves so as to face the Encounter with the Living G-d across party lines. We’ve held ourselves to face the Encounter with the Living G-d who breaks down our dividing walls across race, class, station, gender, orientation, and all the rest. And we've come in time to embrace one another at the Table at which we are all guests, and Christ the host.

This brings me back to another point by Fr. Kavanagh, “it is open unalterably to all people everywhere without let or hindrance.” (On Liturgical Theology, 95) Lately, we’ve seen an upshot of let and hindrance with regard to some people. I’ll be specific. We know of dioceses and national churches where people of my sort and condition are hindered from basic participation in the Anglican rite (by basic I mean Baptism and Eucharist), sometimes even in Baptism! We must ask ourselves quite seriously if we are not holding off change G-d is calling us to. Perhaps? Perhaps not?

But as we kneel on the stones our ancestors have worn smooth, as we pray the prayers they prayed too, let us be extremely careful on such central matters as Baptism, Daily Office, and Eucharist in deciding who is “in” and who is “out”, who is worthy and who is not, whose response (ethics and such) is acceptable and whose is not, opening up windows upon the souls of sisters and brothers to determine their state of grace or their friendship with the Living G-d without due regard for the dangerous position such inspection puts us in. Should we chose to go that route, and this is the real danger of our time, exacting our ways upon those around us, we may find ourselves in the way of G-d, blocking the necessary Encounter for ourselves and others. We may find ourselves quite rich in righteousness, and the other we have turned away to be our Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom.

In the midst of change, we humans needs a sense of constancy. That we should, therefore, find people balking at the flux in divine service should be no surprise in a world where change is maximized and highlighted beyond our capacity to adjust. To be continued in Renewing Worship: Part IIb, Repetition.

Learning to read--through New Eyes

2005-10-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

Interpretation of texts is a tricky art. As moderns, we have difficulty focusing--really focusing on a text--in order to read it closely. I'm naturally a very fast reader and the internet, work, and my grad-school training have only accelerated my pace--when what would help most is to slow down. When we read texts, especially multivalent or poetic texts it's in our best interest to go through themslowly and to really work at not just enjoying the spiritual food set before us but cleaning off the bones and sucking out the marrow. And that's work that requires time.

I've been reminded recently of my own carelessness in reading and apprehending language by my two-year old. She is an unrelenting literalist and has been helping me turn a careful eye to how much I assume about texts and the language that constructs them. One way she's been doing it recently is through bringing to my attention the ubiquity of metaphor. I use it constantly; she doesn't get it.

Lil' G loves to sing. It doesn't matter if it's listening to recorded music or just making up songs as she goes, she's quite the little singer. In particular she adores a cd of religious children's songs that a relative gave her. Not all of it agrees with our theology, but these are the Bible-school standards. One morning, refering to one of the songs semi-facetiously, I asked her, "Are you a sunbeam for Jesus?" She turned to me--quite seriously--and responded, "No, Daddy. Toddler." This past weekend in the car my wife commented that G was a little whirlwind. Her response? "No, Mommy. Toddler." Her insistence has been a helpful reminder to me to stop and notice the language I use and, by extension, to reassess what I read--especially when it comes to the Scriptures and the Psalter.

Metaphor is everywhere is the Psalms. But how often do we notice it and sit with it? G reminds me that when I'm only reading for the surface meaning I unconciously read the metaphors without processing or even considering them. What does it mean to be a flask hung in the smoke as Ps 119 mentions? What image is being invoked when we speak of dwelling under the shadow of God's wings? What was the image that the Psalmist thought he was communicating--and what are we reading instead?

On returning from the pumpkin patch--complete with playground, corn maze and petting zoo--M remarked that G was a handful. She said "No, Mommy. Goat," and proceeded to stick her fingers up as her horns. *Sigh* You just can't win with a two-year old around...

Twenty-fourth Day: Evening - Twenty-sixth Day: Evening

2005-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

The sestina is a poem of thirty-six lines broken into six stanzas. Generally—but not always—English ones are in iambic pentameter (da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum). The particular feature that identifies this form is the last words of the various lines—the six words that end each line of the first stanza go on to end evry other line of the poem as well in a variety of different combinations. Thus, if the first line ended with "love," "see," "one," "and," now," and "heart," all of the lines in the other stanzas would end with those words too. It's a complicated form (not as bad as the pantoum) but it takes a lot of thought and figuring to make it work out correctly especially if you're also abiding by metrical requirements.

It's originally a medieval form and has fallen out of favor today for a number of reasons, the most significant of which, I think, is the prejudice of Romanticism. These prejudices rebel against highly figured or structured forms of poetry as being antithetical to authentic, genuine feeling. That is, the complicated form stifles the unbridled outpouring of emotion that constitutes true poetry in the minds of these critics. (Note that the best Romantic poets didn't necessarily demonstrate this, this attitude is more common among critics…) In short, this prejudice prefers free expression above a more formal style and casts aspersions upon its status as poetry. I find this attitude insulting—not because I'm a fonder singer of sestinas—but because poetry should include the more complex artful forms in addition to the freer, looser media (which can be just as rigid though in different ways).

As I was reading about the sestina this weekend it reminded me of the psalm that we've been slogging through as appointed by the prayer-book's psalm-cycle. Psalm 119 is a whopping 176 verses long and the BCP rightly spreads it over six offices. The reason for its length is its complex structure. You may have noted that the prayer book breaks it into 8 line sections and begins each of these with a Hebrew word. As it turns out, there are twenty-two of these eight line sections corresponding to the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The names of the letters are those odd words. Psalm 119 is an acrostic, a poem where each successive line begins with each successive letter of the alphabet. (Pss 111 and 112 are also acrostics) The thing that separates 119 from the rest is that each of these eight line sections begins with the same letter. Thus you have eight lines beginning with "aleph," then eight beginning with "beth," eight beginning with ""gimel," and so on…

Furthermore—and this is why the sestina brought it to mind—there are six words that repeat in virtually every section: Hebrew words translated as "word," "law," "decrees," "statutes," "commandments," and "judgments." These words keep being woven back into the psalm in various combinations. Needless to say, the repetition of these elements is one of the things that makes this the preeminent Torah psalm.

Now, this psalm is also the psalm with the worst reputation in the Psalter—at least in certain crowds. The great 19th century biblical scholar Wellhausen and his followers down to the modern day have castigated this psalm as being the people's exhibit A in the collapse of true Israelite religion. In Wellhausen's view—highly influenced by the Romantics I might add—the pinnacle of Israelite religion was the eighth century prophets. Lone, tormented, spiritual geniuses who received a word from God then proclaimed it to the people who misunderstood and degraded it from a belief fuelled by spirit and inspiration into a religion shackled by law and regulation. Thus, for them, Ps 119 represents the victory of strict poetic formalism and theological legalism over a free-spirit religion of the heart. Using the harshest curse-word in the Romantic vocabulary they labeled it as nothing less than "artificial." I agree with their label; I completely disagree with their findings.

Ps 119 is artificial in the most literal of terms. It is an artifice, a cleverly and carefully constructed work. Yes, it's different from the free-flowing poetic style of Isaiah or the lament meters of Jeremiah and Lamentations. But it's no less poetry for that. To translate to a different medium for a second, it's like dismissing the carpet pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels because they're not impressionistic works after Monet… If the Romantics and Impressionists are art for and by the ESFP set, Ps 119 is poetry for the INTJ set. It's closely worked, intricate, and well-thought out. Furthermore, it embodies the virtues it extols. That is, it praises pouring over and internalizing text and this is precisely what it offers. The acrostic structure and the repeating words are not elements that can be fully appreciated in an oral environment. This is poetry that is meant to be read, not just heard. For its beauty and artistry to become apparent, you have to spend some real time live in and meditating in its text which is exactly the kind of reflection upon the Torah that it encourages.

Theologically, the opposition between the religion of the Prophets and that of the Law is the creation of a false dichotomy—it's not an either/or. Really reading the prophets will make it very clear that it's a both/and. The prophets never worked apart from the Law but instead spoke from it, with the Law internalized and appropriated. Their calls for justice, righteousness, care for the orphans and widows come directly from the Law, not apart from it. No, they weren't legalistic nor hide-bound but then—neither is the Law especially when we encounter it in Deuteronomy as a living agent to be bound into the body as a means for living in love.

As Christians, we believe with the Tradition that the Psalter is the prayer of the Church. Furthermore, they are preeminently the prayer of the Head of the Church, even Jesus Christ our Lord. I make this point to close with the words of Dr. Michael Root, one of the premiere theologians in the ELCA today and one of the architects of the Joint Declaration on Justification between the Lutheran and Roman churches. In his class on justification he cautioned us students and said, "Remember as you construct a theology of justification, it must also be one that can pray the words of Ps 119, 'Lord, how I love thy Law…'"

Hope you all don't mind....

2005-09-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

I just changed the settings here to Word Verification Comments. I noticed some spam had appeared.

Since we're doing that, do you think I also should change the default "Members only" comments thing? Is there a reason this is set to only allow Bloggerites?

It's interesting, isn't it, that we started this blog out of a felt need for spiritual "renewal" while the Anglican Communion/Windsor Report drama was in full swing - but now we've tapered off quite a bit? For me, this is because I finally got to a point of acceptance about the whole thing, and have since been able to almost completely ignore the whirlwind of activity and conversation on the topic, in favor of concentrating on other things.

Thanks be to God!

Is that true for others, also? Or were we just on summer hiatus? I'd sure like to contribute more, but I have a new job these days and am very busy - and anyway, I'm pretty much the least theologically-oriented-and/or-trained human being on earth. ;-)

I'm really going to try to add something soon, though. I think I may at last have something to contribute on the topic of Chant - especially since I want to start teaching it in my own parish at some point.

Anyway, hope the setting change is copacetic for all. And to all a good day!

Just Call Me a Groupie...

2005-08-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

I've begun not one but two prayer-related dialogue groups on Beliefnet . One group will be following/talking about the Daily Office; in the other group we're going to do some lectio divina using the Sacred Space website.

I facilitated a Daily Office dialogue group on Beliefnet last year, which gave me the impetus to try hosting a couple of other dialogue groups. That is, in fact, how I met bls , which in turn introduced me to blogging, and by extension to all the rest of you. And it's also 'round about the time when I started feeling a nudge toward lay ministry. So with this track record of pleasant surprises, I'm looking forward to more good things with the new groups. Stop by sometime!

Preserve Us...Direct Us

2005-08-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

A post from on own blog this week:

My date with the Morning Prayer today ended as soon as I tried getting through the Old Testament reading:

Now Adonijah son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, "I will be king"; he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, "Why have you done thus and so?" He was also a very handsome man, and he was born next after Absalom. He conferred with Joab son of Zeruiah and with the priest Abiathar, and they supported Adonijah. But the priest Zadok, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the prophet Nathan, and Shimei, and Rei, and David's own warriors did not side with Adonijah. (NRSV)

Now, it's not as if I suffer from an aversion to reading about wars and rumors of wars. As a child I was steeped in battle imagery -- the Rat Patrol versus Rommel, Bullwinkle and Rocky versus Boris and Natasha, the United Federation of Planets versus the Klingons and Romulans...you get the picture. Today I enjoy reading war memoirs; for better or worse, it's who we are as human beings -- people whose history has been largely defined by political strife and violence. But there's something about Biblical tales of wars that (especially at 7:00 a.m.) turn my brain to mush; even more so than the endless procession of incompetent kings who "did evil in the sight of the Lord."

I knew that my busy morning was simply not going to let me get into the readings, and indeed the rest of the Prayer, the way I should...so I fell back on the Morning Prayer for Individuals and Families. I used to feel as if this were a poor second choice -- the Cliff Notes Morning Prayer for slackers. But is it? As I read through the prayer today, the Collect -- something I've prayed countless times -- made a particular impression on me:

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

What better way to begin the day than to ask for God's protection and guidance? I was particularly taken by the phrase "direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose"; not only because I'm discerning a vocation in a more formal sense, in the context of service to the Church, but because this petition underscores the fact that, in the household of God, we have chores to do. Some of them may seem holier than others; but no matter what they are, they are ultimately a "God thing." Sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

On the Saints

2005-08-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

During the Roman days from the Late Republic (100 BC or so) through the Late Imperial period (4th century AD) and beyond, an important part of Roman culture was the patron/client system. An aristocrat would never appear in public, i.e., the Forum, without a bevy of followers surrounding him. These could be anyone from the lesser aristocracy down through the middle class to freed slaves. They had a special relationship with him. Some were long-time family friends or the great-grandchildren of slaves freed by the aristocrat’s family, others may have related to the family business or could be promising men from lesser families in the country town where the aristocratic had his villa. He helped them by means of his connections, supplying them with jobs, favors, information, and protection—legal and sometimes physical. In return, they assisted him in any way that they could and attended him in public. They were his clients; he was their patron to whom they looked for aid.

Often whenever saints and the veneration of saints are discussed—especially by protestants—the paradigm is that of polytheism. Saints are equated with other gods, especially the pagan gods of the countryside who got “turned into” saints so that their worship could continue without Church persecution. A more historically, culturally, and theologically correct paradigm is that of the patron. After all, they’re not referred to as patron saints for no reason…

Within the first century of Christianity proper we have records of the invocation of saints, that is, asking certain departed Christians to pray for a particular community (this is in a mid second-century document whose name and particulars escape me at the moment). Let’s step through a few theological particulars to see how we get to this point and affirm it, especially as modern Christians.

First, from earliest Christianity, Christians have believed in the power of intercessory prayer and have prayed for one another and have asked for prayers in return. Paul does this in his letters which are the earliest literary remains of Christianity. Second, Christians—again, from the time of Paul—have believed in a certain fluidity between the realms of life and death precisely because of the salvation wrought by Christ on the cross. Through Baptism, we are baptized into the life of God. And, as Jesus argued against the scribes and Pharisees, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not “dead” in the conventional sense for God is the God of the living and not the dead. Thus, there is a rather ambiguous status given to the dead-in-Christ. Are they dead-dead or just dead? Third, there is an element of religious experience that we moderns find difficult to access either historically or psychologically. The fact remains that the earliest Christians had convincing evidence—that is, evidence convincing to them—that the relics, the physical remains and items of certain holy people had miraculous powers. Please note that references to these begin in the gospels and Acts (Matt 9:20; 14:36; Acts 19:12).

Thus, the Roman Christian communities began looking to their spiritual heroes as patrons. As they were aided and sustained by earthly patrons, so they were led, and guided by their spiritual patrons. The notion of patron saints gave them a tangibility to a religion that could otherwise be quite cerebral and other-worldly. A Gaulish freed slave would not know Palestine or its geography; he might have never even met a Jewish person before. And yet, he could affirm what he knew about the Gospel, not just because of the wonders his priest told him but because a certain holy hermit who had died several winters back—to whom he might have given bread and water—was powerfully guiding the local community by healing his great niece when she asked for his prayers at his grave.

The local character and physicality of the veneration of the saints is critically important for us detached moderns to understand. Relics were a piece of salvation history made physical and tangible, sometime even a person from your very neighborhood. In other cases, it was a literal piece of one of the great movers and shakers of early Christianity like one of the apostles. It was in the service of this theology that the bodies of the saints were eventually dismembered and sent throughout Christendom. I got a piece of this recently—one of my favorite parts of touring the Metropolitan Museum of Art was gazing at the reliquaries, especially those few that were said to contain fragments of the True Cross. Whether they actually were said fragments is less historically important to me than the feeling of tangibility of holy history as I stood before them.

Now, imitation of the saints was always a part of this as well. The idea was that the saint had enacted the theological truths of Scripture, had followed in the life and manner of Christ and the apostles and that this connection was signified by the miracles that God accomplished through them. Without question the saints were to be imitated but often they had a freedom and a station that regular humans could not follow. Not everyone can be a holy hermit. Instead, one can offer praise to the holy hermit and ask to become his spiritual client; that he would serve as a holy patron, or a patron saint to watch and pray over your soul as an earthly patron did for the body.

You may never have heard this perspective on the saints before, especially if your background is protestant. But think on it, pray on it, see if it makes sense in your spiritual life. I have found it powerfully true in mine and at most every Eucharist I think on my heroes, Bede, Benedict, Boniface, Dunstan, King Alfred, those to whom I am joined in that holy meal through their own incorporation into the body of Christ. I ask for them to pray for me as I offer them the praise that they deserve for their lives and their witness to Christ.

On this feast of the glorious and ever-blessed Virgin Mary, let me direct a few thoughts specifically in her direction. First, I think that in Roman Catholic practice there are a few practices that uncomfortably stretch the line between veneration and worship. Worship is due only to the uncreated Trinity; veneration is due to all people or things that point to the uncreated Trinity. The Blessed Virgin is definitely due of veneration but never worship. Second, I can see a solid historical reason why we may want to think about our stance towards these practices. There is no doubt that the Church through centuries in its local, human, and institutional instantiations where it has been an ass especially to women. The sacramental system which we Anglo-Catholic High Church types find so freeing and that connect us so closely to the Gospel and Christ can be used as a system of barriers between the people and God especially if mediated through a power-hungry priesthood. The saints are different, however. There is no restriction of access to them. And as medieval histories abundantly show, having the ear of the king’s mother was often far better and safer than having the king’s ear… If the heavenly King’s own mother were to put in a good word to her Son on your behalf, it would be a good word indeed.

And with that thought I shall conclude for now. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

On Common Prayer

2005-08-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

I have put up a post on Prayer Book spirituality on my personal blog. It is eminently suited to the discussions that normal here. Rather than reposting it I'll simply direct you there. A post on the saints (an OTOL exclusive! ;-)) ought to be up here later this week.

Et

2005-07-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my continuing preparation to become an oblate, I’ve taken to daily reflection on the Rule of St. Benedict, a requirement of oblates. Sr. Joan Chittister’s The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages helpfully divides the Rule into daily reading portions. Today’s reading is from Chapter 48:

Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the sisters should be occupied
at certain times in manual labor, and again at fixed hours in sacred reading.

To that end we think that the times for each may be prescribed as follows. From Easter until the Calends of October, when they come out from Prime in the morning let them labor at whatever is necessary until about the fourth hour, and from the fourth hour until about the sixth let them apply themselves to reading. After the sixth hour, having left the table, let them rest on their beds in perfect silence;or if anyone may perhaps want to read, let her read to herself in such a way as not to disturb anyone else. Let None be said rather early, at the middle of the eighth hour, and let them again do what work has to be done until Vespers.

And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty should require that they themselves do the work of gathering the harvest, let them not be discontented; for then are they truly monastics when they live by the labor of their hands, as did our Fathers and the Apostles. Let all things be done with moderation, however, for the sake of the faint-hearted.

Ora et Labora

The Benedictine motto, ”ora et labora”, “prayer and work” is practicably set out in Chapter 48. Typically Benedictine, prayer is conjoined to work by “et”. “Et” or “and” is the definitive Benedictine conjunction in approaching the various aspects of human being. Human being after all is a paradoxical both/and shown fully to us in Christ, the Truly Human One, the Great Paradox—G-d Become Human. And it is to Christ, to true and full humanity, that Benedict points to time and time again. Benedictine life at its best is paradoxy.

Benedict is careful to provide a flexible structure by which both prayer and work periods are woven into daily routine. Given environment and circumstances, Benedict leaves his Rule open to local adaptation in scheduling this daily cycle, but the balance itself remains. As Sr. Leonette Hoesing, OSB puts it in The Wisdom of the Benedictine Elders, a fabulous new collection of stories of men and women who entered religious life in the early part of the twentieth century: The Rule is an expansive document without borders. St. Benedict seems to have caught the universe with this vision of life. While the essence of the Rule never changes, the outside aspects of it adapt to fit any situation, and always in a way that points us to Christ.” (147)

Tilling the Garden

Living by the Rule, work so envisioned lives us into the undoing of the curse of Genesis already undone in Christ. Toil becomes thanks and praise. Work becomes again a place of encounter with G-d through the upbuilding of the community, just as our tilling of the Garden was originally envisioned to so do. The Rule provides us with a way to live our lives again oriented toward G-d, and being so oriented, to live in communion with G-d in the Garden again here and now—it’s a matter of having a see-change.

But the Garden of the monastery is not some happy-clappy land. Paradise never was some static womb-like place from which we could forgo growth and responsibility, but a place of co-creation from which we turned away in our unthankfulness and lack of praise. As Christ shows us the fullness of humanity working with G-d, a life lived in thanks and praise, so we are called to the same by baptism in water and the Holy Spirit. But claims of the Spirit can toss us all over the place, to and fro, deceiving us into insisting upon our own way at the expense of what is good for brothers, sisters, and Creation, what Sr. Laura Swan, OSB calls self-will in Engaging Benedict, so we need guidance in the form of communal support and accountability.

Benedict is a realist on that mark. Human nature is good and limited and fallen, not radically fallen as late St. Augustine and his Reformation interpreters would have it, but weak, in need of wise direction, careful counsel, and gentle-firm parameters. So he provides flexibly boundaries to get us wisely through the flux of life and our own self-centeredness to reorientation of all of our life as a communion with G-d (This by the way is a more Hebrew understanding of the Torah/Law/Teaching as well.). For those of us who live in cities, imagine the New Jerusalem, a City-Garden where Creation and Salvation have worked out the co-creativeness of humans with G-d. Benedict’s Rule gives us a way of once again taking up the human task of working with G-d as shown to us in Christ Jesus.

American Life

Benedict’s careful balance is strikingly at odds with the workaholic pace of American living. Moderation is not an American virtue. And of late, moderation is not a decidedly Christian virtue either.

By far, we are the most productive nation, and yet, we’re killing ourselves. Too often, we don’t live in the Garden and we’re certainly not building the Heavenly City. What is left of the Garden, we tend to see only in terms of our “use” while we live in denial of the environmental crises we’re creating. And the cities we do build are often lacking in communal interaction and neighbor care. We go about doing our own thing even at the expense of one another. We too often live in an overburdened hell of 50, 60, 70 hour work weeks be it at home, in the factory, or at the office, overscheduled leisure, little time with loved ones and community, and a covetous want for everything new.

At the pub on Monday evening, one of my friends asked who we thought among us had done best for her- or him- self. So and so, they all agreed. She’s a model, she’s famous, in all sorts of magazines, makes lots of money, jets around the world. And I paused and asked pregnantly: “But is she happy?” Hims and haws. Maybes. A satisfied life is about so much more than fame, fortune, and fine things. Benedict knows this. A satisfied life can only be a life lived in community glorifying G-d. As Sr. Annella Gardner, OSB puts it in The Wisdom of the Benedictine Elders: “In the Rule of St. Benedict the chapter on the procurator, the monk who decides on the allocation of goods, struck me very forcefully. I agree with the need to be accommodating to people’s needs, and I also agree in not going to far. The Rule shows us that there are real needs and necessities, but they are not to be confused with wants.” (182)

And we are the most religious industrialized nation in the world, and yet, our religious leanings do not generally lend themselves to a golden mean, or even a compassionate extreme, but lately to being just plain mean. We’ve become ornery and vile in the name of Jesus to the point that few others want to be around us Christians no matter our tradition or persuasion.

A Benedictine ethic of work moves between the extremes of idleness and workaholism, looking to sanctify our daily labor. Benedict recognizes the need for us to move beyond only our own needs and wants by outpouring ourselves in work for the upbuilding of one another AND that we are limited creatures. This is no Protestant work ethic. Benedictine living makes time also for prayer, for recreation, for study, for rest.

And most of all hospitality, a virtue sorely lacking in much of the Christian rhetoric these days. Too much G-d-talk comes across as theology and morality covering over self-will in the name of Christ, often without conscious knowledge that this is how others hear and see it. Inhospitality, sodomy in the name of Jesus, has become good news, at least that’s how this “sodomite” tends to hear it.

My Own Context and Life

I always seek to apply holy reading to my own context and daily life. In my own context and life, moderation is a hard sell. Any who read here know that I struggle with finding a middle way through issues of the day that personally affect me. Father Benedict’s Rule helps provide an anchor that keeps me in tune with my own best self, my conscience. As Sr. Hoesing, OSB puts it so well, the Rule adapts to new situations. My life is one of those new situations, and one I thankfully do not have to work out by myself, only walking by my own best lights. As Sr. M. Matthias Igoe puts it: “If I am having problems, I don’t have to go to strangers. The community is always there to help in every way.” I’m blessed to have found a Benedictine community supportive in helping me to work out what a gay Benedictine oblate of the Anglican persuasion looks like.

In my daily life, I’m often off-balance, working too much, studying too much, playing too hard, not attending enough to my daily community of prayer—my partner and puppy. Benedict’s Rule coupled with unwelcome events calls me back to recognizing my humanness, my finitude, my limitedness, my interdependence on others, and my dependence on G-d. Thanks be to G-d!

Windows into Heaven

2005-07-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

In honor of the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, and in continuing solidarity with the brave people of London, I'd like to share a photo of the beginning of the ikon wall above my desk:

(The ikon on the right is of John Donne, priestly poet and the Dean of St. Paul's.)

Both of these ikons have a very special meaning for me. The large-scale originals (by modern ikonographer Robert Lentz) are in a side gallery at my former place of worship, Grace Cathedral, and I was present when the Mary Magdalene ikon was dedicated. (Bishop Barbara Harris was there, and it was pretty exciting stuff.) I would go off during communion or after service and light candles in front of them as prayers. Now that I don't go to Grace very often, I have a little bit of it home with me. (I've been lighting a lot of candles by Donne for the last two weeks.)

I have come a long way from my Methodist childhood, where such things would have been regarded as idolatry. Mary Magdalene and John Donne, who proclaimed Christ Risen with such eloquence, are above my desk encouraging me to open up my lips to the Glory of God; Dante Alighieri stands with his book on the mantel next to the desk; St. Francis keeps watch over the earthly remains of my beloved Maya; Santa Marta and San Pascual, patrons of cooks and cleaners (welcome finds on my recent trip to New Mexico), are on the kitchen windowsill; and Guadalupe shimmers in her starry mantle throughout the house. I have quite a number of ikons these days, and while I don't go the full Orthodox monty and kiss/venerate them, I do regard them as both "windows into heaven" and companions and guides on the journey.

When Things Fall Apart

2005-07-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

The cellarer will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar, aware that nothing is to be neglected.
(Chapter 31, The Rule of St. Benedict)

The Anglican via media tradition, though often lauded as an outcome of the Elizabethan period, actually took firm root in English soil and hearts with the advent of Pope St. Gregory the Great’s mission to the Angles headed by St. Augustine of Canterbury, a mission that looked to baptize rather than to tear everything down, to recognize the search for Christ ever so dimly even in pagan temples. This Benedictine approach to the world continues to inform our finest Anglican balance, a balance sustained by life that savors finding the Holy in the extraordinary ordinary everyday through Prayer, Work, Study, Recreation.

(Such an approach takes a full appreciation of the books of Holy Writ and Holy Creation, and brooks no Evangelical final severance of Creation from Salvation. The Rule provides an order through which grace can with patience bring nature to fruition. And hence, I think not by accident, though we are Protestant sort of, that we have inherited a typically pastoral and situational/case preference in much of our Anglican moral theology.)

Father Benedict makes clear for followers of his way that prayer is the foundation of common life. He instructs, “Let nothing be preferred to the work of God.” Our successive Books of Common Prayer do the same. Cranmer’s ingenious reform of the Office, utilizing the proto-works of others, opens the way for the laywoman or man to also order her or his life about the prayer of the Church. His collecting of the variety of churchly books into a slim edition makes way for an everyday woman’s or man’s practice and faith. This approach has informed generations of Anglican Christians, and we’re noted for this “Incarnational” perspective—God is met in the everyday and still being birthed in our time and in our culture (to quote Meister Eckhart). As my spiritual director, a Roman Catholic Benedictine sister has repeatedly said to me, “You Anglicans are more Benedictine than us Roman Catholics.”

But what happens when things fall apart? When the beautiful balance, which works with God to show us the Holy in the midst of life, breaks down? After all, life is full of surprises, some unwelcome, and we are all at one time or another in for some stretching moments when the good order of our lives seems to crumble into dust.

The question is, “How do we respond?” If you’re anything like me, you stop praying. Or you go into bargaining mode. You put away your adult faith for childish ways. As I said, at least in my life, prayer is often the first thing to go in all of its forms. So much for the Office. Toss. Good-bye to Jesus Prayer meditation. Trash. No more Ave Marias in the shower. Flush. Adios to reading Scripture or the Rule on a daily basis. Stash.

Standing before the elders on Father Benedict’s Feast Day, I was praised for my knowledge of Benedictine spirituality and practice by my mentor, but the circle of elders, like a Benedictine equivalent of the Jedi Council, was a humbling experience of many lives and many years of consistent practice. At that moment, I realized that I’m a padwan learner, that I must stay humble and be prepared to listen more than to speak. I wish I could say differently, that I lived up to the praise I received, especially given that others turn to me for advice on such matters, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. And that honesty is a step toward finding the remedy.

The spiral that results from uprooting the foundation, daily conversation with God, daily waiting on God, daily thanks and praise of God for all of “Thy benefits”, affects the rest of the balance. We become neglectful. This world, which Genesis describes in beautiful form as a cosmic temple, becomes opaque. And the images of God set before us in the garden become obstacles on our path, rather than fellow revelations, human beings.

Work becomes drudgery; we become more easily dissatisfied, set off. Who cares? This job sucks anyway! I lose sight of my blessings. Study of edifying works, reading of Scripture, or in my case, even academics, fall off. My recreation moves from re-creative activities that renew me to finding ways (sometimes ways that would otherwise renew me) to numb the hurt or the anxiety or the anger or… in palliative care gone awry. A good book becomes mere escape, a good beer becomes a way to get drunk, television becomes a flip fest as I search about for the trashiest find…

But when things fall apart, that is when I need prayer the most if I’m to respond graciously to the unwelcome moments of life. So what is the remedy? Prayer. Remembering from Whom I come from and to Whom I return. God after all waits for me to come to my senses again, even prods me along sometimes gently, sometimes more uncomfortably. As the Rule reads in the Prologue: “God waits for us daily to translate into action, as we should, these holy teachings.”

Happy Holy-day!

2005-07-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

This is a special day for us at this communal blog: it’s the feast of St Benedict! Benedict of Nursia, through his life and the monastic Rule that it produced, made a profound impact on the Western Church and its spirituality. Through his writings he fostered a thoroughly biblical way of living in community that draws its insights from Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. The hallmarks of his Rule in comparison to other rules and disciplines of its time are 1) an emphasis on moderation especially in regard to asceticism, 2) an emphasis on classical learning in service of an authentic Christian spirituality 3), a deference to modifications of his Rule based on local conditions, and 4) an ordered balance between liturgical prayer, spiritual reading and study, and manual labor.

The three vows that govern Benedictine monastic life and the spirituality that arose from it are found throughout the Rule. In fact, their first appearance is found in the very first chapter, though in a veiled form. These vows are fundamental orientations of the self that ground Benedict’s understanding of Christian community. Utopian communities come and go; communes appear and are deserted in less than a decade. The strength and flexibility of Benedict’s Rule have sustained the Western Christian experiment of intentional communal living for over 1,500 years. Furthermore, these vows speak to life in any intentional Christian community, not just those enclosed within walls.

The first two vows ensure the third. The first is stability. A difficult vow, this is a vow of long-term commitment. This is the vow that grounds a relationship determined to struggle on in the face of difficulties; this vow flies in the face of American consumer culture. It demands that we stay put, stay rooted, even if we don’t like the way things or going or if we feel that some other place or system will work better. It repudiates fad religion and membership in the spirituality-of-the-month club. My mentor, a former Benedictine, once told me that the true meaning of this vow hit him with the realization that the person in the next stall who sang everything a half-step flat would be doing so for the next fifty years…

The second is obedience. In the Rule, obedience is owed to Christ and to those who stand in the place of Christ. Within monastic walls this meant the abbot preeminently. This vow mandates if not a negation of the will certainly its submission. This is the vow that fully recognizes human sin and its effect on the spiritual life. Humans have an infinite capacity for self-deception, and this vow takes ultimate authority out of the hands of the individual and gives it to the community of faith. One individual is easily deceived and led astray by external and internal forces alike. Communities are a built-in corrective. The head of an intentional community forged by years of experience and the exercise of compassion can take the sense of the community and guide an individual better then that one’s own will.

The third vow, in Benedict’s understanding, is only possible if the first two are kept. The third is continual conversion of life. The language that Benedict uses to discuss this is a vocabulary of refining fire. We are tested, we are proven, we are smelted and, yes, we are burned. Ultimately this leads to our purification. The painful process of testing, of enduring in our relationships, in our communities, listening and following the advice of those wiser and more far-seeing than ourselves can lead us to this point. Our own will tempts us to avoid the pain, the heartache, the hard work with the blandishments of a different and therefore more fulfilling way, with the invidious suggestion of our own superior wisdom. But, Benedict assures us, only stability and obedience will surely lead us in the narrow way that leads us into the mind of Christ.

The Anglican way is a child of Benedict. Benedictine spirituality is at the core of our prayer book and our way of life. The three vows are not explicit in the BCP, but the prayer book is an avenue to a life rooted in the vows. The prayer book gives us liturgies and patterns of stability, offering to us a life rooted in common prayer, nourished in psalmody, grounded in authentic spirituality, tied to the hinges of the day: morning, noon, evening, and night. The liturgies themselves are authorities reminding us of the theology of the Church, branding themselves into our memories and ways of being. Finally, the prayer book calls us to continual conversion of life. Like the Blessed Virgin, it stands continually pointing to Christ, issuing the command: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).

In these days of doubt and turmoil, schism is on the lips of all. The future of the Anglican Communion hangs in the balance; the Anglican witness to the Gospel is contested by various factions, all claiming the will of God. Stability, obedience, conversion of life are needed now more than ever. Stability in our common life together despite incivility, even venom; obedience to the Word of God and to those shepherds who lead their flocks with integrity ever pursuing the mind of Christ above personal aggrandizement and power; conversion into life hid in God.

London

2005-07-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

Why "set" prayers rather than just following spontaneous movements of God's Spirit and our own? Shock, numbness, a roil of conflicting emotions--some of which are unChristian to say the least--spiritual turmoil in need of a anchor: these and more are the reasons why...

O merciful Father, who hast taught us in thy holy Word that thou dost not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men: look with pity upon the sorrows of thy servants for whom our prayers are offered. Remember them, O Lord, in mercy, nourish their souls with patience, comfort them with a sense of thy goodness, lift up thy countenance upon them, and give them peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever.

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

'Fess Up When You Mess Up

2005-07-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

I once referred an evangelical acquaintance to the Online Daily Office just so that person could see what I was talking about when I spoke about the Daily Office in the context of my devotional life. (And, admittedly, I felt a bit defensive: "See? We pray too. We have daily devotions too.")

Her first comment by way of response was, "Wow -- you seem to do an awful lot of confessing."

My response then, as now, is that I have an awful lot to confess. I'm not being flippant, and I'm not being self-hating. Just the facts, ma'am: I don't always get it right. Some days I hardly get anything right. (It's that dratted human being-ness getting in the way of things.)

Her next question was, "Why do you think you need to keep asking to be forgiven?"

My response: It's not that God needs my confession. When Jesus said that God knows what we need before we even ask, I'm sure that goes for forgiveness as well as everything else. But I know I need my confession. I need that reality check of frequent examen: What are the things that have brought me closer to God so far today? What are the things that have pulled me away from God? Confession is like the compass of our sanctification, our "Saved for what?", our moving in a Godward direction. It keeps us in mind of our spiritual true north, and helps us readjust when we perceive ourselves wandering off course. And it's about getting honest with our Beloved, the way we need to be honest in our other relationships. And because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, we can be completely, utterly honest with God about everything. That is a great gift to us -- simply laying it all out before God: "This is how it's been with me. Help me." Because in our weakness and vulnerability is where God meets us.

testing

2005-07-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

testing

Collect Yourself!

2005-06-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

This is less a coherent post than a collection of a few topics clustered together sparked, in part, by an off-hand comment in Charlotte’s last post.

1. Taking up a Collect-ion…
If there were one prayer-form that grounded Anglican worship, it would be the collect. We sprinkle these little prayers throughout our various services, Mass and Office, to the point where we literally have one for any occasion (these are helpfully collected on pp. 810ff). But what if you can’t find one that exactly expresses the occasion? Or you get caught at an occasion for prayer without your BCP? Or—horror of horrors—you’re asked to offer a spontaneous prayer at an ecumenical gathering? (and we’ve learned through the years that saying “Uh, we don’t do that kind of thing…” is not considered an acceptable response!) Perhaps it’s time to learn a little something about collects…and it begins with this dictum: There’s no rule that spontaneous prayers can’t be elegant, it just requires a pattern and a quick moment to collect your thoughts.

The collect formula consists of five pieces. Now, not all collects have all five—some of the best depart from the rules—but the classic form contains these five parts:

1) Naming God: E.g., “Almighty God” or “Most holy God”

2) An Attribute of God: E.g., “To whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid” or “the source of all good desires, all right judgements, and all just works:” (Biblical allusions work really well for these first two, especially if you can get them to tie in nicely to the next parts…)

3) The Petition: E.g., “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit” or “Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give” (This is always framed in the imperative.)

4) Result Describing the Benefits of the Petition: E.g. “that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy Name;” or “so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness” (As a result clause, it always begins with “that” or “so that.”)

5) Doxological Conclusion: E.g. “Through Christ our Lord.” or “through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior.” (Some name Jesus, some the whole Trinity—it’s up to the prayer.)

This is the pattern. It makes a simple acronym: NAPRD—but I don’t have a catchy phrase for this; maybe someone can supply one. Once you know the pattern, the best thing to do is apply it. Take some time to look at the various collects in Morning and Evening Prayer, Compline, the Mass, and figure out how they match this pattern or deviate from it.

As you go through your life of prayer, when you find collects you like, memorize them! Cicero and the ancient rhetoricians emphasized that to be a good speaker requires a blend of some innate skill, a grasp of the theory, and the imitation of good models; the same is true of good pray-ers. Even if you lack the first, here’s the second, and you have a whole BCP full of the third! It doesn’t help if the only prayer you have memorized is the Post-Communion prayer…

I recommend starting with the Collect for Purity and branching out from there.

2. Know your Prayer Book
Topic 2 is an outgrowth of topic 1. As you read through the prayer book, you’ll notice differences in language and slight differences in theological emphases among the various prayers and collects. In my daily use prayer book, I’ve annotated prayers with the date that they were composed. Yes, they’re from different times and different sources—especially those found in the ’79 BCP. For me as a history buff, it helps to know when the prayers were written, what struggles the church was going through, and how the age affected the language which ranges from spare to almost florid. Marion Hatchett’s commentary on the prayer book is the best source for the dates and origianl authors that I know.

3. Collecting your Days
What sparked this rumination on collects was Charlotte’s preference for Compline because it requires less collect-hunting than the other offices. This leads me to recommend a sadly under-used resource, the Priest’s Handbook. This little text is, essentially, a customary that fleshes out the rubrics of the BCP. It gives instructions (supplemented by helpful diagrams) on how processions are to be done, how one properly censes the altar and such. It does approach the material from a moderate Anglo-Catholic stance, but I can’t think offhand of anything in it that would be terribly offensive to protestants. [LC, it’s like the MDE but…better.]

I mention it, because it is a handy work for any who lead public worship, not just priests, even if it is a congregation of one. In its sections on the Offices, it describes when, where, and how to cross oneself and—finally returning to the topic at hand—which collects to use when. It helpfully points out that after the collect of the day, there are seven collects of which we are to select one and that three are already specified for Sundays, Fridays, and Saturdays. In short, it suggests using the other four for the other four days of the week. I find this pattern both helpful and appropriate since, for instance, this places the MP collect “for the Renewal of Life” on Monday when I need it the most and the EP collect “for the Presence of Christ” that recalls the Eucharist for me hits on Thursday. Check your parish library or ask your priests if they have a copy of it.

4) That Having Been Said...
Speaking of patterns, it never hurts to remind people to check the “Addition Directions” placed after the “Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families” on page 141. I especially like the table of Suggested Canticles on 144 though I confess to strictly sticking to the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis for EP. Again, these tables aren't terribly helpful where they are, so I’ve recopied it on page 84 and have labeled the canticles with their appropriate day and number. While this may come across as quite anal—just remember that I do MP before I’ve had any coffee and this cuts down on the amount of groggy decision-making that I have to do…

Going to the Office, Part II

2005-06-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

I've made a few attempts over the years of usually-sporadic church attendance to do some sort of structured "daily devotions". To make a longish story short, I have discovered the resource literally under my nose in the Book of Common Prayer and started reading Compline more or less daily. It is, in my mind, a good one for beginners to start out on - short and no canticle-choosing or Bible-flipping to worry about. Now that I have the ever so convenient Daily Office Book with the Bible readings, I occasionally do Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer with readings and canticles, but Compline's become as much of a before-bed habit as brushing my teeth.

Now that I have discovered the riches contained in the non-Eucharistic services in the BCP (with special props to bls for her enthusiasm and the Ship of Fools Daily Office thread for a lot of great info), I usually jump at the chance to do the Office communally, especially if there is music involved. (I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was part of a Cathedral congregation for years where Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer were offered daily and EP was sung twice weekly, and rarely availed myself of the opportunity. In my defense, there was usually Work and a Commute in the way.) I speed-read through Compline most evenings and the slower pace that actually articulating the words requires stops and makes me pause; in addition, the music often opens doors in my mind that the text alone won't.

I do get regular opportunities to participate in singing the Office with others, as my (new) parish runs Evensong once a month with all the trimmings (incense, a schola, sermon, and an organ recital to follow). But I had a wonderful, wonderful experience this past week at a gathering of people from the Ship of Fools forums doing a communal Night Prayer, aka Compline, service, the music for which had been carefully put together by a very experienced church musician. Like, so experienced that I just loved to hear him talk with the others, even though I had only a quarter of a clue what they were on about some times. (Link posted by kind permission, and more info about the details here.)

It was fab-yoo-lous to have a real time, real life worship service with members of my online Christian community. (*) While I am used to doing collective Offices "with the trimmings", and I enjoy "the trimmings", this was to me a reminder of what is at the core. The space was instantly transformed; the every day was made sacred. I stepped into another dimension. I started crying during the familiar prayers ("Keep watch, dear Lord ..."), I was that moved.

But in a lot of ways, the two really best parts of the service for me happened "before" and "after".

"Before", the gentleman who did the music explained how to sing texts pointed for Anglican chant in a way that I understood. I have sung plenty of Anglican chant in my time, but I was doing it by ear. Now that I Know The Rules, I am singing it confidently. And since I'm not worrying about where to change my notes, I'm contemplating the text (and am willing to try singing at home, where I don't have a lot of excellent musicians backing me up). [Watch this space for "Chanting for Beginners" shortly.]

"After", there was a Q and A session and a lot of interest shown by people who were unfamiliar with the Office. (Which really chuffed me, even though people who know more than I were doing the answering.) One participant who is active in the British alt.worship scene remarked that it was a direction alt.worshippers were heading in; renewal and sustenance coming through the ancient and sometimes-obscure forms.

(*) I know a lot of people who do the Office by themselves have a real sense of community with everyone else who is doing the Office; I don't really get that unless I am actually doing it with someone else around.

In re Compline, I think it's not only a good way for "office newbies" to start out, it's a good "seeker service" when done as an act of corporate worship because the No Sermon (etc.) means less bad "God baggage" to some. I had heard for years (even before I was on the Ship) that St. Mark's Seattle has a full house weekly for their sung Compline service - no sermon and indeed no audience participation required, except a request to stand at the Creed. Their Schola is quite fine, and if you happen to be near a broadband computer at 9:30 pm Sunday Pacific time, you can listen in on KING-FM.

As I was discussing with one of the Shipmates at another point in the event, it's like the Christmas-and-Easter people; we'd love you to come more often, but ideally we will try to meet you where you are. (As we often say in the Prayers of the People, "may all those seeking God find Him, and be found by Him".)

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

2005-06-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

Orare et laborare, monastics say: Pray and work.

Yet prayer itself is work -- holy work, work all of us are called to do, and in fact work that we all can do no matter how inarticulate or uninspired or unspiritual we may perceive ourselves as being.

I've been thinking about this all weekend, because it seems that I am surrounded by people, in the various circles of my friendships and associations, who are in a world of hurt right now. One friend is being buffeted by bad news on the personal, familial and vocational fronts. A couple of other friends, who work in human services, stepped into the scene of a suicide in the course of their jobs this past weekend; someone they knew, a seemingly well-adjusted and well-liked individual, who for reasons unknown walked into his bathroom Friday afternoon and ate his gun. I know two other people recovering from painful, difficult surgeries. And then there are the folks in my life for whom sickness, disability or other hardships are constant companions.

And then there are all those people and situations beyond my immediate circle...the world's collective pain and sadness and neediness and oppression.

Sometimes all we can do for one another is pray.

But the witness of Scripture, and the witness of the holy people of God through the centuries, tell us that this prayer is important -- whether or not we understand what we're praying for, whether or not we feel like doing it, whether or not the desired outcomes indeed come to pass. Somehow, whether we're praying the general intercessions found in our liturgies or praying extemporaneously, whether we're arguing our case with God like a good lawyer or simply lamenting, "How long, o Lord, how long?", whether we can even convey our concerns and longings in words...it all matters. "Pray without ceasing," we're told.

So let's.

Initial Reflections on the Virtues

2005-06-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

One of my most profound spiritual experiences was a glimpse of the transcendent, but not of God. It was night and I was standing outside a prison—I won’t say where or when—utterly overcome by what I had seen and heard. I had just concluded an hour-long pastoral visit to an accused child molester. In that time and in that story I heard which spanned decades, I saw a grotesque self-replicating malignancy, darker than any tumor, with horrific power to destroy and enslave; a real presence had brushed by me that night and it was Evil.

Evil is more than a simple absence of good. There is a force and a vitality to evil that goes beyond the bad that humans do to one another and to their surroundings. It slithers itself into systems, it lingers and broods in the shadows of the soul, it mixes itself in the mortar that holds our worlds together. It rejoices in “man’s inhumanity to man” and in those acts accomplishes its design—dehumanizing both victim and victor. This is its hope: to deprive us of our humanity, to reduce us to drooling beasts driven only by selfish passions, to deface with nails of steel the image of God at the center of our being.

This evil we renounce. Indeed, it is the thrice-renounced evil which we strip ourselves of in the covenant of Baptism in order to put on the garment of Christ. In putting on Christ in our Baptism, we promise to not only grow into the mind of Christ and the work of the Kingdom of God but to join battle with these forces of evil that seek to enslave, to subjugate, and to dehumanize. Thanks be to God that with our Baptism comes more than our own mumbled words to resist and renounce for only through the gift of the Spirit do we have hope.

Growth into the mind of Christ and pursuing the work of the Kingdom are all very well in the abstract—but what do they look like? What are the signs of the Spirit stirring within us that aid in our struggles to resist and renounce and to repent and return to our God? Both the Scriptures and the Tradition of classical Christianity have pointed to the virtues as those things that ground our ways of being, that root us in the reality of God, and that guide us in our growth.

The topic of virtue and the virtues can be approached from a number of different directions. First of all—they’re not inherently Christian. In just the Mediterranean world the pre-Socractic, Socratic, Stoic, and Epicurean philosophers had all talked, thought, and reasoned about virtue as virtue long before Christianity came on the scene. Second, even Christians talk about them a little differently from one another partly because of the pre-Christian discussions. From a New Testament perspective, Paul speaks the most about the virtues and does so with primarily Stoic overtones. These overtones remained in Christian ethical circles until the recovery of Aristotelian philosophy in the High Medieval period with the Scholastics—pre-eminently Aquinas. Though I tend to take a more Stoic approach to things myself, I’ll use Aquinas for this brief introduction because of his clarity and useful subdivision of the topics; he defines the virtues, then divides them into three categories: the intellectual virtues, the moral virtues, and the theological virtues.

Virtue is defined by Augustine and affirmed by Aquinas as “A good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us, without us” (On the Freedom of the Will 2.19; ST 2/1.55.4). In other words, the virtues are those habits which God grants to us in order that we may live lives of obedience and love. Or—in even fewer words—they’re goods and they’re God’s.

The intellectual virtues are three and, incidentally, are the three left out of the usual catalogue of seven virtues that stand opposed to the seven deadly sins. These are wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Clearly these have to do with knowing the good and reasoning out how to act on it. Note that these are mentioned first—and thus occupy the least important position.

The moral or cardinal virtues are four: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Again it should be noted that these are not exclusively Christian categories—anyone can have these and they should be encouraged in everyone; Aquinas’s own authority on these four is Cicero (ST 2/1.61.3), a pagan who borrowed his ethics from the Stoics. Though not unique to us, they are hallmarks of a Christian life and, as such, can be seen lived out in the stories of both Testaments and in the lives of the saints.

The theological virtues are three: faith, hope, and love—the greatest of these is love. These stand as the high-order virtues, called “theological” because they are supernatural virtues, only attainable through the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is only through the Spirit’s power that we can have a steadfast faith, can know of the eternal hope which we hold, and can be transformed in the fire of God’s love.

Once we know the virtues, we must strive for the virtues. And human striving does play a role here because the virtues are simultaneously gifts and habits. They are given by God, but they are also ways of being that must be ingrained in our character and in our habitual ways of acting. God gives the gift but we must be open to receive the gift and to the corresponding nurture and growth of the gift.

Openness comes in many forms. One is simply the opening to God accomplished in prayer, public and private. Another is openness to the Word of God and the discipline that it enjoins. This, as far as I am concerned, is one of the functions of the Law (the third one, for any Lutherans keeping track…). The Law serves not only to make us aware of our sin but as a guide to lead us into virtue. From this perspective the Law is not and should not be a legalistic taskmaster but instead—as Paul says—a pedagogue, a teacher of the young and immature, that leads us into the fullness of maturity when, in the light of the Spirit, we will need a teacher no longer.

When I think back to that night—the night of my encounter—I still feel a physical response: adrenaline, my hackles rise and in light of that experience I see the virtues as a framework of interlocking principles that guide and protect me from embodying the evil that I know slumbers within me. But the awareness fades. I return to my quotidian life and am lulled out of watchfulness, am dulled to the danger. I cannot maintain, and in all honestly, probably should not dwell in that hyper-aware state as it would distract me from living life in the light of God. What can I do? Inculcate in myself the virtues. Our daily quotidian life is governed by our habits. If our habits are virtuous then we are better equipped against the insidious evils of our world. Let us put on the whole armor of God, as Paul tells us, and—living for faith, hope, and love—walk in the light of the Lamb.

"The sanctification of all of life"

2005-06-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

From Sin: A Reflection from an Anglican Perspective, on the Full Homely Divinity website:

I would maintain that the essential character of Anglicanism is ascetical and pastoral. The principal document of Anglicanism is the Book of Common Prayer and that fact alone says a great deal about who we are and how we function. It is important to remember that the Prayer Book is not simply a Sunday missal. One might say that it is a handbook of applied spirituality, a "system" as the late Martin Thornton would have said.

The purpose of this system is the sanctification of all of life. So, we have the Eucharist for Sundays and holy days, and we have the Daily Office for every day. Eucharist and Office provide the basic structure of the system. Then the Prayer Book provides for the sanctification of milestone moments in life, as well–birth and death, confirmation, marriage, sickness, and reconciliation; and for milestone events in the life of the whole church–ordination, the consecration of churches, etc. This notion of sanctification, the sanctification of all of life in a world that is in fact broken by sin, is key to understanding our approach to sin. Sin has separated us from the life God created us to live. Sin has separated us from God. Redemption is the means by which we are reconnected to God, but it is not an end in itself. We are redeemed, but still wounded, and it is through the ongoing work of sanctification that our brokenness is repaired and our alienation is healed. Sanctification is first of all a gift from God, but it is also a movement in which the sinner must participate and even take some initiative.

The Prayer Book system is rooted in an older system which had permeated English society in the Middle Ages, the Rule of St. Benedict which was followed by so many of the monastic communities that were to be found throughout medieval Britain. The extent of their influence was profound. It is worth noting that there were nearly 400 Benedictine houses in England and Wales by the time of the Reformation–some very large, some rather small, but they were everywhere. And they were not just in secluded locations away from the bustle of secular society–they were right in the middle of things and everyone had contact with them.

One of the most striking examples of the pervasive influence of the monasteries over daily life is in the various histories and legends of King Arthur and his knights who invariably attended Matins and Mass before going off to fight some enemy. And they always seemed to arrive home from an adventure just in time to give thanks at Vespers at the local monastery. The daily round of prayer was not something which only monastics experienced. Thomas Cranmer did not just invent Morning and Evening Prayer ex nihilo and they were not something terribly revolutionary in the experience of ordinary Christians.

Furthermore–and this is the really important point–the outward conformity of the Book of Common Prayer to the monastic pattern of prayer is far from the whole story. The Rule of St. Benedict is not just an order of worship, if you will, it is a system for the sanctification of all of life. The word "system" may sound a little mechanical or impersonal, even perhaps untheological or unspiritual, but it really is the best word for what we are talking about here. And, of course, the so-called system is not the point–it is simply a particular way of entering into the process of sanctification, a way of accepting and nurturing God’s gift in order to grow in grace.

The Benedictine system centers around three vows, and these vows are particularly instructive: stability, conversion of life, and obedience. Not the commonly quoted monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience–but stability, conversion of life, and obedience. Benedictines practice poverty and chastity, but they recognize that these commitments are more particular expressions of a deeper reality and meaning. Conversion of life is nothing more, or less, than sanctification–the movement, or process, if you will, from sinfulness to holiness, from brokenness to wholeness. Poverty, the simplification of life by a return to essentials, and chastity, the right ordering of relationships, are certainly aspects of conversion of life, but they do not exhaust the possibilities. Conversion of life is more comprehensive.

Prayer and Fasting

2005-06-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

As the Anglican Consultative Council meets this week - a week in which many of us have decided to dedicate ourselves to prayer and fasting - I thought I'd link to Ken Collins' discussion of the topic.

When Jesus taught us how to pray, He didn’t say, “If you elect to pray, do it this way…” and when He taught about fasting, He didn’t say, “If you elect to fast, do it this way…”

He said, when you pray, don’t do it for show like the hypocrites do. It’s a conversation between you and God.

....

Similarly, Jesus told us that when we fast (not if) we are not to make a show of it, like hypocrites do. A fast is different from a hunger strike: a fast is a personal act of devotion to God, while a hunger strike is a public act most often used to shine a spotlight on injustice. A fast is also different from anorexia nervosa: it is disciplined diet, not total abstention from food. During a religious fast, you still eat, you just abstain from certain foodstuffs. Traditionally, people have fasted by eliminating luxury items from their diets, such as meats. You could have a fast that consists of eating whatever you want, but drinking only water. Orthodox Christians recognize five levels of fasting:

Abstaining from meat

Abstaining from meat, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese

Abstaining from meat, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, and fish

Abstaining from meat, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, fish, oil, and wine

Abstaining from all foods and beverages except bread, water, juices, honey, and nuts.

Note that the fifth and strictest level describes John the Baptizer’s diet, and it is may very well have been the fast that Jesus undertook for forty days in the wilderness. (Christians reenact this retreat during Lent.)

To fast, just omit an item or two from your diet—something that you would normally eat during the course of the day. Every time you get an appetite for those items, you will be reminded of your fast and that will remind you of the reason for your fast, and you can pray instead of eating. This can have immense spiritual benefit. You are simply using your belly as a spiritual snooze-alarm.

Collins adds:

The ancient Jews fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. The ancient church fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, because they believed that Jesus commanded them to observe those days as fast days; Wednesday to commemorate His betrayal, and Friday to commemorate His crucifixion. (This is recorded in the Apostolic Constitutions, Book 5, Section 3, which the Orthodox Churches still use as a manual of church discipline.) So it has been historically customary for Christians to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. In fact. John Wesley, the Anglican priest who founded Methodism, refused to ordain anyone who did not fast on those two days. He felt that anyone who could not rule his own belly could not be expected to rule the church of God.

Do you fast and pray? If you don’t, your spiritual life is unbalanced. If you are a soldier of the Lord, you can hardly expect to be commended for your conduct if you never check into headquarters for instructions.

This past Lent, I kept a fast for the first time in my life, and found that it had three distinct effects on me.

First, I became aware that I am almost never really hungry. It's easy, here in the wealthy West, to forget that many people do go to bed hungry (the estimate is that this includes over a billion people worldwide), and it's important to be reminded of that fact. Second, I was reminded at all times that it was Lent, and that this was the reason for my fast; this kept me continually thinking about the meaning of the season. Third, the fast disrupted my ordinary life; daily living was different, and it helped me to try to stay in conscious contact with God - something that easily slips away when you are in the day-to-day of ordinary existence.

Ken Collins makes note of this last point, when he asks:

Jesus went up to the mountain and prayed all night. When was the last time you prayed for ten minutes? Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights to prepare for His ministry. When was the last time you skipped lunch to spend the time with God?

Speaking Words of Wisdom...

2005-06-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

We—the collaborators on this communal blog—have been engaged in fasting and prayer for the current ACC meeting. What will come of this meeting, we do not yet know but we pray that God’s will be done. The Archbishop of Canterbury opened the meeting with an address. Already the address is being read and dissected on the Internet specifically for the purpose of tallying points: is he for Us or is he for Them? I’m going to comment but I have no interest in points… Instead, I want to lift up a section that I know will be lost in the point-counting:

The Russian Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann distinguishes the Church from a sect very simply by saying that a sect is always transforming itself into an ‘agency’, committed to a succession of causes, and he says, ‘it easily mobilizes people against and not for’, creates typically for itself a modern sense of pervasive guilt for not being radical enough (The Journals of Fr Alexander Schmemann, p.203). But the Church is just life in the new world which is the old one transfigured in Christ’s light. The Church does not have to be defined by its activism, justified by its good causes. ‘Dead end of the world with its “progress.” Dead end of religion with its laws and therapeutics. Christ has taken us out of both these dead ends. The Church eternally celebrates it, and people as eternally reject it and are deaf to it’ (p.292). So if we ask what we need to be heard saying, perhaps it is this – that the new world is a reality here in the Church, not by our activism and our anxious struggles to keep up with an agenda, but in the gift of presence in the Eucharist and in every moment when we meet our Father through Jesus. The possibility of a world differently organised, where poverty and wealth, joy and suffering, are everyone’s, a world where every person is not just a possessor of ‘rights’ but a precious and unique friend. That possibility is a fact among us. It may and will move us to action, to the fullest share in the struggle to change things; but the Church is not there in order to change things – if it were, it would disappear when injustices disappear, instead of being fully itself when injustices disappear. When we start defining the Church by campaigns and struggles, God help us; we have lost the one thing only the Church can give, the fact of God’s future made real. That is why Father Schmemann can say that our biggest problem as a Church is that we have lost joy (291); and this is not because we fail to feel or look happy enough, which really has nothing at all to do with anything and could be the most blasphemous and stupid of ideas, given the tragedy of the world. It is about the fact that joy exists, that God’s blissful enjoyment of his own loving being is open to the world he has created. Will this week’s proceedings suggest to anyone that joy exists and is offered us by God? (Emphasis added)

This is a valuable reminder. We as the Church are not a social club, not a citizen’s morality watch, or a political action group. We are the gathered body of Christ attempting to live out life in a disordered world in light of the reconciliation revealed to us in the horror of the cross and the joy of the empty tomb. This is the renewal we strive for—a Church that honestly walks in the light of Christ joined not by a common cause but a common Lord.

Body and Blood

2005-06-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

I came across these thoughts about the Body and Blood of Christ over at Christianity Today. I found some of these reflections really amazing considering the sources, and it got me to wonder if a Eucharistic "renewal" might be in the offing?

FOR AS OFTEN as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
1 Corinthians 11:26, NRSV

WE DO NOT RECEIVE these things as common bread or common drink, but as Jesus Christ our Savior who became incarnate by God's Word and took flesh and blood for our salvation.
Justin Martyr, Apology

WHY DO WE need the sacrament of Holy Communion alongside the Word? The sacrament offers us something the Word alone cannot: deep assurance that is exactly fitted by God to our human need and receptivity. The Lord's Supper is a physical handle faith grabs hold of, allowing us to grasp God's promises with our bodies as well as our minds. … The sacrament "incarnates" the Word, in a way analogous to how Christ was the original incarnate Word.
Leonard J. Vander Zee, Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper

OVER THE CENTURIES the church has fussed and argued over exactly how Jesus is present in the bread and wine. … I don't think propositional understanding is the main point with the sacraments, though. They speak to us in ways beyond words.
Debra Rienstra, So Much More

THE SERMON should serve, not dominate in the church. It should serve the presence of Christ which we celebrate in the Eucharist.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality

COMMUNION is not an event in which autonomous individuals have parallel religious experiences. We do not come to Christ alone but with and through one another. The meaning of the term "priesthood of all believers" is not that we can come to God privately but that we come to him on one another's behalf: each is a priest for the other.
John Rempel, "Communion as a Gathered Body"

ACCORDING TO PAUL, it was not truly the Lord's Supper unless everyone from any social status ate it together, signifying equal inclusion. Bread and wine eaten in the context of a full meal also symbolize care for the poor, for when all eat together, there are no needy.
Reta Halteman Finger, "An Instinct for Community"

BEFORE you "break bread," give thanks. Allow every meal to be sacramental, where physical matter provokes spiritual reflection.
Dan Schmidt, Taken by Communion

WHAT JESUS GAVE US when he left us was a meal. Don't ever forget that the "high tea" that most of us do once a month or so with a little tiny piece of bread and a little tiny cup is supposed to be a foretaste of the heavenly feast of the Lamb that we will celebrate for eternity. It is the most ordinary and extraordinary experience all at once.
Tod E. Bolsinger, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian

Grace and Peace,

Joe

How Shall We Build Our House?

2005-06-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

Two excellent sermons recently used this quote by Henry Nouwen. Fr. John Kirkeley, my rector, preached May 29, 2005, asking us on which foundation we shall build our house: sand or stone (Matt. 7)?

The foundation of the House of God is love. And love-based questions focus not on our insecurities and our enemies, but rather on our gifts and our neighbors. Love raises a very different set of questions and provides a very different answer.

(You can read the entire sermon by clicking here, then click on Sermons in the sidebar, and finally click May 29, 2005).

At the commencement for the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Fr. J. Edwin Bacon, Jr. also explores the power of love and fear to shape how we live our lives in his sermon "Cooking the Gospel on your own stove":

It was Henri Nouwen’s book, Lifesigns, that first awakened within me the organizing principles of the interplay of fear and love. In that deceptively thin volume, Henri Nouwen describes the interplay between love and fear as he understood it playing out in Jesus’ life. Nouwen argues that in every moment every human being is living either out of the house of fear or the house of love.

Read the entire sermon here.

Nouwen writes:

“We are fearful people….Fear has become an obvious dwelling place, an
acceptable basis on which to make our decisions and plan our lives. Those we fear have a great power over us. Those who can make us afraid can also make us do what they want us to do.

People are afraid for many reasons, but I am convinced that the close connection between power and fear deserves special attention. So much power is wielded by instilling fear in people and keeping them afraid… As long as we are kept in fear we can be made to act, speak, and even think as slaves…The agenda of our world – the issues and items that fill newspapers and newscasts – is an agenda of fear and power. It is amazing, yes frightening, to see how easily that agenda becomes ours.

But fearful questions never led to love-filled answers; underneath every fearful question many other fearful questions are hidden…. Fear engenders fear. Fear never gives birth to love. A careful look at the gospels shows that Jesus seldom accepted the questions posed to him. He exposed them as coming from the house of fear. “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? How often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever? What authority do you have for acting like this? … Are you the king of the Jews? Lord, has the hour come? Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?…” To none of these questions did Jesus give a direct answer. He gently put them aside as questions emerging from false worries. They were raised out of concern for prestige, influence, power, and control. They did not belong to the house of God. Therefore Jesus always transformed the question by his answer. He made the question new – and only then worthy of his response.”

(Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective, 16-19).

Examen of Conscience

I've often found it helpful to end my day with an examen of conscience, usually by praying Compline with a special emphasis on a prayer of confession for my sins known and unknown, things done and left undone, naming what comes to my heart and mind in the process. Nouwen's words get at the heart of so much of our sin, our living out of our fearful questions rather than out of the joyful answer G-d has given us in Jesus Christ.

Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate your heart and mind as you make an examination.
I recommend that you slowly read Nouwen's words lectio style, sit with them, and then read them again. As you read, let the words read you. Where have you responded from fearful questions this day? We are always free by the Holy Spirit to turn again to G-d's loving questions. What might the loving question be in a given interaction in which you responded out of fear? How might you respond instead out of that love? How might you make ammends if so needed? If gravely, troubled, do you perhaps need to seek pastoral counsel and care? The Sacrament of Reconciliation?

Close with an Act of Contrition/Confession of Sin:

Most merciful God,
I confess that I have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what I have done,
and by what I have left undone.
I have not loved you with my whole heart;
I have not loved my neighbors as myself.
I am truly sorry and I humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on me and forgive me;
that I may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Note: I'm re-reading Martin L. Smith's, SSJE excellent work on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Reconciliation: Preparing for Confession in the Episcopal Church. As I read through it, I will be offering some thoughts on this important and oft neglected sacramental rite.

Living into the Scriptures: Mass and Office

2005-06-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

There are two long-standing impulses when it comes to encountering the Scriptures—diligence and relevance. The first is that impulse that drives us to read the whole thing, the impulse that coverage is key. The second is the impulse that tells us that certain passages are more relevant to certain times and certain places than others, that what we read when should fit meaningfully in our religious experiences.

These impulses become important when, in our spiritual journey, we sit down and pick up the Bible. What do we do next? More specifically, where do we open it—the front or somewhere in the middle? Should we consult a calendar before doing so or should we go to where the bookmark concluded the last session?

Thus, the question is often framed this way—is it better to sit down and read the Scriptures the whole way through or to pick and choose by some principle? I have to say that I don’t like this way of framing things because it creates a false dichotomy; it forces a choice that need not be made. The best way to think through this difference is by understanding a little bit of history in regard to our spiritual practices.

Our current public system of Scripture selection grows out of the early medieval monastic system. I can’t go into full details here (those will be in chapter 2 of my dissertation…) but suffice it to say that the early medieval life was encompassed by a number of lectionaries or systems of reading selections ordered by time and content. Think here of interlocking circles within circles. A kind of spiritual armillary sphere. I’ll draw attention to only two for my purposes here. The outermost sphere is governed by the Church Year and is repeated, yes, yearly. There were two major lectionaries at work here—one for the Mass and one for the Night Office. We’re more familiar with the first, less so with the second.

Essentially, the purpose of the Gospel Mass lectionary is to honor the relevance impulse by picking certain parts of the Gospel story to accompany us through the Church Year. The year serves as a tool for learning and following after the life and teachings of Christ. This system is more or less in use today. We’ve expanded it to a three year cycle and restricted it to Sundays, but it is essentially intact. Ever hear complaints about this system? The one I’ve heard the most is—but we only get to hear a little bit of the whole Bible in church!

For early medieval monastics, the Mass lectionary was balanced by the Night Office lectionary: while only selections from the gospels, the epistles and the prophets were read during Mass, the entire Bible was read through every year in the Night Office. Thus, the diligence impulse was duly honored. The Mass lectionary was never designed to stand on its own but it served in relation to the Night Office lectionary. The scheme linked particular books and groupings of books to certain liturgical seasons or months, e.g. Isaiah to Advent, Revelation to Easter, Job to September, etc. With some of the pairings—like Isaiah and Advent—there was a theological rationale.

Fast forward to the Reformation. The reformers all agreed that the monastic-based Roman Catholic systems of spirituality were not working—lay people don’t have the time that monastics do. Various churches offered various options. Some retained only the Mass Lectionary. Some advocated a lectio continua—a straightforward reading through the Bible. The best option as far as I am concerned is enshrined in the 1662 BCP; it preserves both cycles. The logic of the Mass lectionary is preserved (the actual readings are mostly the same as the medieval ones; I won’t go into the differences here…). The real innovation appears in the Office readings.

Unlike Continental Protestants, the English Reformers retained Morning and Evening Prayer and sought to maintain continuity with monastic practice at a reasonable level. The solution was that there were four Scripture readings a day—two at Morning Prayer, two at Evening Prayer—ordered as follows:

The Old Testament is appointed for the First Lessons at Morning and Evening Prayer, so as the most part thereof will be read every year once, as in the Calendar is appointed.
The New Testament is appointed for the Second Lessons at Morning and Evening Prayer, and shall be read over orderly every year twice, once in the morning and once in the evening, besides the Epistles and Gospels, except the Apocalypse, out of which there are only certain Lessons appointed at the end of the year, and certain proper Lessons appointed upon divers feasts. (1662 BCP)

Thus, in this system the impulse of diligence is fully honored with the Old Testament read once every year and the New Testament read twice.

So—what meaning does all of this hold for spiritual practice? Quite a bit, actually. First, I urge you to consider these two impulses--diligence and relevance. How do you or can you honor them in your spiritual disciplines? Second, I commend to you the Office lectionary from the 1662 BCP—though I warn you, it goes a chapter at a time making for a longer time of prayer than the current Office lectionary. Third, I present for your meditation the relationship between the Mass and Office readings. Both are ways of living the Scriptures, one through a mystagogical entrance into the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Christ, the other a steady beat of Scripture rooting life in the Spirit. Used together they are complementary—synergistic even—leading us to new insights. Fourth, I would remind you that liturgical prayer is not at odds with biblical devotion. Indeed, the core impulse of truly Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer is biblical continuity, saturation in the Scriptures.

Going To the Office

2005-06-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

(I originally published this on my blog . It seemed an appropriate inaugural post on this new endeavor.)

I love The Daily Office. It is not an exaggeration to say that following it on a daily basis has changed my life, and my faith, in a profound way.

For those of you who think of daily devotionals as the spiritual equivalent of flossing -- a healthy but onerous and easily forgettable discipline -- try the the Compline, the prayer service for the close of day. It is such a beautiful and healing way to end the evening. Here's a prayer from the Compline:

Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here's another:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all your love's sake. Amen.

If you want to dip a toe into the Daily Office as a personal prayer discipline, start with the Compline. Or the Noon Prayer -- brief yet meaningful, a good reality check while you're sitting at your desk at work.

How it worked for me: After several weeks of praying the Compline, I felt that it might be nice to try the Noon Prayer. After a few weeks of that, I started wanting to read more Scripture, so I added the Evening Prayer. After a few weeks of that, the Morning Prayer felt like a good idea. I'd be fibbing to say that I pray every prayer every day, but I do like bookending my days with the Morning and Evening Prayer.

Try it. And for any fellow Lutherans reading this, if you have an LBW handy, and have more musical aptitude than LutheranChik (who sounds like a rusty hinge), sing it, even.

A Vision for Renewal Ancient and New

2005-06-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

(Isaiah 61:4)