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Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Fr. Wilson
I once read that Fr Wilson of Haggerston used to set three alarms, starting at 5 in the morning. The first alarm was across the room and would require a walk across a cold linoleum floor. I can sympathize. If I had to choose an identity as either a morning person or night owl, I would have to choose morning, but I do not jump out of bed like a coiled spring. I wish I could tell you I wake well before dawn for meditation and study, but I do not. I should; the great ascetics warn against lingering bed in morning.
I was scheduled to wake at 5:10 this morning so I could be at the Overflow Shelter at 5:30 to assist with check-out. This season, Tuesday mornings will be my mornings. My colleague sent me a text last night saying there was no need to come in, as the census was low and we had plenty of folks on hand. I had planned to come in anyway and meet the new volunteers, but when the alarm went off, alas, I had no cold linoleum floor to walk across. I rolled over and slept in until 6:30am.
When I arrived at church, my server was already busy in the sacristy placing the newly arrived sanctuary lamps in the cupboards. To my horror, I saw the candles were yellow, but they were clearly not pure beeswax. Instead of announcing the Sacramental Presence of Our Lord, the candles look like a glowing stick of butter. They have been sent back.
Mass was for the Feast of St John of Damascus with the Advent Feria commemorated. After mass, we said the Angelus at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham where the light, for the past seven days, has been extraordinary on these late autumn mornings. The image of OLW is the only thing illuminated by the rising sun.
After breakfast (my standard: grande dark roast and red-pepper egg whites from Starbucks), necessary administrative tasks, and the weekly staff meeting, I went downtown to our bi-weekly men’s lunch, Confraternity. We’ve been meeting at a trendy coffee shop/bar connected to an independent bookstore. It’s a perfect venue and centrally located for many of the men. I look forward to these gatherings. As I wrote yesterday, the Church needs more men. Men need the Church. This is a way for us to get together and talk about the things that are on our mind and ground them in our faith in Jesus Christ.
When I returned the office, I had some administration to tend to, including the identification of the graves in the Society of Arimathea cemetery. I discovered we’ve actually cremated/buried 24 children (and not 23 as previously reported) since 2017 and there are five currently buried in our cemetery with two to be buried at a later date. The need has outpaced our ability to plan and we are making decisions on the fly without having adequate time to think everything through. For instance, we don’t yet know how to permanently mark these graves nor do we always have a name for the child. Oftentimes, I only have the last name of the mother. This is certainly the case for two children that were left unclaimed at the morgue. Someone suggested we adopt the Moravian practice of Beatus and Beata for the babies. I am very fond of this idea. I am grateful for colleagues and leaders who are flexible and patient as we do so much so quickly.
Before Evening Prayer I had a pre-marital counseling session for a wedding at the end of the month (Christmastide). I barely made it to my stall by 4:45 and ended the day with Evening Prayer and Shrine Prayers. Quick trip home for some grilled chicken and then off to basketball practice (son’s, not mine!) where I composed and sent out the parish email on the gym’s wifi.
We'll Leave the Light on For You | December 3, 2018
I believe Motel Six was the hotel chain that would always end their commercials with the comforting tag line, “We’ll leave the light on for you.” What a wonderful image of vigil; we’ll stay awake and ready for whenever you find your way here.
I usually arrive at St Timothy’s around 7:30am on weekdays (Morning Prayer is at 8:15 and mass follows). When I open the church doors, the inside is quiet and the lights are off, but it’s not completely dark. There is, more times than not, a single votive candle burning at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Early in the morning, a medical professional comes in the church to pray. I imagine she prays for herself, her family, and those who will be in her care that day. I also trust she prays for the parish and its priest. She lights the candle and by doing so, leaves the light on for us. I always get the feeling that we are a relay of prayer. She has come in before dawn and we take over from there. The altars of the church are always warm, never allowed to grow cold due to dormancy.
Today’s mass was for the feast of St Francis Xavier with a commemoration of the Advent Feria. To my shock and delight, it was a congregation of men. I’m sure it’s happened before, but I can’t remember. I know it’s not politically correct to say, but it’s true, we need more men in the church. Men are disengaged through lack of challenge, catechesis, and cult. I was pleased to have two seminarians today, one from Wake Forest and one from Duke. There is hope for the future.
After mass, I had eggs and coffee with our Wake Forest Divinity School intern. We meet every Monday morning, usually over coffee, to discuss his internship and to solve most of the theological problems of the world. After breakfast I heard a confession and spoke with a husband who just lost his wife at a young age. Her funeral will be 19th for this year, the most ever for me in a year. It’s been a difficult season for death.
After a simple lunch of canned chicken and bread and butter pickles (not as bad as it sounds), I spent the afternoon in weekly meetings. I met with a member of the vestry, then both of my wardens. We use these meetings to stay up-to-date with the fast pace of the parish and I keep them informed of what is going on and ask their counsel for any issues or decisions that might be tricky. We also spend a lot of time in laughter.
At 4:45pm it was back in the church for Evening Prayer and Shrine Prayers. The first lesson from Second Peter was beautiful. To strengthen faith we need goodness and goodness needs knowledge. Knowledge needs self-control. Self-control needs endurance. Endurance needs mutual affection. Mutual affection needs love. At the Shrine of St Timothy, we concluded our prayers for the day, with the day’s intention for missionaries, since it is the feast of St Francis Xavier.
After Evening Prayer, I peeked in to listen to the chorister’s rehearse (they are so very good), and it was back for a final standing meeting of the day – with my liturgical leaders. We recently started meeting to review the previous Sunday and to tweak anything out of whack. It is so helpful when they can anticipate my thoughts and I can anticipate theirs.
Out of the church just after 6pm and off to hear my daughter’s school orchestra concert. As I drove by the parish hall, I saw the preparations for tonight’s shelter guests. The light was on.
Advent I, December 2, 2018
Our King and Savior draweth nigh.
I don’t know what other Christians in our area did today, but we did our bit to reset the month of December properly in the anticipation found in Advent. Average crowd at the masses (around 307, I think), but not the overwhelming December crush of people that rectors dream about instead of sugarplums. I think it’s harder every year to “do church.” When I first started parish ministry (ahem, 19 years ago), people would come to church just because you unlocked the door. A bit of an exaggeration, but the point is there. Two decades later our culture, yea, even Southern Culture, no longer supports, let along promotes, life schedules that are grounded in the practices of faith.
But here we stand, or rather, here we kneel. In the midst of Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Free Shipping, we await our King and Savior.
We had five at the shelter on our first night – one came late. They were all gone when I arrived at 6:40am. The lights in the parish hall were all off, resting until they’ll be turned back in just a little while.
I do love our violet vestments for this season. Made by Mr. Luzar in England, it’s a heavy Roman cut. As this is the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, I made some tweaks to our liturgy, slowly but surely adapting based on practicality and personnel. We finally removed the crucifer from the Gospel procession, properly keeping the focus on the Gospel Book as the icon of Jesus Christ. The homily was a bit of a risk, although they never come out nearly as risky as I imagine them. I preached on the Advent themes of judgment and hell, not deeply, but directly. Between the 9am Low Mass and 11am Sung Mass, we had our monthly parish breakfast, this time couple with an Advent Wreath workshop.
After the masses, we had an information meeting for our Holy Land Pilgrimage next July. 29 of us will be walking in the footsteps of Our Lord. This will be the second pilgrimage I’ve led here, and the first to Israel. I was last in the Holy Land 20 years ago. I’m sure the landscape hasn’t changed, but I know I have. I’m very much looking forward to this trip. One of my dreams is to be the Rick Steves of Ecclesiastical Travel. Can’t you see me on the Travel Channel with a film crew visiting all the amazing holy sites in Christendom? If you can’t, I’m doing it for you.
Advent Lessons and Carols finished the evening. A couple hundred souls came to hear the readings and anthems and carols. Following a Lessons and Carols used at Salisbury Cathedral, we included the Greater Antiphons before 8 sets of readings. My youngest son, Luke, helped light the Advent Wreath. The choir did amazing, as they always do. It’s one of the few liturgies where I have very little to do but sit back, close my eyes, and let the choir do the heavy lifting.
The highlight of Lessons and Carols was the reading by Mrs. Catherine. Her story is extraordinary. Several years ago she had a massive stroke. I remember being with her at the hospital and the doctor telling her husband that she might have a working vocabulary of 7-10 words. In the years that have passed she has worked so very hard to prove the doctors wrong, something I’m certain they are happy to concede. Her vocabulary has to be in the hundreds, if not thousands. Along with her husband, she read a lesson from one of the sets. This is the second time she has read a lesson since her stroke. The Lord will open our lips and regardless of what we think of our ‘performance,’ our mouth will show forth his praise.
Holy Domesticity, December 1, 2018
For years, Fr. T.E. Jones’s blog was mandatory reading, at least for me. For seven years, Fr Jones recorded the priestly and parochial life of St Peter’s, London Docks, where he was vicar. I loved his blog, which concluded in 2013, for its domesticity. Fr. Jones didn’t just record the major events at St Peter’s; he shared the beauty of the routine and mundane. It was a real look into the real life of a real parish. This May I was thrilled to meet Fr Jones, now retired, at the National Pilgrimage at Walsingham. He was gracious, charming, and witty, exactly as I had imagined.
While not done with social media (still very useful for parish communications), I am certainly over it. I am tired of the rancor, snark, and virtue signaling (am I now virtue signaling the fact that I don’t virtue signal?). I would much rather ‘follow after the things which make for peace, and the things wherewith one may edify another’ (Romans 14.19).
While I am certainly Fr. Jones and I do not serve the famous St Peter’s, London Docks, I do have a desire to share the holy domesticity of parish life, for both a record and, God willing, edification.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon
I had the pleasure this morning of leading an Advent Quiet Day in the parish, sponsored by the Daughters of the King. Mass was for the commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, a patron saint of holy domesticity. I have never been to the little church of St John’s at Little Gidding, but very much hope to one day correct that.
At the Quiet Day, I discussed the iconography of three images of the Virgin Mary: Mary, Ark of the New Covenant, the Seven Sorrows of Mary, and Our Lady of Walsingham. I find the image of Mary as Ark of the New Covenant profound in its parallels to David before the Ark in 2 Samuel. I’ve always had a devotion of the Mater Dolorosa and hope this title will help those in attendance find consolation in the strength of Our Lady, who endured so very much. And Our Lady of Walsingham is just so very special. When I enter the church every morning, she greets me as if it where my own mother wishing me good morning from the kitchen.
After a simple lunch with the retreatants, I went to my office to work on my Spanish. On Wednesday, I received a call from the pediatric decedent affairs coordinator asking if the Society of St Joseph of Arimathea would pay for the cremation of a 22-week-old. The answer, of course, was yes. It will always be yes. This was the 23rd child in less than two years we’ve taken care of. Friday afternoon, the funeral home called to tell me the family had changed their mind about keeping the ashes and asked if we would bury as well. Again, yes, Always, yes. Our wonderful sexton, John, responded to a quick text to see if he could prepare the grave on very short notice and he completed the grave within the hour. The family was coming by our infant cemetery at 2pm and I knew they spoke very little English. My Spanish can’t be much better than their English. I took four semesters of Spanish in college but I am really not able to do more than struggle through my order at our favorite Mexican restaurant.
We lack suitable liturgies for the burial of children in the Episcopal Church. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer is far better, but I don’t have a copy in Spanish. It was committal only at 2pm, so I pieced together some prayers and practiced. When the family arrived in two cars, I met them in the parking lot and did my best to say, “I am sorry my Spanish is not good, but we pray to God from the heart.” We walked in the drizzle down to the cemetery and buried the tiny urn with broken hearts and broken Spanish, trusting that God will heal and hear both.
The afternoon was spent with a pot of tea and computer screen, working on the next day’s homily, the first Sunday of Advent.
After watching my eldest son’s basketball game, I drove back to the church at around 8:30pm to welcome our guests to our homeless shelter. Tonight is the first night of our 122 day season (our sixth). With the rain and dropping temperatures, I was surprised (but happy) to only greet four guests, faces that were both familiar and brand new.
One new guest was over at the out-of-tune piano and filled the space with music. The space in the room wasn’t the only thing her music filled.
The Gift of All Souls
For the first time in my priesthood, I will say all three traditional requiems for All Souls. I am singing the first mass on the evening of All Souls and I said the second and third masses this morning. This issues and history surrounding bination and trination might be interesting to some and they are easily found on the internet along with the development of saying three masses on All Souls. I am more interested at this moment in the devotional and pastoral effects of this tradition.
Traditionally, the first mass is for all the faithful departed, the second and third are for personal intentions and the intentions of the Holy Father. (If a priest is to sing a mass, he sings the first one, regardless at one time it is offered.) I deviated and said the masses this morning for the faithful departed of St Timothy’s, my parish, and for the repose of my mother, who died in 2010. The pastoral result is that I have journeyed in my prayers and offering at the altar from the personal (my mother), to my pastoral duty in praying for the departed of my parish, to my connection and obligation to pray for all the departed in the Body of Christ. While I could certainly remember all three at a single All Souls’ Requiem, it has been an honor to slow down and remember each group with deliberate intention.
I know that praying for the dead is still somewhat controversial in Anglicanism and the notion of purgatory strikes some as a fond thing vainly invented without any warrant of Scripture. But let us not forget Judas Maccabeus praying for the dead in 2 Maccabees 12.42ff. “For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.” Instead, it is a holy and pious thing. Indeed, it has been.
The Oxford Movement Begins
Most Anglo-Catholics know that 185 years ago today, John Keble ascended the pulpit at the University Church of St Mary's in Oxford to deliver the sermon at the opening of the Assize Court.[i] If the date is not remembered, the result certainly is. John Henry Newman wrote that this sermon, easily forgotten during any other time, was the beginning of the Oxford Movement.[ii]
19th century sermons, to be sure, are not always pleasure reading. Compared to our modern tolerance of sermon length and substance, our forebears preached long sermons with often dense and complicated arguments. The opening of the Assize Court was also not a Royal Wedding. It’s content would naturally address the connection of law and religion and the congregation would not be made up of wool spinners from Norfolk. Yet this sermon, entitled National Apostasy, is unexpectedly good. Once you get through the dense beginning and understand the building argument, it not only speaks clearly to the times in 1833 but it has a remarkable resonance in 2018.
A month after Keble preached this sermon, Parliament passed the Church Temporalities Act. This act, for financial reasons, reduced the number of archbishops and dioceses for the established (Anglican) Church of Ireland. The law said in part:
“And whereas the Number of Bishops in Ireland may be conveniently diminished, and the Revenues of certain of the Bishopricks, as well as the said annual Tax, applied to the building, rebuilding, and repairing of Churches and other such like Ecclesiastical Purposes, and to the Augmentation of small Livings, and to such other Purposes as may conduce to the Advancement of Religion, and the Efficiency, Permanence, and Stability of the United Church of England and Ireland: And whereas the Tenure by which Church Lands are held in Ireland is inconvenient, and it is expedient to alter the same in such Manner as may tend to the Ease and Security of the Church, and the Advantage of the Persons holding thereunder:’ (emphasis mine)
Keble found this act by the Whig government an affront on the rights of the Church. Even if the Church of England is the Established Church, members of Parliament, who may or may not share the Christian faith, have no business deciding how many bishops the Church needs. Rather than being the act of a rogue government ignoring the will of the people, Keble recognized it was the indifference and apathy of the people to allow such legislation to be debated.
Using the prophet and judge Samuel as a model, Keble used his Assize Sermon to diagnose the apostasy in England and prescribed the medicine for healing. In a nutshell, this is Keble’s argument:
Like Samuel’s Israel, we prefer the lure to live in prosperity and so-called freedom like other non-Christian nations. Nations, and by-extension individuals, find justification for throwing off the yoke of Christ and the demands of discipleship. We look to threats outside and threats within to abandon godly principles (sound familiar?). We then blame government or religion for our ills and never ourselves. We rationalize and excuse every decision and act. We become so tolerant that we believe nothing and we persecute those who believe in the name of inclusion (oh my goodness!). This rebellion moves from individuals to public officials. The officials begin to attack Christ by attacking His Church, beginning with apostolic authority – bishops. This attack will come in the name of popularity and expediency; see the words I highlighted in the Church Temporalities Act above.
Keble calls the Church to follow the example of Samuel through constant intercession, which then gives grounding and strength to protest. Christians should continue to glorify God in their daily lives and routines and should not be so consumed with the concerns of the day that they neglect ordinary duties, especially prayer and devotion. This is an important point he makes. While we may not live to see wrongs righted, we are on the right and, ultimately, victorious side.
Every one of his points deserves further reflection and exposition, but is this not the climate of 2018?
The Catholic Revival in the Church of England had nothing to do with gin, lace, and backbiting, as is often caricatured. Yes, elaborate ritual and church building followed in the next generation, but this was a logical development of the belief that the Church is not the same as the Post Office. The Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of our lives and not the same as chicken tetrazzini at the weekly Rotary Club. The development of ritual and devotion was the servant, the handmaid, to the truths Keble turned our minds to 185 years ago.
Anglo-Catholics need to remember this sermon and why John Keble delivered it. Anglo-Catholics need to preach and live it.
Outline of National Apostasy
Full Text of the Sermon
I. The Old Testament is a guide, mirror, and warning during national instability
a. It is a natural and just reflection of the present time
i. To disregard the Old Testament as a guide for present concerns is “mistaken theology”
b. The judgment of nations in the Old Testament is analogous with the judgment of individual Christian souls, which God will ultimately reward or punish.
c. In the past it was quoted constantly, even ‘at random’ for any personal or societal ill, now it seems to have no authority in the hearts of men, however clear the Old Testament might be.
II. The Example of Samuel
a. Samuel was “the truest of patriots” whose example perplexes those who would suggest or act as if a nation (especially a Christian one) could prosper without God and His Church.
b. The people of Israel, despite God’s unique relationship with them, desired to live without His governance and the “the moral restraint implied in His peculiar presence and covenant.”
c. Israel’s rejection of God is a model temptation for any Christian nation who wonder if God has “forgotten to be angry with impiety and practical atheism” and believe that without God “they should be happier if they were freer, and more like the rest of the world.”
III. The Symptoms of a Nation Alienated from God and Christ
a. Israel demanded a king to be like other nations. Christian nations “avow the principle” that she is a part of Christ’s Church “on the plea, that other states, as flourishing or more so in regard of wealth and dominion, do well enough without it.”
b. The move away from God will come from two impulses
i. Declaration of outside danger
1. The Israelites were concerned about the Ammonites (I Samuel 11)
ii. Declaration of corruption within the nation
1. The wickedness of Samuel’s sons
c. Like the Israelites, justification for actions will be found
i. “Pretences will never be hard to find; but, in reality, the movement will always be traceable to the same decay or want of faith, the same deficiency in Christian resignation and thankfulness…”
ii. “And so, in modern times, when liberties are to be taken, and the intrusive passions of men to be indulged, precedent and permission, or what sounds like them, may be easily found and quoted for everything.”
iii. Samuel silenced this behavior with the reminder that the issue is motivation and purpose and not argument.
1. We are responsible for our motives and purposes in dealing with Christ’s Holy Church.
iv. Additional symptoms of an Apostate Mind in a nation
1. Growing indifference on the foundational matters of serious subjects
2. Viewing matters of religion and the Church as agents of exclusion
3. Shameful public conduct among officials (those bound by voluntary oaths).
a. Disrespect of Christ will begin with disrespect to the Successors of the Apostles (bishops).
b. “Suppose such disrespect general and national, suppose it also avowedly grounded not only any fancied tenet of religion, but on mere human reasons of popularity and expediency, either there is no meaning at all in these emphatic declarations of Our Lord, or that nation, how highly soever she may think of her religion and morality, stands convicted in His sight of a direct disavowal of His Sovereignty.” (This is as close as Keble gets to directly addressing the suppression of Irish bishoprics.)
c. The attack will address cult (Saul took it upon himself to sacrifice) and order (Saul persecuted David, God’s chosen).
IV. How an individual is to respond to national apostasy
a. The example of Samuel – “that combination of sweetness with firmness, of consideration with energy, which constitutes the temper of a perfect public man, was never perhaps so beautifully exemplified.”
i. Constant fidelity and intercession for the nation and her people.
1. “Having so protested, and found them obstinate, he does not therefore at once forsake their service, he continues discharging all the functions they had left him, with a true and loyal, though most heave, heart. ‘God forbid, that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way.’” (This is Keble’s text for the sermon.)
2. The Church should be constant in intercession and it is only by constantly praying for the leaders and people that they will be spared from hate and despair.
3. Only through prayer can the church protest (remonstrance), which is the duty of every Christian with the Church is under attack.
a. Samuel rebuked Saul, yet when he had to remove himself from Saul’s presence until his death, he mourned (I Samuel 15.35).
ii. Submission and Order
1. Christians should uphold the Church by faithfully executing their duties with trust and fidelity, lest they discredit the cause, even in the most menial task.
2. “Public concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those, who permit them to occupy all their care and thoughts, neglecting or undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional kind.”
V. The Ultimate Goal
a. It will be unlikely to see the victory in this life and there may be very few to sympathize with Christ’s call.
b. In the end, the Christian will be on the victorious side and that victory will be eternal.
[i] Assize Courts were periodic sessions of the High Court of Justice and find their origins in the Magna Carta. They were abolished in 1971.
[ii] Apologia Pro Vita Sua, page 50, Penguin Classics
Building a Litter
St Timothy's was very pleased to host the Annual Meeting and Mass of the Society of Mary, American Region on April 28. While technically a week early for the traditional May Devotion, we celebrated a votive mass for Mary (propers from the American Missal for a Saturday votive in Eastertide) and processed with a litter and image of Our Lady to an outdoor chapel where we concluded with the Regina Caeli. Not exactly St Silas, Kentish Town, but it was an earnest celebration full of devotion and joy.
In preparing for the celebration, I was planning on not having a procession of Our Lady for two reasons. First, we are not in an urban setting with a natural route for procession, and second, we do not have a litter. Furthermore, as familiar as I am with church goods catalogs, for the life of me, I cannot remember seeing a litter for sale. My conscience continue to nag, "you cannot have the national mass for the Society of Mary without a procession." Necessity is the mother of all invention, so we built one.
I have the pleasure of many creative, competent, and resourceful people in my parish, both on staff and among the laity. I gave my sexton the general idea and he came up with the follow design. The total cost for his materials was under $80.
Materials
- Sides - 5/8" x 3 1/4" Oak Casting - all joints were mitered cut; all connects were wood glued and brad nailed
- Top and Bottom - 5mm Oak Laminat
- Base for Our Lady - 3/4" x 2" Oak - screwed in from the bottom
- Dowels - 1 /14" x 6'
I also needed an image of Our Lady that was "suitable for transport." I did not wish to move our image of Our Lady of Walsingham from our shrine. I was able to find a 21" image for around $100. I wish she were a little bit taller than 21", but that was the best I could do without paying exponentially more. She is easily and firmly secured by two pieces of wood laid across the base. You can flip the litter upside down and she wouldn't be startled. She is not permanently in the litter and can easily be removed to another place for devotion. The top of the litter is large enough for flowers and we used the same for an organic crown.
In my opinion, this is the best part of catholic devotion. It was done by members of the parish and staff. It was a group effort. We had to think about what we were doing and what we wanted to accomplish. The end result was a litter for Our Lady constructed by the laity. It reminds me of Martin Travers making candlesticks and crucifixes from papier-mache. It is domestic devotion, which is the best kind.
Atemporality of Jesus Christ
Recently I asked a question on Facebook that was based on a portion of a lecture I watched from Fr John Behr of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary.
Fr Behr said, and I’m paraphrasing, that the idea of a Pre-Incarnate Word become flesh is mythology. I know that Fr Behr is Orthodox in every sense of the word and far more intelligent than I, so I knew there must be something to do this, yet it seemed to challenge orthodox thought as I understood it.
The Prologue of John’s Gospel says it plainly: the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Word as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the creative agency of God that brought all things into being. “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible, and invisible…all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together…For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross” (Colossians 1.15-20).
A mystery, no doubt. Yet we profess that the eternal God entered our existence and was made man. All of that suggests or seems to suggest, there was a time when the Son of God was not incarnate. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
To try to understand Fr Behr’s assertion that the Pre-Incarnate Word later becoming Christ as mythology, I wondered if the answer was found in the mystery of the Ascension. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, a relational term and not a spatial one. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, ascended into the Godhead, a Godhead which is beyond space and time, eternal.
If Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, is eternal, this means there was never a time when Jesus was not. Not the just the Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, but Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. That was my question. In my mind, this did not alter the Annunciation, the Incarnation, or any catholic dogma. I even wondered if this was a way (and I haven’t read Scotus enough to bring him into this) to explain the Immaculate Conception. The merits of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection were able to stretch back to the conception of Mary (or any time) because the Glorified Christ was now timeless by the Ascension, an event that happened in time.
The debate on Facebook was fun and fascinating with many different opinions, so I emailed Fr Behr. To my delight, he responded swiftly and with substance.
Here is the gist of Fr Behr’s argument, and he draws heavily on the late Dominican Herbert McCabe. God does not have a life-story. To quote McCabe, “There can be no succession in the eternal God, no change. Eternity is not, of course, a very long time; it is not time at all. Eternity is not timeless in the sense that an instant is timeless – for an instant is timeless simply in being the limit of a stretch of time, just as a point has no length not because it is very very short but because it is the limit of a length. No: eternity is timeless because it totally transcends time. To be eternal is just to be God. God’s life is neither past nor present, nor even simultaneous with any event, any clock, any history. The picture of the Son of God ‘becoming’ at a certain point in the divine duration the incarnate Son of God, ‘coming down from heaven’, makes a perfectly good metaphor but could not be literally true. There was, from the point of view of God’s life, no such thing as a moment at which the eternal Son of God was not Jesus of Nazareth. There could not be any moments in God’s life" (from God Matters).
Fr Behr’s point, following McCabe, is not that the Jesus Christ always existed because the Ascension brought him into eternity, but because there is no chronology in God. My error, as others pointed out, is that I was using temporal words to speak about eternity.
Here’s another important sentence from McCabe: “I want to argue that the doctrine of the incarnation is such that the story of Jesus is not just the story of God’s involvement with this creatures but that it is actually the ‘story’ of God…(which is) the only sense, in which God has or is a life-story, and this is the story revealed in the incarnation and it is the story we also call the trinity. The story of Jesus is nothing other than the triune life of God projected onto our history, or enacted sacramentally in our history, so that it becomes our story.”
In his email, Fr Behr left one final “head-spinning consequence.” He rightly acknowledged that our concept of eternity with God often looks like a moment in time and then never-ending. The problem with this is that it still is confined to time. He referenced Origen who said eternity with God is like an iron knife in the fire. An iron knife is known by certain properties yet when it is in the fire, it takes on the properties of the fire. It does not cease to be an iron knife, but it is now known by the properties of fire. The same will be for us in eternity with God. We will still be human beings but we will take on the properties of God and will be known by them. Fr Behr writes, “And so, we actually have to say that although we are not there yet, we already are and always have been! This is our true existence, into which we are called from before the foundation of the world, and compared with which our life on earth is but a shadow, for our citizenship is in the heavens; we approximate most closely to our true identity when in liturgy, sharing in the eternal liturgy in the heavens.”
Yes.
Lex Agendi
If you want to alter a person, put them near an altar.
If you want to alter a place, place an altar.
I’m convinced of this.
This morning on my way to the priests’ sacristy, I noticed a pizza box in a trashcan that was left overnight. Apparently pizza was on the menu for midnight lunch. I looked on the bulletin board above the empty pizza box. Two of the five packets I left the day before containing St Michael pendants have been taken by their new owners. The space was quiet at 7:30am, but I knew it was full just a few hours earlier.
This is an almost daily routine for me. This is a large, but mostly nocturnal, ministry for our local law enforcement. They come to this church to rest, eat, write reports, and pray. I have no idea how many have the code to get in. I know that when we hosted a late-night barbeque in the late summer, some 50 officers arrived for a quick bite to eat before they went back to walk the thin blue line. I recently found a lovely pendant of St Michael and hung one of the bulletin board asking if anyone would like to have one. So far, 19 have taken me up on it. I know some of the officers personally now. We text and they leave notes, but by and large, they come when I am asleep. This is their midnight church.
This all happened by taking a poorly designed, underutilized space and praying in it. If we want to alter a place, place an altar. If we want to alter a person, put them near an altar.
All, all, of our works of mercy flow from a discipline of prayer (stay tuned for upcoming posts on the Society of St Joseph of Arimathea and the homeless shelter).
In all our efforts to stimulate change in people and places, we often forget that the fount of justice is prayer. In all our efforts to revitalize the church and promote engagement and growth, we often forget that prayer is the transformative agent. And in all our efforts to engage the world by moving away from the church building, we often forget that sanctuary requires space.
Episcopalians love to quote the fifth century axiom from St Prosper of Aquitaine, ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (the law of praying establishes the law of believing), often reduced to lex orandi, lex credendi. Translated it means what and how we pray establishes what we believe. If you want to change someone’s theology, first change their worship. This, by the way, is why any Prayer Book revision is so very, very important.
But the rule of prayer addresses more than what we believe. If I may be so bold, I would also add to lex ordandi, lex agendi. The rule of prayer establishes the rule of acting. Richard Hooker, who like St Prosper is quoted but never read, followed the thinking St Thomas Aquinas by placing religion within the virtuous realm of justice, or more accurately, justice flows from religion. “So natural is the union with Religion and Justice,” Hooker writes, “that we may boldly deem there is neither, where both are not.” Justice is to give someone what is their due. Religion is the highest form of justice in that it gives God his due.
If we wish to seek justice, we should begin with prayer. For it is in prayer (religion) that we are illumined by the truth of the dignity of the human person as created in the image and likeness of God and it is this illumination that shines light on our complicity in injustice and lights the path for mercy.
If you want to alter a person, put them near an altar.
If you want to alter a place, place an altar.
When today ye hear God's Voice...
I have not done the research (but now I’m curious) as to why no American Book of Common Prayer has included the entirety of Psalm 95 as the Invitatory at Morning Prayer.* If the reason is obvious to everyone else, mea culpa.
Psalm 95 (or 94 according to Roman Catholic numbering) has been the Invitatory Psalm for Matins ever since the 6th century with the Rule of St Benedict. Chapter 9 of the Holy Rule states:
In the aforesaid winter season, there is first the versicle Domine labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam, to be said three times; then must follow the third psalm and the Gloria; then the ninety-fourth psalm to be chanted with an antiphon, or at any rate to be chanted (emphasis mine).
When Thomas Cranmer produced the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, he included the Psalm 95 with the incipit Venite Exultemus without any invitatory antiphon. Every subsequent English Prayer Book followed suit.
After the Revolutionary War, the first proposed American Prayer Book included the entirety of Psalm 95 as the Venite, yet it was never ratified. The 1789 Prayer Book, and every Prayer Book thereafter combines the first 7 verses of Psalm 96 and verses 9 and 13 of Psalm 96:
O come, let us sing unto the Lord; *
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, *
and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are all the corners of the earth, *
and the strength of the hills is his also.
The sea is his and he made it, *
and his hands prepared the dry land.
O come, let us worship and fall down *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is the Lord our God, *
and we are the people of his pasture
and the sheep of his hand. (Psalm 95.1-7)
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; *
let the whole earth stand in awe of him. (Psalm 96.9)
For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth, *(Psalm 96.13)
and with righteousness to judge the world
and the peoples with his truth.
The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is the first American version to include a rubric that allows the use of all Psalm 95 as translated by Coverdale as the Invitatory Psalm. Several months ago, we took advantage of this rubric and started praying the whole psalm instead of portions.
Here is what we have been missing:
Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts *
as in the provocation,
and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness;
When your fathers tempted me, *
proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, *
It is a people that do err in their hearts,
for they have not known my ways;
Unto whom I sware in my wrath, *
that they should not enter into my rest.
I understand that these verses aren’t as uplifting as the first 7, but they are important. The refrain at mass today was from verses 7 and 8: “today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” This is important for us to hear as we break the night silence with our prayers. For we know that it is not if we will hear God’s voice, but when we hear God’s voice. When we hear God’s voice in the Scriptures, in the words at mass, in our conscience, and in the cries of those around us, harden not your heart.
I don’t know about you, but I need to hear that and I need to pray that.
*UPDATE: According to Massey Shepherd in The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, "Bishop White quaintly said of the alteration made by the 1789 Book: 'We left out the latter part of the "Venite," as being limited to the condition of the Jews.'"