Learning from the Saints

The Sacraments and Martyrdom

2011-09-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

This topic has been on my mind for quite some time. I wrote a paper on it, attempting to show that martyrdom could be considered a sacrament. So I am pretty much going to sum up the paper here as best I can. I would like to read it a the North American Patristics Society meeting in the Spring, to do that I have to make an abstract. This will pretty much be the first attempt at the abstract, but for the reader's benefit it will be a little longer but it will help me to home in on what the important parts of the argument are.

It is my belief that martyrdom could be understood to fit into all the qualifications of a sacrament for the early church. Although the catholic and apostolic church did not accept martyrdom into the ranks of sacrament, it was still an important ritual for the church. My position is based on the writings and theology of the early church fathers, the writings/acts of various martyrs, and the liturgy surrounding their martyrdom.

First it is important to set up the terms that will be used in this argument. Such as sacrament, how did the early church define sacrament? Before the church used the word sacrament or in Latin sacramentum, she used the word mystery or in Greek mysterion. Mysterion, in the most basic sense was used to talk about the secrets of God or the "inexpressible mystery" of God. It was also used to describe God's secret in relation to human salvation, which is revealed by the manifestation of Christ (should have a footnote here for Bernard Piault, What is a Sacrament?, trans. A. Manson, (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963), 40). St. Clement of Alexandria defined mystery as a "sacred reality by material signs, incomprehensible to unbelievers" (footnote, ibid, 42). Other early fathers defined it in other comparable ways, which will not be elaborated on here because of space. Suffice it to say, in this paper sacrament will be defined as follows, "Visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ to the Church and to the individual for the remembrance and imitation of his life, which dispenses divine life with a seal of grace and bears fruit in a believer’s life.” This definition pulls from many understandings in the early church and common themes official sacraments of the church. Since the important term as been defined it is possible to move on to how martyrdom can be considered a sacrament.

To make this more readable I am going to stop here and continue this line of thought in another post (or multiple posts).

Community and Prayer

2011-09-08T06:32:00.000-07:00

As I was reading the Joan Chittister's The Rule of Benedict: Insight for the Ages, which is her insights on the Rule of St. Benedict. It has daily readings and reflections on the Rule. Today's reading was from the 1st chapter where Benedict describes the different orders of monks. In reading this and Chittister's reflection they talk discuss the cenobite monks, in the discussion it comes up that these monks are in community and pray together in community, they lift each other up and sustain each other. She also reflected on the idea that spirituality does not develop in a vacuum. I have reflected on this before, but today it really hit me that I joined a monastic community because I cannot/do not pray or live out the spiritual life on my own very well. I might do well for a little bit or for a time, but at some point I fall or life consumes my time and prayer and mediation are one of the first things to go. But the community, be it church or monastery, is there to lift us up, keep us on the path, and keep us going.

There is an old tale in the monastic communities about what goes on in the monastery, a monk tells us that they fall down and then they get up, then they fall down and they get up again. So fall, everyone does it, I am guilty of it and I have been falling a lot lately, but this is my way of trying to get back up again. But getting up is hard, so lean on your support system, lean on the church, lean on your community, lean on your family. Let them pick you up and dust you off and then walk with you.

Benedict goes on to write about hermits. They have graduated from the monastery, they have passed the test of the monastery. They are ready to stand on the front lines of spiritual battle facing the great adversary in single combat. Most of us are not strong enough to stand against the world and the enemy by ourselves. We need the support and protection of our brothers and sisters. Like the Spartans of old whose shield mainly covered the solider standing next them; we stand together supporting and relying on our community to support us and cover us. We are not called to do this on our own, Jesus called us to put our burdens on him and take up his yoke. He step up the church to be a support structure for us as well.

It Has Been A While

2011-09-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I posted on here. Sorry about that life has a way of sneaking up on me and taking up a lot of time. Besides that I am not very creative and do not always have a lot to say (or at least I do not think it is important enough to share). But I am going to try and start writing more I think it will help me develop my writing skills and help me come up with more stuff to write about.

The purpose of the blog is not going to change much. I will still be sharing my insights from the saints, the source might change a little bit, I have shifted my study over to mainly martyrdom. So I will most likely be talking about my research in that regard. But I will still have some stuff on monasticism, early Christianity, and wisdom from the saints throughout the ages.

Right now I am trying to study for the GRE, learn Latin, and start applying for Ph.D. studies, all while dealing with a newborn baby, and holding down a full time job. I hope you will understand and forgive me if the blog is not updated too much. I will try to get at least one post up a week. I really do need to get back into the swing of thinking about things and writing those thoughts down (I will be using this to do that mainly, so they might not be complete thoughts [sorry]).

Classes have Started

2010-09-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a while since I posted on here, sorry for that. My classes have started and so my free time is being eaten up by reading, writing papers, and being in class.

But I am liking my new classes. I have some good classes this semester. I am taking a class on the Sacraments in History studying the sacraments and liturgies throughout history. I have already written a paper for this class and I will most likely be posting it on here. I also have a class called The Life of Prayer. In this class we are trying to learn to pray without ceasing and it is teaching a lot of new ways to pray. I will be making some book suggestions from this class. I have an Old Testament class it is a basic intro class, not really looking forward to this one. I did not need it I have the knowledge to skip past it but there are no other OT classes offered that are not exegesis and I do not really want to do that. I am also doing an independent study on St Clement of Alexandria, trying to break his books and teachings into systematic categories.

So far the classes are good and just a lot of reading and study time.

So here are some book suggestions.

Richard Foster Prayer it is a very good book on several different forms of prayer. I strongly suggest this book because I think it will help anyone to grow in prayer and learn to get close to God.

I know it is expensive but it is a great study of the liturgy and is still a standard text of study. Dix has looked at liturgy from the early church to the modern period.

On Obedience

2010-08-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

The rule is to be received cheerfully and worked out faithfully. This is to be done in obedience. Obedience can be hard because sometimes it goes against what we want to do. Once we grow up and live on our own it can be hard to be obedient again. As children obedience is easier, because we see that our parents love us and we grow to understand why they make the rules and say the things that they say. But after we have gained our independence and are on our own we are obedient only to our selves, this seed of self will and self obedience is quickly planted and grows strong quickly. I believe this is why it can be hard to live under the rule of obedience. Because we do not always have as close a relationship with a spiritual elder or sadly with God as we have with our parents. We may not grow to understand why the Abbot or God enforces some rule or say or do the things that they do or make us do. It can be easy to grow to resent obedience or the Rule, because we think we know what is best. However, Benedict and Christ call out to us to go and prune and even chop down the tree of self-will that we have let grow up in our heart during our time of independence.

Sharon and I have had this discussion and so I want to put it out there that this view on obedience is from my own limited perspective. I did not grow up in the church or in a family where God was the center of my life. So there was a time where I was the sole authority in my own life, or as far as I knew I was. This is however, not the case for all people. So it might be different for some of you reading this blog, but this does not change, how I have experienced obedience and how others in my position have experienced it.

Revelation about Prayer

2010-08-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a revelation about prayer. As I said in the "Welcome" post, I mentioned that I am a postulant to a Third Order monastic community. As a Benedictine monk it will be my job to pray. I had known this, but sometimes we don't really think about the implications of everything. Well in thinking about this I was glad that it will be my job to pray. I have then thought about it and realized that I like prayer. This is a somewhat new revelation to me. I think it is because I now know how to pray. Prayer was never something that I was taught or discipled how to do. I would talk at God instead of to God. I have now learned how to talk to God and to listen to him. I have learned how to put my mind, body, and thoughts into a place of prayer.

I will try to write more about this later when I have thought through and prayed through what this looks like and how I do it.

Reflections on the Rule of St Benedict 2

2010-08-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

“Now my discourse is directed to you, whoever you are, who renounce the movements of self-will and, being ready to fight for the Lord Christ, the true King, take up the strong and distinguished weapons of obedience.”

St Benedict is writing to whoever might read his rule. He encourages us to renounce our self-will. In renouncing our self will we are able to truly live under obedience; which is one of St Benedict’s principles. If I can stop doing what I want to do then I can do what God wants me to do. However, this also requires a lot of prayer and listening to the Lord. St Benedict is familiar with the spiritual war that takes place in the life of the Christian and the monk. He urges us his children to be ready to fight for Christ. We are going to have to fight against our self-will, against the devil, and against the world, these are the things that will try to usurp the authority of Christ in our life. I have had to fight with the self and the world in coming to the Rule. The self-will is lazy as the father has already pointed out and the world does not understand the ascetic. The devil is the hardest enemy to overcome as he uses the world and the self-will as temptations to distract us. St Benedict understands what will help us in this fight our weapons are obedience. We follow the Abbot has he follows the Master, who is Christ. Just as St Paul encourages his readers to follow after him as he follows Christ, so does the Abbot encourage the monks to follow him as he follows Christ.

“First, whenever you begin to do some good deed, ask [Christ] with most insistent prayer that he bring it to completion, in this way, [Christ] who has been pleased to count us in the number of his sons will not ever be grieved by our evil deeds.”

St Benedict urges the monks to start every good work with prayer, but not just prayer but most insistent prayer. He wants the monks to understand that whatever work they do is for the Lord Jesus, so as good servants they should ask for his blessing before starting a work to make sure that they remember who they do it for. Also to be sure that the work that they undertake is the work they should be doing. I have often times found myself almost done with a project or work to find that it was either not done in the right spirit, or more importantly that it was a work that the Lord did not want me to do, or that I was not called to. In some cases I had told many people that I was undertaking this or that work or project and then found in time that the project was not to be done at this time or that it was something that I was in fact not going to do. In praying insistently for the Lord to bring it to completion we learn if we are to do the work and we insure that the Lord knows that we plan to finish it and it will require his help and guidance to do so. In praying this way we are assured that we will not grieve the Lord. Also so those around us in the world do not see us with incomplete work and get the wrong impression of the Lord because of his workers. How many people have turned their back on the Lord or never approached him because of the evil and hypocritical actions of Christians.

Reflections on The Rule of St Benedict - Part 1

2010-07-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

This is the amazon.com link to the verison of the Rule of St Benedict that I am reading from. I find it to be a good modern translation with a lot of background information. Not just on Benedictine monasticism but also on the Desert Fathers and the development of monasticism.

Here I have my reflections on the first three sentences of the Rule. I apologize in advance for the length.

Prologue:

“Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” – St. Benedict is claiming those who would follow his rule. As we take on the mantle of the monk in the way of St. Benedict, we become his sons or daughters. We the saint’s children are encourage to listen carefully. Our father Benedict is going to give us instruction, which the Master has given him. He is going to teach us to live and we must listen. These instructions do not just come from St Benedict but from God, the Master. We cannot just listen to these with our ear but with the ear of our heart. We must listen to them with our very being. They must take up residence in us. These instructions cannot just live in our head with our busy thoughts and be stored there as information, to be forgotten or trampled underfoot by other thoughts that we might have about the world or any other matter. We must be like the Psalmist and hide the word in our heart so that we might not sin against the Rule and the Master who has given it (Psalm 119:11).

Our Father St Benedict

“This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice.” – St Benedict claims us as our father. He assures us that he loves us. He loves those who would come after him and love God. This is the attitude of a true saint to love those who love God. He encourages us his sons to welcome the rule. By doing this we will welcome God into our lives. We will give up our own will and take on the will of the community. We will take on the will of God. Those who would follow it need to put it into practice. Instructions and actions start in the mind, but as above they cannot stay there the mind is too busy. They must move to the heart, where the saint asks us to store his Rule and where God seeks for us to store his word. But even then we are not done. If something is only in the heart it is like lighting a lamp and hiding it in a jar (Luke 8:16). Things stored in the heart must move to the hands, they must be put into practice they must move us to action. Jesus tells us that we must cloth the naked, visit the sick, feed the hungry, etc (Matthew 25:34-40) . St James warns of the dangers of having faith only, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17) In the same way the teachings of God come to us by our mind, move into our heart and take up residence, and are then carried out by our hands.

“The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience.” – The father gives one aspect of his rule here, obedience. It would seem for too long many people have lived in disobedience or without someone to be obedient to. Early monks did not have an abbot or master they lived in their cells figuring things out for themselves. They might go to a spiritual guide for a word every once in a while or some might put themselves under the authority of some monk. But it would seem form Benedict’s experience many were set in their own ways not in the way of God. The monk did what he liked and was an abbot unto himself. Benedict looks to put a stop to this and bring his sons under authority, not to himself but to him whom they had drifted from, God. And it is because they were slothful. He will give the monks work.

Welcome

2010-07-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. The purpose of this blog like so many others is to help me organize my thoughts and try to share what I am learning about the various subjects that I will be writing on. I invite you to come along for the ride. I am sorry for any bumps that there might be on the way. I know that not everything I write will be perfect or make sense to everyone that reads this blog, for that I apologize before hand.

This blog will be about my reflections on what I am learning from those great men and women of God who have gone before us. Who are now shining lights guiding us home from this dark world in which we live. In other words this blog is about what the Christian Saints have taught me about God, life, and holiness. Many of the topics on the blog will be my personal reflections on the Rule of St Benedict , the sayings of the Desert Fathers, the writings of St Clement of Alexandria, C.S. Lewis, and various other authors. I will also reflect on the different ways I am learning to pray, such as the Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina, Contemplation, Listening Prayer, and various other methods.

Allow me to introduce myself, I am Jesse T. Alexander IV, but you most likely already knew that, since if you are reading this your are either my family or friend. I am a student at Asbury Theological Seminary working on a Masters in Theological Studies. Very soon I will be applying to Ph.D. programs in Church History or Historical Theology, my main focus will be martyrdom, more specifically the cult of the saints and martyrs. I am a postualtant in the Company of Jesus, a Third Order Anglican monastic order, I am in the Benedictine order. I live in Nicholasville, KY with my wife, our dog and cat. I attend a newly planted church, called St Aidan's Anglican Church, lead by the Rev. Lee McLeod IV, CJ.

Allow me to now pray that the Triune God will bless us on our journey together however long or short it maybe. Almighty God, Father of all mercies, be merciful to your servant as I write, watch over me and keep me from grave error. Lord open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise. I pray for all readers that they might be encouraged or their walk stregthened. Father, let your will be done here and in the whole world. Lord Jesus watch over us, keep us from all deception. Holy Spirit come upon your servants and move in us. We ask all this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and regins with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.