St. Rafe's

The Holy Rosary: Offending and Grounding Sensibilities

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 13:14:00 +0000

Pious bric-a-brac.

To many who are not Catholic and to some who are, the rosary, which we celebrate today, is perhaps the most ubiquitously offensive thing left in Catholicism. Today, we commemorate the victory of Lepanto, where tradition says thousands of people fingering beads hundreds and thousands of miles from the battle played a role as decisive as ships and cannons. That’s uncomfortably superstitious sounding stuff to the modern mind.

Other devotions went into eclipse as the fads and fashions of modernity stripped much of the material grounding from our religion, but the beads remained as comforting tokens and reminders of promises. The beads and the other sacramentals call us outside of ourselves and ground us. They have the salutary effect of reminding us that Catholicism is a religion of acts, not merely of thoughts and theological argument. They are a sign of contradiction in that they are material, and yet they remind us that the concerns of our religion can never be merely a program of material and human development. They speak at the deepest level of our humanity and, while derided for leading to superstition, their role in grounding us and protecting us from falling too far into our own intellectual fantasies and fancies is too often overlooked.

There is a tremendous hunger in the world for traditions of material religion that have been lost in the last 50 years. A trip to any national chain bookstore will offer the browser ten varieties of tarot decks, crystal kits, the I Ching, dream journals and catchers, and how-to books on making charms and talismans and the secrets of candle magic. But you probably won’t find a breviary, much less the Raccolta with its indulgenced prayers and acts. The world is buying, but for too long Christianity has stopped selling. Under Pope Benedict, it looked as if we might see the day when Barnes and Noble had an aisle crammed with St. Joseph home sale kits, votive candles, Miraculous Medals, prayer books, rosaries and all of the other things from which progress was to liberate us and yet our spirits still crave, but the new administration in Rome seems to be much more of the poster, book, and record variety.

As a former monk, I don’t have the devotion to the rosary that many others do. Monks believe that we will work out much of our salvation in the turning of pages rather than in the counting of beads. Those of us with a devotion to the Divine Office often make much of the difference between the glories of the Breviary and mere “devotions” like the rosary, but, stepping back, I think I probably have to admit that the distinction is lost on the outsider.

Even for all of the liturgical and aesthetic sobriety that marked life as a Cistercian, we still did a heavy business in material religion. We had a particular devotion to the Cult of the Relics and the Cult of the Dead, but sacramentals and other blessed objects also grounded the life of the house throughout the year. The Church year began with the advent wreath in the refectory. At Epiphany, we blessed salt, water, and chalk and blessed the house. At Candlemas, there was the blessing of candles, followed closely by the blessing of throats on St. Blaise’s Day. On St. Agatha’s Day, we blessed bread. On Ash Wednesday, there was the imposition of blessed ashes. At Easter, we blessed fire and water then eggs and food. At Assumption, we blessed herbs. On St. Francis Day there was one blessing of animals, followed by the blessing of the horses on Martinmas. At professions we blessed habits, cappas, and cowls. Each day ended with being aspersed with holy water by the prior after Compline. Rather than standing in opposition, these were the things that balanced and give ballast to the hours spent in lectio divina and mental prayer that most people find much more palatable.

In the wider world, the Rosary has survived. Ultimately, I think that can be attributed to Our Lady, but proximately it was often thanks to the determination of Saturday morning sodalities of feisty, pious old ladies, whom even the most renewed pastor was hoping to outlive rather than have to tangle with. And, after all, it was something that they could do on their own. But they and their beads didn’t die. The beads carried the Church through the worst of the storm. And so today, give thanks to Our Lady of the Rosary and also for feisty old ladies who may well have carried the day, just as they did at Lepanto.

Our Lady of the Snow

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 13:11:00 +0000

West end of Rome's St. Mary Major.

Today's feast, which has a particularly pleasant title in the depths of southern summer, marks the dedication of St. Mary Major, Rome's great church of the Virgin. From the Middle Ages until 1969, this feast was kept under the title of Our Lady of the Snow in memory of the legend that the Virgin herself caused a snow to fall on August 5th on the site where the basilica should stand and that its outline was traced in the snow by Pope Liberius.* The Miracle of the Snow is still commemorated at the Basilica on August 5, when a shower of white rose petals falls from the basilica's coffered ceiling.

The legend of the miraculous snow only arose several centuries after the building of the Basilica and one Church commission had recommended that it be removed from the Breviary as early as 1741, but the legend remained in place in the annual reading until 1969. It ran as follows:

Under the pontificate of Liberius, John, a Roman patrician, and his wife who was of an equally noble race, having no children to whom they might leave their estates, vowed their whole fortune to the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, begging her most earnestly and continually to make known to them by some means in what pious work she wished them to employ the money. The Blessed Virgin Mary graciously heard their heartfelt prayers and vows, and answered them by a miracle.

On the nones of August, usually the hottest time of the year in Rome, a part of the Esquiline hill was covered with snow during the night. That same night, the Mother of God appeared in a dream to John and his wife separately, and told them to build a church on the spot they should find covered with snow, and to dedicate it to the Virgin Mary; for it was in this manner that she wished to become their heiress. John related this to Pope Liberius who said that he had dreamt the same thing.

The reliquary of the crib in the Sistine Chapel.

He went therefore with a solemn procession of priests and people to the snow-clad hill, and chose the site of a church which was built with the money of John and his wife. It was afterwards rebuilt by Sixtus III. At first it was called by different names, the Liberian Basilica, St. Mary at the Crib. But since there are many churches in Rome dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and as this one surpasses all other basilicas in dignity and by its miraculous beginning, it is distinguished from them also by the title St. Mary Major. On account of the miraculous fall of snow, the anniversary of the dedication is celebrated by a yearly solemnity.

Aside from how pleasant it is to imagine a snowfall in August at the height of Southern summer, there is something quite appealing about the idea of something as solid as a great basilica mapped out by something as transitory as a snowfall. We are always tracing outlines of things to be, some of which come to pass and some of which are entirely illusory. It is also quite easy to get a bit jealous of clear instructions falling down from on high and to wish that God would precipitate all of our actions.

Alone among Rome's patriarchal basilicas, Mary Major has kept its original form, though it is now encased in several centuries of accretions. Two of Rome's greatest treasures are kept in chapels on either side of the high altar. The Borghese chapel houses the icon of Salus Populi Romani, Rome's beloved icon of the Virgin, which legend attributes to the hand of St. Luke. The Sistine Chapel contains the relics of the crib, brought from the Holy Land by Pope Theodore in the seventh century. Throughout the church, one finds fine examples of Christian art from almost every century.

There are more photos of Mary Major here from a trip a few years ago.

_____________________

* The Latin is "Sancta Maria ad nives," which would literally be "Our Lady of the Snows," but in English, since we are talking about one snowfall, that seems a bit like translating "cervi" as "deers." I will admit that is a subjective point, as translation often is.

Progressive Christian Social Media: Is It Truthful? Is It Kind? Is It Necessary?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:38:00 +0000

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.
-I John 4:18-19

The other morning I had five or so religion posts in my Facebook feed. The messages largely ran in the vein of “You awful haters out there don’t understand love, justice, and compassion the way real Christians like me do.” Sadly, I find that online progressive Christianity seems to be as fearful and as anger and stereotype-driven as the familiar caricatures of fundamentalism. The language is peace and justice, but the subtext is too often the fear of the other and an appeal to the right-thinkingness of the progressive in-group. Friends, Sister Bertha Better-than-You is a turn off whether she’s wearing a button from MoveOn or from the Family Research Council. That is unless your goal is to gain the hearty agreement of those who already agree with you at the expense of hardening the lines of division.

One thing for which I will always be grateful from my 16 years working for the Quakers is experiencing their very serious commitment to loving everyone. Friends are far from perfect, as they will readily attest, but they take very seriously their beliefs that, ultimately, no one is an enemy and that “There is that of God in every person.” Foregoing demonizing those with whom one disagrees is a tall order to be sure, but this focus on looking for a future in which we all stand together redeemed and whole radically alters one’s perspective. It was certainly quite an eye-opener for someone with a particularly cutting mouth, a love of mockery, and who very much likes to win. I am afraid that, for the most part, I failed to be transformed, but the principle maintains its power in my thinking, especially when I think about speech in the public square.

Too much progressive Christian rhetoric in social media centers on trumpeting our own rightness and winning the likes and shares of those who agree with us rather than in changing hearts and minds. We all do it and I am painfully aware of how many more likes I get for writing about politics than about some obscure saint, but, as someone who sees a lot of liberal and conservative religious diatribes coming across my screen, the only difference between the two is usually in the buzzwords. The level of vitriol is about the same. We dig ourselves deeper into our own little holes and push others further away. That will never lead to a future where the lion lies down with the lamb and the child shall play on the hole of the asp. It won’t even lead to a future where we can be civil to the guy next door with the wrong bumper sticker.

One of my mentors when I first began working for the Quakers would say that we should run our words through the three sieves before we speak them. (She had more than one occasion to make this point to me.) The idea of the three sieves has several versions and attributions, but I remember them in what I think is the way that SaraSue put them to me. Before we speak, she would say, we must ask of ourselves is it truthful? is it kind? is it necessary? To put it another way we must ask:

1. Do I have my facts straight or am I actually uninformed or consciously bending reality to match my rhetoric?

2.Am I saying this out of genuine concern or to wound?

3.Does saying this help the situation, especially if I am saying it in a public forum?

When I was a communications director, I kept a piece of paper with the sieves thumb tacked to the wall behind my desk. I still missed the mark, but that little piece of paper made me write or say something better many times. The world and the internet would be better places if we all did even a moderately better job of this. I have certainly let my own standard fall now that I am not a spokesperson for an organization or a member of a religious order.

We seem to be on the verge of becoming a nation of people living in bunkers connected by fiber optic cable to like-minded people living in bunkers of their own. After all, why go talk to the people at the bar down the street, who believe Lord-knows-what, when there’s someone in New Zealand who agrees with me on everything and likes, shares, and comments on all of my posts? I am afraid that is generally a sign that love has not cast out fear--the fear of being wrong, the fear of having to change, the fear of leaving our comfort zones. Too often, progressive Christians want to live in the purity and unanimity we find so appalling in our more conservative co-religionists, whom we make into straw men in our posts and memes.

What if instead, we measured our words and our tone and tried to talk to rather than about each other? And, rather than contributing to the polarization asked, “Is it truthful? Is it kind? Is it necessary?” At the very least, what if instead posting our latest rant on our Facebook wall for the whole world to see, we sent it to a friend as a private message and did our part to cut down on the internet’s smog of smug? These are small things and nothing that our mothers and grandmothers didn’t try to teach us, but they might make a bigger difference than we think.

How would your day be different if the next time you logged into Facebook you only read two or three angry posts about the state of the world instead of six or seven? The residual effects of all of that frenetic righteousness out there may be ruining your day more than you realize.

As is often the case, Tom Lehrer said something similar both first and funnier:

Our Lady on Saturday: Sancta Maria

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 14:38:00 +0000

Lady Altar, Abbaye de Fontfriode.

Holy Mary,
Help the suffering:
Strengthen the fainthearted;
Pray for the people;
Entreat for the clergy;
Intercede for all women
Vowed to God.

Marian Antiphon at Vespers for the Season from
Pentecost to Advent in the Cistercian Breviary

A Throne Fit for the King of Kings

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 31 May 2013 13:41:00 +0000

As a postgame note on the Feast of Corpus Christi, I thought of a monstrance, but not just any monstrance. In 2009, I had the good fortune to go to the south of France for the wedding of my friends Rachel and Sebastian. Ticket prices worked out so that the best route that summer was to fly into Barcelona a couple of days early, giving me a chance to look around that amazing city. As you might imagine, this involved crawling through many medieval churches.

I I had already been thoroughly impressed with Barcelona's cathedral when I made my way into the treasury off the cloister, but I was entirely unprepared for the Great Custodia, with its three sections standing more than five feet tall. Spanish cities are known for their large processional monstrances or custodia and Barcelona was particularly known for its fine work in gold and silver. The Custodia of Barcelona is the intersection of the two.

The monstrance proper is a triumph of 14th Century goldsmith's work. It sits on a silver gilt chair known as the throne chair of King Martin the Humane, though the chair, at least in its present form, is probably of a later date than the reign of King Martin, likely dating from the second half of the 15th Century. Above, there are two royal crowns. Over the centuries, contributions of jewels by the faithful, some of them of incredible quality, have come to cover a large portion of its surfaces. More than 2000 pearls and 1200 diamonds adorn the Custodia in addition to numerous other jewels.

Several pieces are displayed in the same case, including some particularly fine pectoral crosses and several larger jewels that can be affixed to the Custodia.

A jeweled sash in a nearby case, another royal gift, was fitted to be fastened around the throne-chair.

This sort of beauty and extravagance can still re-ignite the battle of the alabaster box--"Surely this could be sold and the money used to fund a five-year pilot program to demonstrate the effectiveness of ...." Thankfully, this does not seem to be an issue in Barcelona, which even as it continues to experiment with various architectural and artistic styles, seems to have never lost its love of beauty. Unlike many pieces of this caliber that spend their days in museum cases, the Custodia of Barcelona is still used each year in the city's main Corpus Christi procession. The Custodia invites us to consider the power of a faith that is not too intellectually proud to encompass a fairly literal interpretation of "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Corpus Christi and the Mass as Worship and Instruction

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 May 2013 12:59:00 +0000

The Rev'd Basil Maturin.

The Rev’d Basil Maturin has always been a great favorite of mine. An Episcopal priest who once served at my old parish in Philadelphia, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and in 1913 was appointed the Catholic chaplain to Oxford University. In 1915 he made a successful preaching tour of the United States, booking a return passage on the Lusitania. As the ship began to sink, he was seen moving among the passengers giving absolution. He did not take a life belt for himself and was last seen handing a child into a lifeboat with the words, "Find its mother."

Unlike many converts of his generation, Maturin resisted the temptation to browbeat his former compatriots with his new-found faith and he never lost his sense of mystery and beauty, the Anglican Oxford Movement’s great gift to nineteenth-century Christianity. As we approach the Feast of Corpus Christi tomorrow, when we remember the institution of the Mass, I always think of Maturin’s description of the Most Blessed Sacrament as being both worship and instruction:

Till the Truth has gone down into the heart and burns there like fire, and breathes there like air, it is lifeless. Now it is in worship that we learn our faith as we are drawn closer and closer to its Author; the learned man with his cultured mind kneels beside the beggar who cannot read, yet both believe the same. Now the Blessed Sacrament is the concentration of faith and worship, it is the presentation of the great dogmas of our faith in the language of the heart.

Our Lord Himself prescribed one and only one form of worship in which all the great doctrines of our faith were taught. To that he bid men come to be taught almost unconsciously. Two great doctrines sum up Christian faith and life: God becomes man and gives us His nature.

I can't doubt the meaning when I hear This is My Body. Other religions profess to satisfy the religious instinct: Christianity to give a gift to heal us—this is the life of Christ. Therefore the Altar has always protected the supernatural teaching of Christianity. If, then, we believe this, if Christianity is the fulfillment of the religious aspirations of humanity, if it is the divine means whereby God has chosen to reveal Himself to man, every detail of the Christian worship and teaching becomes of the utmost importance, for it safeguards the great truths of revelation.

Melchizedek offers bread and wine.

Fr. Faber on Aridity in Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 May 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Frederick Faber, the great hymn writer of Faith of Our Fathers fame, wrote on many topics. Earlier today, I ran across some verses he wrote on aridity in prayer. Aridity is the demon that is always lurking for those of us who attempt to keep some regular discipline of the Divine Office and/or mental prayer. There are the days when prayer is easy and full of consolation and then there are those when dry words stick to the roofs of our mouths and mental prayer seems to be no more than an echo chamber of our jumbled thoughts.

Faber was neither a systematic nor an ascetic theologian. He wrote practical advice for those living in the world, often in the forms of hymns that served as catechesis on various aspects of the Christian life. He once said, “Faith is letting down our nets into the transparent deeps at the Divine command, not knowing what we shall take.” His advice on aridity in prayer is very much in the same spirit, seeing what seems to us to be fruitless as an opportunity for grace.

O for the happy days gone by,

When love ran smooth and free,

Days when my spirit so enjoyed

More than earth's liberty!

Then, when I knelt to meditate,

Sweet thoughts came o'er my soul,

Countless and bright and beautiful,

Beyond my own control.

What can have locked those fountains up ?

Those visions what hath stayed?

What sudden act hath thus transformed

My sunshine into shade?

This freezing heart, O Lord! this will,

Dry as the desert sand,

Good thoughts that will not come, bad thoughts

That come without command,—

But if this weariness hath come

A present from on high,

Teach me to find the hidden wealth

That in its depths may lie.

Thrice blessed be this darkness then,

This deep in which I lie,

And blessed be all things that teach
God's dear supremacy!

Richard, First Abbot of Fountains

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:41:00 +0000

The ruins of Fountains. Thanks, Henry.

It has been a while since I have run across something so long that it needed to be posted here rather than on Facebook and the end of the semester has slowed me down in general, but one of the entries in yesterday's section of the Menology was that for Richard, fist abbot of Fountains in Yorkshire. I will draw no contemporary moral for the story, though I'm sure there is more than one to be found about perseverence in adversity, etc. Chalk this one up to just because.

In England, Blessed Richard, first Abbot of Fountains. He had been Prior of St. Mary’s of York when the thirst of leading a more perfect life urged him to leave that house, along with twelve associates, to follow the Rule of Citeaux. The had the happy encouragement of our Father St. Bernard, who wrote to them stating that is was indeed easier to find a multitude of seculars converted to a good life than to witness a religious pass to a better observance. He even sent them the Monk Geoffrey of Ainai to initiate them into our discipline. Under his guidance, they began to build cabins, and to chant, as the old monk instructed them. Yet, for two years, they had to suffer the hardship of of so great poverty that their food consisted in the leaves of trees and wild herbs. Finally, as history records, the Lord multiplied the brethren and, enlarging his vineyard, shed therein the dew of his benediction, so that the monastery materially increased in possessions, and, much more, spiritually in sanctity. Its name became very famous, and the Princes of the land revered it. However, Blessed Richard went to receive a still better reward in Heaven, and to enjoy forever the glory merited by his labors and virtues.

Richard died at Rome while attending the Second Lateran Council. Perhaps the moral of the story is that, despite the best of intentions, one is never beyond the reach and, perhaps, allure of bureaucracy and intrigue.

The Annunciation and the HIC Town of Nazareth

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

I
Inscription on the Altar of the Annunciation.

We know from the scriptures that Nazareth was a hick town (i.e. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”), but when I was there in the fall of 2006, I found it to be a hic town, as in the Latin for “here.” On the altar in the Basilica of the Annunciation, the inscription reads, “Verbum caro hic factum est”: “The Word was made flesh here.”

Nazareth.

Bethlehem is overshadowed by the tableau of the wise men and the heavenly host; the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem radiates the drama of the salvation; but the holy sites of Nazareth have a homely hic that may convey the reality of the incarnation more than those greater sites. It was here that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. It was here that he spent most of his life, here that his family lived.

Ritual bath in the crypt of the Church of St. Joseph.

The grotto of the Annunciation in the Latin Basilica is built on the traditional site of Mary’s house. The Church of St. Joseph is built over the traditional site of the house where the Holy Family lived and in the crypt you can look down a shaft to see the tiled floor of its ritual bath. The Greek Cathedral stands over the site of the well where Mary drew water. Every place seems to cry out hic! There is none of the grandeur of Rome’s great churches and the shrines here lack the anthill bustle of the Holy Sepulcher. Instead, there are an infinity of little hiccups, from places associated with the Lord’s childhood to the precipice where the adult Jesus was rejected by his fellow townsmen.

The Church of Mary's Well.

It becomes just a bit harder to remake God in our own image in the face of these commonplace remembrances. In Nazareth, the Word defers to the reality of the flesh. Here God took on humanity, and Mary treasured up all of these things in her heart.

The Precipice.

Low Sunday: Are We Afraid Not to Be Doubting Thomases?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:07:00 +0000

An old sermon for Low Sunday from seminary days asking fellow progressives whether they really doubt the resurrection or whether they actually fear the consequences of not doubting. Many people certainly doubt, but I think there are also many educated folks who fear the social and intellectual consequences of believing.

* * *

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, . . . but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

For many years it has been fashionable among some preachers to portray Thomas as the romantic doubting everyman. In my tradition's lectionary, today's gospel is the same for all years on the second Sunday of Easter. Each year I dread what sort of homey portrayal of Thomas to which I may find myself subjected. Or how I might be told that Thomas's doubts are like my own grapplings.

It seems all too rare that we reflect that Saint John uses the empirical Thomas's doubt as a foil for Thomas's subsequent confession, "My Lord and My God," which is the capstone of the fourth Gospel. Thomas's confession finishes the declaration of John 1:1 that "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." The confession is the climax of the story, not the skepticism.

While garden variety Thomas sermons annoy me, I recognize the reality to which they speak. In my years at Harvard I have had discussion section with Thomas. I have been Thomas. Like the doubting apostle, our community is better known for what we can liberate, demythologize, and deconstruct than it is known for what we confess. Too often, however, I question the honesty of some of our doubt.

I do not question that many of us confess particular creeds, but I know that too often we have a reticence to speak of them. We fear whom we might offend. We fear who might ridicule us. We fear that we may find ourselves on the community’s margins.

Many of us spend evenings and weekends in convents and covens, but in our common life we seem to be afraid to transcend being clever. We speak in the language of doubt and inquiry though many of us were brought here by faith.

We are like Schopenhauer’s porcupines. The philosopher tells the story of a group of porcupines caught in the open during a winter storm. As the night progressed and the temperature dropped, the porcupines moved closer together for warmth. As they moved closer, their quills began to prick one another. The closer the porcupines drew together, the greater the pain. Some, no longer able to bear the agony, dropped our of the circle as the night progressed, but when morning came, only those who had drawn together despite of the discomfort had survived.

We must become all too willing to risk discomfort and blood loss if we are to make our years in Andover Hall worthwhile. We must risk confession. Each week this chapel is the site of Zen meditation, Mass, and many other forms of prayer, but how often do we take that spirit beyond these doors and into our halls? How often do we feign Thomistic objectivity, then confess in some upper room? We like Thomas must engage our fellow porcupines. Thomas did not believe the first reports of the resurrection, but he remained willing to return to the company of the disciples for a second time.

For the most part, we have not come to Harvard Divinity School for ourselves only. Many of us are preparing for lives as priests, preachers, advocates, and educators. How comfortable are we with letting our particular lights shine? Have we hidden our lights under a basket of detached discourse or have we illuminated others? In speaking of our beliefs, have we too often settled for being clever when we could have been clear?

I recently reread Emerson’s "Divinity School Address." Emerson warns the senior class of 1838 against the formalism which he feels has weakened the church. He says:

To this holy office you propose to devote yourselves, I wish you may feel your call in throbs of desire and hope. . . For all our penny wisdom . . . it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts We mark with light the memories of the few interviews we have had with souls that made our souls wiser . . . that gave us leave to be what we inly were.

Like poor maligned Thomas, Emmerson's contemporaries seized upon what he doubted, not the vision that he confessed. What formalisms and etiquette do we hide behind that keep our colleagues and peers from seeing the confession behind the critiques?

Emerson would, I think, share my impatience with the current Tommy-rot. After Thomas's confession, Christ answers him:

Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Blessed are we when honest inquiry leads us to risk speaking from faith. Blessed are we when we transcend being clever.

Christians now enjoy the season of Easter, the great 50 day feast of the resurrection. As my Christian brothers and sisters and those of other faiths celebrate the possibilities of new life in this season , I ask that we search our souls for the boldness and vulnerability in each of us that could transform our community. I encourage you to risk the quills. I ask that we may all overcome our crutch of detachment and liberate Thomas from the homiletic hell of doubt.

Amen.

Richard Weaver on Simplicity as Barbarism

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:41:00 +0000

As the liturgy wars heat up once again, I am reminded of this favorite passage from Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences in which he proposes that calls for simplicity are often symptoms of a narcissistic personality:

"It is characteristic of the barbarian … to insist upon seeing a thing “as it is.” The desire testifies that he has nothing in himself with which to spiritualize it; the relation is one of thing to thing without the intercession of the imagination. Impatient of the veiling with which the man of higher type gives the world imaginative meaning, the barbarian and the Philistine, who is the barbarian living amid culture, demands the access of immediacy. Where the former wishes representation, the latter insists upon starkness of materiality, suspecting rightly that forms will mean restraint. . . .

"Every group regarding itself as emancipated is convinced that its predecessors were fearful of reality. It looks upon euphemisms and all the veils of decency with which things were previously draped as obstructions which it, with superior wisdom and praiseworthy courage, will now strip away. Imagination and indirection it identifies with obscurantism; the mediate is an enemy to freedom. . . .

"All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion. . . .

". . . or, when these veils are stripped aside, we find no reality behind them, or, at best, we find a reality of such commonplaceness that we would willingly undo our little act of brashness. Those will realize, who are capable of reflection, that the reality excites us is an idea, of which the indirection, the veiling, the withholding, is part. It is our various supposals about a matter which give it meaning, and not some intrinsic property which can be seized in the barehanded fashion of the barbarian."

My Sleep Will Rouse You From Your Sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:11:00 +0000

From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday

Something strange is happening--there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: "My Lord be with you all" Christ answered him: "And with your spirit." He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: "Awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light"

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, a sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I whose home is above the heavens, descended to earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of the human race, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden,. I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God is worshiped. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Sung Mass for Easter Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:17:00 +0000

Sung Mass for Easter Sunday

The Oratory of St. Raphael - St. Rafe's

6:00 p.m., Sunday March 31
St. Martin's Chapel
Fayetteville, Akansas

Dinner to follow at John's
Directions and More Info

Support the Good Friday Collection for the Holy Land

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:56:00 +0000

Children in the Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem.

The photo above is from rough little flash movie I made six years ago asking friends to support the Good Friday collection for the Church in the Holy Land. It's about 2 minutes long and I hope you'll take the time to watch it.

Watch the movie. >>>

No matter what your politics, it's hard to disagree that our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land need our help now as much as ever or the Christian presence there may one day disappear entirely. Your gift to the Good Friday Collection will support schools and medical facilities and help keep roofs over families' heads. It will sustain communities whose existence have been a witness to hope for 100 generations.

The photos in the movie above are from my visit to Israel and Palestine 2006. They are certainly not the most sensational pictures I took. The images could all be of tanks, demolished houses, and young men with guns, but I think these catch not only the seriousness of the present situation, but also the dignity with which the these communities meet it.

The sound track is the congregation at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazereth singing the Lord's Prayer in Arabic. When the congregation began to sing this, it came home to me that these are the descendants of those first Christians who have kept their faith and identity through 1400 years as an embattled minority.

On my way out of Mass, an old woman took both of my hands in hers and said, "Pray for us." At several other times, people I met asked me to go home and tell people what I had seen. Sharing this short clip with you is part of keeping that promise.

Please give generously today and ask your friends and loved ones to do the same.

Watch the movie. >>>

Learn more about the Christian Communities of the Holy Land. >>>

The Stations of the Cross with photos from the Via Dolorosa >>>

Christ the Paschal Lamb

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:34:00 +0000

From a paschal homily by St. Melito of Sardis read at Tenebrae of Maundy Thursday:

There was much proclaimed by the prophets about the mystery of the Passover; that mystery is Christ. and to him be glory for ever and ever, amen.

For the sake of suffering humanity he came down from heaven to earth, clothed himself in that humanity in the Virgin's womb, and was born a man. Having then a body capable of suffering, he took the pain of those who suffered on himself. He overcame the sufferings of the flesh and by his Spirit, which was incapable of dying, he dealt murderous death a fatal blow.

He was led forth like a lamb; he was slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed us from our servitude to the world as he had ransomed Israel from the land·of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil as he had freed Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. He sealed our souls with his own Spirit and the members of our body with his own blood.

He is the One who covered death with shame and cast the devil into mourning, as Moses cast Pharaoh into mourning. He is the One who smote sin and robbed iniquity of offspring, as Moses robbed the Egyptians of their offspring. He is the One who brought us out of slavery into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of tyranny into an eternal kingdom, who made us a new priesthood, a people chosen to be his own for ever. He is the Passover that is our salvation.

It is he who endured every kind of suffering in all those who foreshadowed him. In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificedin the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.

It is he who was made man of the Virgin, he who was hung on the tree; it is he who was buried in the earth, raised from the dead. and taken up to the heights of heaven. He is the mute Lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the flock. dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night. On the tree no bone of his was broken; in the earth his body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who raised us from the depths of the tomb.

R. IN THE BREAD see the Body which hung on the Cross: in the Chalice behold the Blood which streamed from His opened side: * And so, take and eat of the Body of Christ; take and drink of the Blood of Christ.

V. For as often as you do this, you proclaim the Lord's death, until He comes.
R. And so, take and eat ofthe Body of Christ; take and drink of the Blood of Christ.

Leo the Great on the Man of Dust and the Man of Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:42:00 +0000

Tenth Station of the Cross, St. Mary's Church, Altus, Arkansas.

From a homily by Pope St. Leo the Great:

I think that the instructions I have given you about our share in Christ's cross have sufficiently shown how the paschal mystery should enter into the very life of the faithful and how our daily conduct should be a proclamation of what we honor at the Easter festival. You yourselves have experienced the value of this participation, and you have learned by your Lenten exercises how much both soul and body have to gain from extended fasting, prolonged prayers, and increased generosity in almsgiving. There is scarcely anyone who has not been enriched by these practices, and who has not preserved in the depths of his memory something in which he may justifiably rejoice.

Since, then, the aim of our forty days' observance has been to experience some share in the sufferings of the cross, we must also strive to share in Christ's resurrection, and to pass from death to life while we are yet in this mortal body.

The result of our undergoing a conversion from one state to another is that we cease to be what we were and begin to be something more. But the end of our dying or living is of the utmost importance, for there is a death that brings life, and a life that brings death. It is only in this fleeting world that both are sought together, so that the difference in our future rewards depends upon the quality of our present actions. We must therefore be dead to Satan and alive to God; we must abandon sin in order to rise to holiness. And since Truth himself says: No one can serve two masters, let our master be the Lord who has raised up the fallen to glory, not the one who has brought the upright to ruin.

The Apostle tells us: The first man came from the earth, a man of dust: the second man is from heaven. As the man of dust was, so are those who are of the dust; and as the man of heaven is, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have been fashioned after the man of dust, so we shall also be fashioned after the man of heaven. There is therefore every reason for us to rejoice at this exchange, which translates us from earthly disrepute to heavenly honor through the untold mercy of him who descended to our level in order to lift us up to his, by assuming not only the reality of our human nature but also its sinful condition, and allowing his divine impassibility to be assailed by all the sufferings which are our mortal lot.

From the First Sermon on the Lord's Resurrection
Reading for the Second Lesson of Vigils for Monday in Holy Week

His Blood Be Upon Us: A Sermon for Palm Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:28:00 +0000

I preached this Palm Sunday sermon more than a decade ago, but reading back through it, I think it still may have something to say to someone about the various places we find ourselves taking in the crowds who formed the chorus of Holy Week.

* * *

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in a turmoil asking, “Who is this?”

In the name of the FATHER and of the SON and of the HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN.

Today’s two gospels present a Sunday’s triumph and a Friday execution.

Some of those who on Sunday exclaimed “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” were the same ones who stood in front of Pilate’s judgment seat on Friday shouting, “Let him be crucified.... His blood be on us and on our children.”

But Jesus knew this was the way that it would be. Before entering the city in triumph, he has three times predicted what will happen in Jerusalem. Even as he is teaching in the temple before his arrest, he pointedly rebukes the scribes and Pharisees to the crowd saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! ... you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

In some places it is customary to feast the night before a fast begins. This is done not to tide the person over, but so that the pangs of hunger will be more intense. Jesus’ triumphal entry is like this -— to be gorged with adulation, knowing at the time that he will soon die as a criminal, almost entirely deserted even by those closest to him.

Think of the bittersweet undercurrent of that last meal with his disciples who still believe that all is well. Think of the anguish as he prayed alone in the garden, the sounds of hosanna still fresh in his ears but waiting for the guards to come find him there.

In the same way, Palm Sunday or the Sunday of the Passion is a feast to heighten our fast.

Today, we stand at the gate of Holy Week. We have almost passed through our season of preparation and stand ready to recall the events we believe led to the salvation of the world. The readings of the crucifixion and triumphal entry forewarn us of the pain of Good Friday and the joy of Easter.

In the Middle Ages, this designation was clearer. Palm Sunday was in various places known as “The Mass of Shaved Heads” because those who were being prepared for baptism at Easter had their heads shaved bare on this day. In some places it was called “The Mass of Traditional Symbols” because it was on this day that the baptismal candidates were taught the creed and thus learned the traditional formulation of faith in the value of Christ’s death and resurrection. Today warns us of the seriousness of what is to come.

There is also a longer arc in which we must participate, one that stretches beyond Holy Week and into the age to come. We must listen to today’s proceedings as if we were members of that fickle crowd. Even as we believe that we will be citizens of a new Jerusalem, we must see that we too can wave a palm branch then shout murder. In that same passage where Jesus is teaching in the temple he says of the scribes and Pharisees:

Woe to you ... for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

I am sure that the disciples who were listening didn’t include themselves in that group in any way, even though they would soon desert Jesus and flee, even though Peter would deny him three times.

Today’s liturgy reminds us that we are the crowd in the story in need of salvation, that we are mercurial creatures who cannot save ourselves. In today’s readings, the crowd, at first, seems to have a bit part, but the whole drama is for them.

Today when we purify or bless something, we use incense or sprinkle holy water. In ancient times, the priest who wanted to expiate sin or impurity sprinkled the blood of a sacrifice.

This is the drama of the crowd’s part in the trial of Jesus before Pilate. In calling for Jesus’ execution, they urge Pilate on saying “His blood be on us and on our children.” In later centuries, this verse was used to justify atrocities against Jews, but in this scene in Matthew, the crowd in front of Pilate stands in for all of humanity. Only the night before Jesus has said, “this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” We are that crowd's metaphorical descendants who need the paschal lamb without blemish, and so in the liturgy we hear the words “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”

As part of the celebration of Passover, the residents of Jerusalem had smeared their doorposts with lamb’s blood as a sign for death to pass by their houses. After the crowd’s exclamation, Jesus has to bear his cross past these same blood soaked doors as he went Golgotha to become the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The week to come is our Passover. We still refer to these days as the time of the paschal mystery and set the date of Easter by the first moon after the spring equinox. Many rites in ancient Judaism were reserved for the priests alone, but at the Passover, even the smallest child took part in the drama of salvation.

Passover recalled deliverance from bondage and death in Egypt through the sacrifice of a perfect lamb, the retelling of the story of how the Jews had come to be delivered during a ritual meal where the lamb was eaten.

As then we recall a story, a meal, a sacrifice, and deliverance from death. As then, there is a place for all of us at the table. As then the story and the ritual recall both terror and triumph. On Thursday we enter the upper room and encounter that last meal that serves as the type for all that we do at the altar. On Friday we go with him to his sacrifice on Golgotha. On Sunday we celebrate his triumph over death and our deliverance.

The events of the week to come are not small things and through it all, we must remember our place in the story, the crowd that stood in for all generations to come and unknowingly called down salvation on the world. We must remember that these things were done not so much for the glory of God as they were so that we one day might be glorified. We remember that we are as in need of these events as we are hopeful that we will one day shout hosanna before the King who is to come.

His blood be upon us.

Love Surpassing the Power of Human Telling

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:20:00 +0000

Second Station of the Cross, Jerusalem.

          Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!
          Thy too rigid sinews bend;
          For awhile the ancient rigor
          That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
          And the King of heavenly beauty
          On thy bosom gently tend!

-4th Verse of Lustris sex qui jam peractis,
Passiontide Hymn of Lauds

The Christian life is very much about bending our stiffened boughs and letting humility restore suppleness to the sinews of our inner being and opening us to Love.

As we go through Passiontide and into Holy Week, the antiphons, chapters, and versicles of the Divine Office continue to work away at our callousness. For Terce on Palm Sunday, we hear this little chapter, which stays with us in an abbreviated form through Wednesday of Holy Week:

My brothers, have among yourselves the same mind as Christ Jesus: though by nature He was God, He did not consider His equality with God a condition to be clung to, but emptied Himself by taking the nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of men, and recognized by outward appearance as man.

The little chapter for the second nocturn of Vigils for Monday through Wednesday will pick up the same theme:

Christ humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.

Hymns and chapters disappear for the office of the Triduum, but this piece stays with us, growing over each of the three days.

On Thursday at the end of Lauds we sing, “Christ, for our sake, became obedient unto death.” On Friday, we add, “Even the death of the cross.” Saturday concludes with, “Wherefore God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.”

Repetition and addition wear away at complacency. The texts of Passiontide do their work, recounting the Savior’s sufferings as he speaks to us in the versicles recounting his days as the Man of Sorrows. After his abandonment and suffering have sunk in, the office of the Triddum gives us this one thought for three days: Christ, who was God, humbled and emptied himself and accepted a common criminal’s death in agony and shame for our sake in perfect selflessness and love.

What more could soften our hearts and rebuke our pride? What have we accomplished or done that could ever match this? What hurt or slight is so severe that we can turn our eyes away from the Savior’s example of love perfected in humility and humility perfected by love?

For awhile the ancient rigor

That thy birth bestowed, suspend;

And the King of heavenly beauty

On thy bosom gently tend!

For these days, we tend that broken body and are filled again with love for Love incarnate. In the annual retelling of the Romance of the Passion, we relive the doubt, separation, horror, and loss and, when our hearts have been broken so that there is once again room for Him to enter, we receive our heart’s desire anew at the empty tomb.

Easter and Pentecost will call us beyond this intimacy to practice our new-found love with those less lovely, just as they must do with us. Next year we will need this week again and again the texts will do their work to remake our hearts if we let them. Frederick Littledale’s translation of Bianco da Siena’s hymn to the Holy Spirit captures both the ardor and the need, which we can almost lose in the beauty of the Vaughn Williams tune:

    Come down, O love divine,

    seek thou this soul of mine,

    and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

    O Comforter, draw near,

    within my heart appear,

    and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

    O let it freely burn,

    till earthly passions turn

    to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

    and let thy glorious light

    shine ever on my sight,

    and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

    Let holy charity

    mine outward vesture be,

    and lowliness become mine inner clothing;

    true lowliness of heart,

    which takes the humbler part,

    and o'er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.

    And so the yearning strong,

    with which the soul will long,

    shall far outpass the power of human telling;

    for none can guess its grace,

    till Love create a place

    wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.

Veiling our Images: A Sermon for Passion Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:12:00 +0000

You may have noticed that tonight we omitted Psalm 42 in the prayers at the foot of the Altar, with its familiar “O send out thy light and thy truth that they may lead me and bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy dwelling,” only to hear this verse as the introit of the Mass. As with most of these things, there is a message there.

Today we enter Passiontide and, in the breviary, the hymns of the first part of Lent give way to new pieces focused upon the mystery of the cross. The hymn of the vespers, written 1400 years ago, proclaims, “The royal banners forward go. The cross shines forth in mystic glow.” In the epistle and in the preface, we hear of the battle of two trees: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which Satan used to trick Adam and Eve into mortality and the cross, by which Christ brings the hope of life back into the world.

The cross of Christ takes center stage as we prepare to celebrate the redemption of the world. And yet this is precisely the day when we veil the crosses and, paradoxically, when the familiar verse, “Send out thy light and thy truth,” takes a place of special prominence within the Mass.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux tells us that the final stage of learning to love God is to give up our images of God—that we must forego the God whom we have tamed in our imagination to be able to love the God who truly is, was and will be. In this final portion of our journey through Lent, we too must veil our images if we are to be ready to meet the risen Lord at Easter.

The crucifix veiled on the altar is a central piece of my image of God. I bought it in Bethlehem. It hung in my house in Philadelphia. As a monk, it hung in my cell. Today, I say Mass in front of it. In years of praying with this crucifix, it has become a source of solace and focus, but there is also a danger. It is easy to look at its familiar face as I say my prayers and to let it become a symbol of the God whom I have created in my image, the one who loves me too much to challenge me, the one whom I conform to my image rather than conforming myself into his image.

St. Bernard, of course, was not speaking of literal images, but of this danger of loving a God we have made or that we believe we have the wisdom to fully comprehend and predict. It was the beautiful Tree of Life, we are told, that led to the fall in the garden because it became a false image of redemption and life, while it was the repugnant instrument of crucifixion that actually bore the noblest fruit. We must give up our own images to see things as they are, to find God where he is rather than where we have convinced ourselves he ought to be.

And so today we cover our familiar images and open the Mass by praying, “O send out thy light and thy truth that they may lead me and bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling.” We pray for God’s light, not to walk by our own lights. We pray for God’s truth, not our own subtlety. We pray not to lead, but to become vulnerable and open ourselves that we may be led. As we symbolically give up our images, we pray that we may give up our comforting distortions to seek the one who is always seeking us.

Two weeks remain until the feast of the resurrection. Let us take the time to veil the images we have created that we may see God clearly. Let us notice not only where the image of God is obscured in our lives, but also where we have created veils to mute the discomfort of his presence. Let us work to free ourselves of the God whom we have created so that our hearts are prepared to receive one who is wonderful beyond all imagining.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Great Saints of March 17

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 13:04:00 +0000

Blake's Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion.

While today is Passion Sunday, which sweeps away the feast days of the saints of the day, it does not mean we have to forget them entirely. A blessed day to those of you with a devotion to St. Gertrude, patroness of cats and therefore mistress of the internet.

As for myself, I have a special devotion to St. Joseph of Arimathea, whom the legends tell us brought Christianity to the British Isles when he landed at Glastonbury and made it the “holiest erthe in Englande.” The all-in versions of the story say that earlier he brought the boy Jesus with him on one of his trading journeys, inspiring William Blake to write:

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

Am I forgetting anyone? It's such a busy time of year it's hard to keep up.

Mass for Passion Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 01:44:00 +0000

Sung Mass for Passion Sunday

6:00 p.m., Sunday March 17

St. Martin's Chapel

814 W. Maple Street, Fayetteville, AR

Directions
Service Sheet

THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, COMMONLY CALLED PASSION SUNDAY

INTROIT Ps. 42: 1-3.

GIVE sentence with me, O God, and defend my cause against the ungodly people: O deliver my soul from the deceitful and wicked man: for thou art the God of my strength. Ps. ibid. O sendout thy light and thy truth, that they may lead me : and bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling. Give sentence with me.

COLLECTS

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon thy people: that by thy great

goodness they may be governed and preserved evermore, both in body and soul. Through.

WE beseech thee, O Lord, mercifully to hear the prayers of thy people: that being delivered from all adversities and all false doctrines, thy Church may serve thee in freedom and quietness.

O GOD, the pastor and governour of them that put their trust in thee, look down in

mercy on thy servant, Francis, whom thou hast chosen to be pastor and ruler of thy Church: grant unto him, we beseech thee, to be in word and conversation a wholesome example to the people committed to his charge; that he with them may attain at last to the crown of everlasting life. Through.

EPISTLE Hebrews 9:11-15

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

GRADUAL. Ps.143:9-10, 17:48-49

Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: teach me to do the thing that pleaseth thee. Ps. 18. It is the Lord that delivereth me from my cruel enemies, and setteth me up above mine adversaries: thou shalt rid me from the wicked man.

TRACT. Ps. 129:1-4

Many a time have they fought against me from my youth up. y. May Israel now say: yea many a time have they vexed me from my youth up. V. But they have not prevailed against me: the plowers plowed upon my back. V. And made long furrows: but the righteous Lord hath hewn the snares of the ungodly in pieces.

GOSPEL John 8:46-59.

At that time, Jesus said to the crowds of the Jews: Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

OFFERTORY. Ps. 119

I will give thanks unto the Lord with my whole heart: O do well unto thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word: quicken thou me, according to thy word, o Lord.

SECRET.

GRANT, O Lord, we pray thee, that these our oblations may deliver us from every bond of iniquity, and obtain for us the bounteous gifts of thy mercy. Through.

DEFEND, O Lord, we pray thee, us thy servants: that we, cleaving fast to things heavenly, may

faithfully serve thee both in body and soul

WE beseech thee, O Lord, mercifully to accept these our oblations: granting unto Francis thy servant, that like as thou hast chosen him to be pastor and ruler of thy Church, so he may be governed evermore by. thy defence. Through.

PREFACE

It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee: O Lord holy, Father almighty, everlasting God. Who upon the wood of the Cross didst accomplish the salvation of the race of man: that whence death arose, thence Life also might rise again: and that he who by a Tree was once the vanquisher, might also by a Tree be vanquished: 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.

COMMUNION I Corinthians 11:24-25

This is my Body, which is given for you: this cup is the new testament in my Blood, saith the Lord: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

POSTCOMMUNION

ASSIST us mercifully, O Lord our God: that we whom thou hast here refreshed with thy holy

mysteries, may be defended by thy perpetual succour. Through.

GRANT, we beseech thee, 0 Lord our God, that we, whom thou hast made partakers of heavenly gladness, may by thee be defended from all earthly perils.

DEFEND us, O Lord, we beseech thee, who have here received these heavenly mysteries: and grant that thy servant Francis, whom thou hast chosen to be pastor and ruler of thy Church, together with the flock committed to his charge, may thereby be preserved and strengthened against all adversities. Through.

St. Clement Mary and the False Dicotomy of Justice and Worship

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:33:00 +0000

St. Clement Mary Hofbauer in a window at St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia.

Today is the feast of one of my favorite saints, whom I came to know through my friend Mr. Goings. I know that I have many favorite saints, but this one is top ten if not top five and, of all the saints to whom I have a particular devotion, I think that he is the most important example for the times we live in as the world seems intent on refighting the battle of the alabaster box with the election of Pope Francis, whose simplicity and spontaneity are contrasted with Benedict XVI's preference for traditional forms.

(And, do please remember, for all of the talk in the media of Christ-like simplicity understood as Holden Caulfield's rants about authenticity, Jesus came down firmly on the side of breaking the box and using the perfume.)

I’ll let the biography below from the Redemptorist web site tell the tale, but first let me interject a few words of editorial.

St. Clement Mary Hofbauer passed almost his entire life buffeted by secularist hostility, official government persecution, and ethnic mistrust, but persevered to become one of the great Redemptorist saints. He did not fight politics with politics and simply throw himself into the pamphleteering of the culture wars of his day. Instead, he responded with the tools given to a priest and to all Christians: the sacraments, preaching, and the corporal works of mercy. He fought for a decade to be ordained when the policy of Josephinism had closed novitiates and seminaries. He saw his confreres murdered and tortured before himself being expelled from Poland at the instigation of those influenced by the Englightenment. He lived a precarious life in Vienna for refusing to comply with state policy that forbade communication with Rome.

With all of the uncertainty he lived in and the apparent failures he bore, today St. Clement Mary is remembered today as founder of the Transalpine Redemptorists and as Apostle and Patron of Vienna. I think that what is most salutary in his example is that he never forgot that a Christian’s primary weapon is not the mastery of politics, though our voice must be given its place in the public square. Instead, St. Clement Mary saw himself as being engaged in spiritual warfare and replied in kind. His answer to poverty was first and foremost to set a great personal example in the practice of the works of mercy. His answer to persecution was to encourage the use of devotions such as the litanies and the rosary. His filibuster was the perpetual mission that saw five sermons and three High Masses a day in his Warsaw church. The assurance nurtured by this sort of faith carried him through a life of endless uncertainty.

Many of us who litter the electronic ether with our prognostications would do well to remember the witness of St. Clement Mary, whose life reminds us that simple faith is superior to any human strategy and that, even if the pen is mightier than the sword, the prie dieu excels them both.
Read the biography below and when you’re done, ask this great saint's intercession. I’m sure you’ll be able to think of two or three particular requests.

* * *

Altar of St. Clement Mary at Mount St. Alphonsus.

St. Clement Hofbauer

A look at the life of Clement Hofbauer can teach us much about a dream come true, about prayer and service, about perseverance in the Christian life, about becoming a saint by living each day as it comes, and using each moment of time for its proper purpose. Clement was not a miracle worker or a visionary, just a great and holy Redemptorist serving God's people to the best of his ability.

Birth and Young Life

Our saint was born on the feast of Saint Stephen, December 26, 1751, in Tasswitz, Moravia. He was the ninth of twelve children born to Mary and Paul Hofbauer. Baptized the very next day, he was given the name of Hansl, or John. He would be known that way for more than twenty years until he entered a hermitage and took the name of Clement.

The saint's older brother, Karl, had gone off to fight with the Hungarian cavalry against the Turks. Hansl could not wait until he would be old enough to wear the blue uniform with the silver braiding and the brown felt cap with the red piping.

He also had his boyish sights on another goal, however. While serving Mass he would imagine himself as a priest standing at the altar, wearing the priestly vestments, and leading the people in the Church's great act of worship and praise to God.

It was the goal of the priesthood that finally won out over the career in the army. Coming from a poor family, however, Hansl had little chance to go away to a seminary or join a religious order.

Hansl began to study Latin at the parish rectory. The pastor was a kindly old priest who recognized the seeds of a priestly vocation in the young Hofbauer. Daily the young student and the aging pastor would meet to study the Latin language. It was to be the first step on Hansl's long road to the priesthood. The period of study ended abruptly with the death of the pastor when Hansl was just fourteen. The new pastor did not have time to help him study Latin.

Unable to continue studying for the priesthood, Hansl had to learn a trade. He was sent to become an apprentice in bake shop in 1767. In 1770 he went to work in the bakery of the Premonstratensian monastery of the White Monks in Kloster Bruck. At that time, the effects of war and famine were sending many homeless and hungry people to the monastery for help. Hofbauer worked day and night to feed the poor people who came to his door. While this was still not the priesthood that he wanted so badly, it was an opportunity to help God's people who were in great need.

In 1771, a trip to Italy brought Hofbauer to Tivoli. He decided to become a hermit at the shrine of Our Lady of Quintiliolo and requested the hermit's habit from the local bishop. It was at this time that Hansl Hofbauer received the name of Clement Mary: Clement from the bishop of Ancyra in Asia and Mary from our Blessed Lady. As a hermit, Clement prayed for himself and for all the people in the world who forgot to pray. He worked at the shrine and assisted the pilgrims who came. Clement did not find happiness, however, and in less than six months he left Quintiliolo. He realized the need to pray for people and saw this as good work, but it was still not the priesthood that he wanted so badly.

He returned to the monastery of the White Monks at Kloster Bruck to bake bread and to begin the study of the Latin language once again. Although he completed his studies in philosophy by the year 1776, he could proceed no further. The Emperor would allow no new novices for the White Monks, and so Clement found the road to the priesthood once again.

He went home and lived for two years as a hermit at Muehlfraun, forcing himself to endure strict fasts, harsh penances, and long vigils of prayer. At the insistence of his mother he left the hermitage to become once more a baker of bread. This time he got a job at a famous bakery in Vienna where he met the two distinguished ladies who became his greatest benefactors.

At the age of twenty-nine, after being a baker in three places and a hermit in two others, Clement entered the University of Vienna. Since the government had closed all seminaries, students for the priesthood had to study at government-controlled universities. Clement was frustrated by the religious studies courses that were permeated by rationalism and other unquestionable outlooks and teachings. Undaunted, he continued seeking the truths of the faith and pursuing his dream of the priesthood.

During a pilgrimage in 1784, Clement and his traveling companion, Thaddeus Huebl, decided to join a religious community. The two seminarians were accepted into the Redemptorist novitiate at San Giuliano in Italy. On the feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 1785, Clement Hofbauer and Thaddeus Huebl became Redemptorists, publicly professing to live the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Ten days later they were ordained to the priesthood at the Cathedral of Alatri.

A few months after their ordination the two foreign Redemptorists were summoned by their Superior General, Father de Paola. They were told to return to their homeland across the Alps and establish the Redemptorist Congregation in northern Europe. It was a difficult and unusual assignment for two men so recently ordained. To Alphonsus, this spread of the Congregation beyond the Alps was a sure proof that the Redemptorists would endure until the end of time. To Clement, it was a dream come true.

Warsaw and St. Benno's

The political situation did not allow Clement to remain in his own country. The Austrian Emperor who had closed over 1,000 monasteries and convents was not about to allow a new religious order to establish a foundation. Realizing this, the two Redemptorists moved on to Poland. It was February of 1787 when they reached Warsaw, a city of 124,000 people. Although there were 160 churches plus 20 monasteries and convents in the city, in many ways it was almost a godless slum. The people were poor and uneducated; their houses were in need of repair. Many people had turned from Catholicism to Freemasonry. The faithful Catholics and their few good priests suffered much. For the next 20 years Clement and his small band of Redemptorist priests and Brothers shared in this suffering for the Lord and for the faithful of Poland.

Poland was in the midst of great political turmoil at the time of Clement's arrival in 1787. King Stanislaus II was virtually a puppet in the hands of Catherine II of Russia. Earlier, in 1772, the First Partition of the country had taken place -- with Austria, Russia, and Prussia dividing the spoils. A similar partition was to occur again in 1793 and for a third time in 1795. Napoleon and his great army of conquest marching through Europe added to the political tension. During Clement's twenty- one years in Warsaw there was hardly a peaceful moment.

On their journey to Poland, the two new Redemptorist priests were joined by Peter (now Emmanuel) Kunzmann, a fellow- baker who had accompanied Hansl on a pilgrimage. He became the first Redemptorist lay Brother form outside Italy. Together they arrived in Warsaw without a coin in their pockets; Clement had given the last three silver coins to beggars along the way. They met with the apostolic delegate, Archbishop Saluzzo, who put them in charge of St. Benno's Church to work with the German-speaking people of Warsaw. As they learned the new language, the Redemptorists expanded their apostolate to the people who lived in the area of St. Benno's.

When Clement saw a homeless boy on the street, he brought him to the rectory, cleaned him up, fed him, and then taught him a trade and instructed him in the Christian way of life. When the number of boys grew too large for the rectory, Clement opened the Child Jesus Refuge for his homeless boys.

To keep the boys fed and clothed, he had to beg constantly. He did so unashamedly. Going into a bakery to buy a loaf of bread he came upon a master baker without an assistant. Clement spent the day working at the dough trough and the oven, using all his old baking skills. He got bread for his boys that day and for many days to come.

On another occasion, legend has it that he went begging to a local pub. When Clement asked for a donation, one of the patrons scornfully spat beer into Clement's face. Wiping off the beer, he responded, "That was for me. Now what do you have for my boys?" The men in the bar were so astounded by the Christlike response that they gave Clement more than 100 silver coins.

When the Redemptorists first opened their church they preached to empty benches. The people had many things that took them away from God, and they found it hard to put their trust in these foreign priests. It took several years for the Redemptorists to win over the hearts of the people; but in time St. Benno's became the thriving center of the Catholic Church in Warsaw.

In 1791, four years after their arrival, the Redemptorists enlarged the children's refuge into an academy. A boarding school had been opened for young girls under the direction of some noble Warsaw matrons. The number of orphan boys continued to grow steadily. Money to finance all this came from some regular benefactors and many other people who were willing to help in different ways; but Clement still had to beg from door to door seeking help for his many orphans.

In the church, Clement and his band of five Redemptorist priests and three lay Brothers began what they called the Perpetual Mission. Instead of having just a morning Mass in the church on a weekday, they had a full-scale mission every day of the year. You could attend St. Benno's every day and know that you would hear five sermons in both German and Polish. There were three high Masses, the office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, public visits to the Blessed Sacrament, the Way of the Cross, vespers, prayer services, and litanies. And priests were available for confessions all hours of the day and night.

By the year 1800 the growth could be seen both in the work at the church and in the Redemptorist community. Reception of the sacraments jumped from 2,000 (in 1787) to over 100,000. The number of men serving at St. Benno's had grown to 21 Redemptorist priests and seven lay brothers. There were also five novices and four Polish seminarians.

All this work was done under less than ideal conditions. The three partitions of Poland brought about great bloodshed. Kosciusco, the great Polish freedom fighter, had his moments of glory but the people could not hold off the foreign attackers indefinitely. The battles reached Warsaw during Holy Week of 1794. The Redemptorists, along with all the other residents of that city, found their lives to be in constant danger. Three bombs crashed through the roof of the church but did not explode. Throughout the battles, Clement and his companions preached peace. This only served to increase the cries of protest against the Redemptorists who were already labeled as traitors.

Almost from the start, they had been attacked on two fronts. Politically they were foreigners. They could mix with the people and do much good, holy, priestly work. They could care for hundreds of orphans, celebrate thousands of Masses, and bring tens of thousands closer to God, but the German Redemptorists remained a foreign element in a country that was constantly at war.

The other attack was even more painful. It was a personal attack by the people who turned from the Church of their baptism to become Freemasons. They met together in their secret groups to plot against the Catholics, to do harm to the priests, to stop public worship, and to close the churches.

The Redemptorists always had to be on the watch for ambushes. Their enemies lay in wait to pelt them with rocks or club them with sticks. On one occasion, death came to the door of the monastery in the form of a piece of meat. Someone donated a ham to the Fathers. Four priests died from ptomaine because of the poisoned meat. It was a terrible tragedy for Clement to endure. He saw the number of Redemptorists shrinking rather than growing. Providentially, four new men joined the community shortly after this incident, but Clement could never forget his murdered confreres.

Even more shattering to Clement was the death of Father Thaddeus Huebl, his classmate and dear friend. Huebl was called away on a phony sick call. Many hours later he was tossed out of a fast-moving carriage after having been tortured and beaten to a pulp. Several days later he died from his injuries. It hurt Clement deeply to see his friend pass from his life. Now he would have to march on alone.

The attacks continued. The Redemptorists became the butt of jokes in the theaters. The local Polish priests even tried to stop the work being done by the Redemptorists. After 20 years of building up the faith of the people in Warsaw, they were attacked, waylaid, and harassed. In 1806 a law was passed that forbade local pastors to invite the Redemptorists to preach missions in their parishes. This was followed by an even more restrictive law that stopped the Redemptorists from preaching and hearing confessions in their own church of St. Benno's.

Clement appealed these actions directly to the King of Saxony who ruled Poland at that time. While this man knew the good that the Redemptorists were doing, he was powerless to stop the many Freemasons and Jacobins who wanted the Redemptorists out of Poland. The decree of expulsion was signed on June 9, 1808. Eleven days later, the Church of St. Benno's was closed and the forty Redemptorists serving there were taken off to prison. They lived there for four weeks and then were ordered to return to their own countries.

Vienna: a New Start

In September 1808, after being exiled from Poland, Clement reached Vienna. He remained there until his death almost 13 years later. In 1809 when the forces of Napoleon attacked Vienna, Clement worked as a hospital chaplain caring for the many wounded soldiers. The archbishop, seeing Clement's zeal, asked him to care for a little Italian church in the city of Vienna. He remained there for four years until he was appointed chaplain to the Ursuline Sisters in July 1813.

Attending to the spiritual welfare of the Sisters and the lay people who came to their chapel, Clement's true holiness came even more to the fore. At that altar his reverence made it plain that he was a man of faith. In the pulpit he spoke the words that the people needed to hear. He preached so that they could see their sins, realize God's goodness, and live their lives according to the will of God. But if he was a lion in the pulpit, Clement was a lamb in the confessional. He listened to the penitents' sins, gave them a message of encouragement, asked God to pardon them, and sent them on their way.

In those early days of the 1800s, Vienna was a major European cultural center. Clement enjoyed spending time with the students and the intellectuals. Students came -- singly and in groups -- to his quarters to talk, share a meal, or get advice. A good many of them later became Redemptorists. He brought many rich and artistic people into the Church including Frederick and Dorothy von Schlegel (she was the daughter of Mendelssohn, the founder of the Romanticist school); Frederick von Klinkowstroem, the artist; Joseph von Pilat, the private secretary of Metternich; Frederick Zachary Werner, who was later ordained and became a great preacher; and Frederick von Held, who became a Redemptorist and later spread the Congregation as far as Ireland.

In Vienna Hofbauer again found himself under attack. For a short time he was prohibited from preaching. Then he was threatened with expulsion because he had been communicating with his Redemptorist Superior General in Rome. Before the expulsion could become official, Emperor Franz of Austria would have to sign it. At the time the Emperor was on pilgrimage to Rome, where he visited Pope Pius VII and learned how greatly the work of Hofbauer was appreciated. He also learned that he could reward Hofbauer for his years of dedicated service by allowing him to start a Redemptorist foundation in Austria.

So, instead of a writ of expulsion, Hofbauer got an audience with Emperor Franz. Quickly the plans were made. A church was selected and refurbished to become the first Redemptorist foundation in Austria. It was to be started without Clement, however. He took sick in early March 1820, and died on March 15 of that year. Like Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures, he had brought the people to the Promised Land but he himself did not live long enough to enter it. He died with the gratifying knowledge that his second dream had been fulfilled.

Conclusion

Clement Hofbauer was beatified on January 29, 1888, by Pope Leo XIII. He was canonized a saint of the Catholic Church on May 20, 1909. In 1914, Pope Pius X gave him the title of Apostle and Patron to Vienna. Today, more than 150 years after his death, the yearly feast of Saint Clement is remembered in a very special way by the people of Vienna and the six thousand priests and Brothers throughout the world who wear the Redemptorist habit just as Saint Clement did.

What made Clement Hofbauer a saint? He performed no miracles to dazzle us, received no visions or ecstasies to overawe us. He even had faults -- a quick German temper, a tendency to be gruff. Yet, if we could have spent a few hours in his presence, we would have found him to be a man of unusually strong faith, a man of extraordinary calm and peace, and a man who could work tirelessly for souls.

Simplicity was the chief characteristic of his sanctity. He accepted the will of God as it came to him, and did all the good that he was capable of doing. He led a life of innocence and service devoting himself to glorifying God and drawing others to serve him. In the very simple way that he became holy, Saint Clement is a model for all people.

Fr. Shirk's Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent and Books!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 09:54:00 +0000

Fr. Shirk celebrates Mass.

Fr. Michael Shirk of the Independent Catholic Christian Church has posted a wonderful homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent on his blog, which he preached at the ICCC's recent annual gathering in Philadelphia. Here's a snippet:

And now we aim for a return. A return to Eden, to the Promised Land, to Hierusalem. But what is the nature of our return? Is it back to the status quo, back to how things were? Or is it “back” to how things should be?

And so Paul asks us, do we wish to be children of the Hierusalem “which is above” or of the earthly Hierusalem? What is the difference between them?

I think that the difference is primarily one of disposition. The verse of the Office was from Psalm 122: “I was glad when they said unto me * We will go into the house of the Lord.” To “Go into the house of the Lord” has been interpreted by our forebears as meaning to be in that place called in “folk psychology” “right-brained”: Being in the present, and apprehending intuitively the “deeper” or “bigger” picture. The child of the Heavenly Hierusalem, we read, is born “after the Spirit:” just as we discussed last night in regards to chanting the psalms and using the spirit, or breath, to help bring ourselves into the House of the Lord, the better to hear his scriptures.

Read the whole thing.>>>

Fr. Shirk is also the impressario behind the ICCC's growing number of very spiffy liturgical titles at Rene Vilatte Press. These include RVP's new Prymer or book of hours, which may be of particular interest for those looking for a manageable form of daily prayer in traditional language. Here's a portion of what Derek Olsen had to say in his preface to the Prymer, reprinted at his very excellent blog, Haligweorc:

A piece of Fr. Shirk's art from the RVP Book of Votives.

The great Anglican spiritual writer Martin Thornton once wrote a profoundly true passage about the chief hallmark of Christian catholicity. While we may argue over interpretation of the Scriptures, the sacraments, the creeds, the finer points of apostolic succession and such, the purest and simplest test of a catholic and orthodox faith classically understood is the pattern of its spirituality: “the common Office (opus dei) supporting private prayer (orationes peculiares) both of which are allied to, and consummated by, the Mass” (Thorton, English Spirituality, 76). In the churches that keep this pattern of spirituality, the rites of the Office and Mass are fixed within the authorized books—whether those be missals and breviaries or the Books of Common Prayer of the Anglican traditions. However, all too often clergy and laity alike are left to their own devices when it comes to the practice of private prayer. While the authorized books serve as models and tutors of prayer, while the psalms remain the pedagogues of prayer par excellence, the faithful need resources for guidance, direction, and an informed understanding of how their private, individual prayers join the prayer of the Church Universal.

...

For generations, these devotions have fed the English spiritual tradition. Thanks to the efforts of Fr. Shirk, they have been given a new life in our time. May they enrich your devotion, bless your practice, and lead you deeper into the mysteries of Christ.

Fasting From Sin and Collects in Verse

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:17:00 +0000

The Temptationin by Simon Bening.

Lent brings one of my favorite collects, which appears in various forms in several rites in slightly different places. Here is the translation from the books we used when I was a monk:

GRANT, we beseech You, Almighty God: that like as Your family do abstain from food to the mortifying of the flesh; so they may likewise fast from sin to the following after justice. Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, Our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever.

I love that image of fasting from sin. We are not only engaged in symbolic forms of physical abstinence during these 40 days, but we are to starve our bodies and minds of their sinful attachments to be ready to meet the Risen Lord at Easter. We are to fast from anger, gossip, and all of the venial sins both hot and cold that weigh down our souls.

A few years ago when I was looking at some of the variants of the collect, I ran across John Rusher’s The Collects of the Church of England, Imitated in Verse at Project Canterbury. Rusher was a school master, estate agent, and poor house administrator, who occasionally bled the poor for extra money. (How often do you get to read a sentence where "bleeding the poor" is used in a literal sense?) The preface to the 1790 work reads:

I trust, the truly pious and devout Members of the Church will not think this little Work beneath their notice; and am encouraged by several eminent Schoolmasters, who have seen it in manuscript, to hope that it will be found of infinite service in Sunday and other Schools, where (as rhime is pleasing, especially to young persons, and such a powerful and necessary assistant to the memory) one of these Collects may be every Week learned and retained, by the most indigent capacity.

What heavenly fruit may be expected from thus planting the fertile soil of the infand mind with comprehensive Prayer which, if water with the Divine Blessing, will continually grow, take deep root, and can never be eradicated; but even, when lopped by the broad axe of Death, will break out more abundantly in praise and adoration, and flourish through a glorious Eternity.

I love this kind of verse and think that memorization is another of those important and seriously neglected arts. Since Lent has, thus far, been a little thin on entries of Breviary texts, I thought I might make up for it a bit by printing Rusher’s verses for Ash Wednesday and the Sundays of Lent.

Ash-Wednesday.

O gracious God, who madest all,
And hatest nothing thou hast made,
Who hearest sinners, when they call
In faith and penitence for aid;

Create us new and contrite hearts,
That we who do our sins confess,
Convicted in our inward parts
Of folly, sin, and wretchedness;

May thro’ the riches of thy grace
To perfect favor be restor’d;
And come to that eternal place
Prepar’d thro’ Jesus Christ, our Lord.

The First Sunday in Lent.

O Lord, who (as thy blessed word recites)
Didst once fast forty days, and forty nights,
Restrain our nature, succour us within,
And give us grace and pow’r to fast from sin;
That leaving all inordinate desires,
And doing what thy holy will requires,
We may be sav’d according to thy word,
Thro’ thy transcendent love, O blessed Lord,
Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost,
One God, dost reign amid the heav’nly host.

The Second Sunday in Lent.

Almighty God, who know’st our helpless state,
Our num’rous foes, their strength, and vile deceit;
Protect our outward and our inward parts
From sin, the world, and Satan’s evil darts;
Let no bad deeds our mortal frame controul,
Nor evil thoughts afflict th’immortal soul,
But give us cause to triumph in thy word,
Thro’ Jesus Christ, thy only Son, our Lord.

The Third Sunday in Lent.

Almighty God, receive our fervent pray’rs,
And when our foes beset us unawares,
Or openly and terribly arise,
Be our defence against our enemies:
O hear, and grant us what we have implor’d,
Thro’ Jesus Christ, thy only Son, our Lord.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent.

O God, our hearts have daily swerv’d,
Our evil deeds have long deserv’d
The threat’nings of thy word;
Yet give us grace to turn from sin,
That we the promises may win,
Thro’ Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Fifth Sunday in Lent.

We beseech thee, O God, to look graciously down,
Where the seeds of the glorious Gospel are sown,
And encourage the growth of thy word;
Let thy Spirit direct, rule, and govern the whole,
And preserve us for ever in body and soul,
Thro’ thy only Son Jesus our Lord.

St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:50:00 +0000

Today is the Feast of St. Polycarp. A friend's grandmother used to tell him, "Always pray to St. Polycarp--not many people know about him, so he's not busy." I've had a something of a devotion to St. Polycarp, the 2nd Century Bishop of Smyrna, since reading his life as a teenager.

Polycarp was a disciple of St. John and was martyred in 155 at the age of 86. The account of his martyrdom is one of the earliest extant lives of the saints. When, on account of his age he was encouraged to deny Christ and live, he said, "I have served my Lord for 86 years and He has done me no harm. How can I deny my King who saved me?"

This was his prayer at the stake as recorded in the Lightfoot translation of The Martyrdom of Polycarp:

O Lord God Almighty, the Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of Thee, the God of angels and powers and of all creation and of the whole race of the righteous, who live in Thy presence; I bless Thee for that Thou hast granted me this day and hour, that I might receive a portion amongst the number of martyrs in the cup of [Thy] Christ unto resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and of body, in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. May I be received among these in Thy presence this day, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as Thou didst prepare and reveal it beforehand, and hast accomplished it, Thou that art the faithful and true God. For this cause, yea and for all things, I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal and heavenly High-priest, Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, through whom with Him and the Holy Spirit be glory both now [and ever] and for the ages to come. Amen.

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Veiling our Images: A Sermon for Passion Sunday

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St. Clement Mary and the False Dicotomy of Justice and Worship

Fr. Shirk's Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent and Books!

Fasting From Sin and Collects in Verse

St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr

Dinner to follow at John's
Directions and More Info