Kyrie Eleison

The Book of Common Prayer is an absolute treasure trove in its almost unsearchable serendipity of planning readings for the Daily Office and the profound Collects throughout the year.

Fr. Paul was especially eloquent this morning in connecting the Numbers 20 passage with the Matthew 18 parable about forgiveness.

Our Old Testament reading from Numbers 20 about Edom’s refusing to allow the Israelites passage through their land and the feud going back to Jacob and Esau is situated in between the story of Meribah and Aaron’s death. It’s a story about forgiveness (or the lack thereof) just after what seems to us a harsh judgment of Moses and Aaron where God seems to forego forgiveness and instead refuses Moses and Aaron admittance to the Promise Land. They both die just within reach of their goal. Matthew 18 stresses the importance of forgiving others and showing grace in concrete ways.

If ever we could identify with someone, it would be Moses, I think. There is story after story of how stiff-necked the Israelites were after being led out of Egypt and we can only imagine how frustrating it was for Moses to have to lead them. He must have sort of hit a wall at Meribah; we read: “Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he had been commanded. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock and he said to them, 'Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring forth water out of this rock for you?’ Then Moses lifted up his arm and he struck the rock with his staff twice. Water came gushing out, and the community and their animals drank.” We hear the frustration in Moses’ words and then he hit the rock twice. The problem was that God had just told Moses to speak to the rock, not strike it. (Even in Moses’ disobedience, though, God provided the miracle to the people — isn’t that something!)

God wanted Moses to manifest the importance of His Word to the people, which takes on a momentous significance when we think of how Christ was the fulfillment of that Word and the Living Water in the New Testament. It’s devastating to think of how Moses missed this opportunity — even if it was due to an understandable frustration and weariness.

How often have I allowed my frustration get in the way of my obedience in my call as a husband, a parent, and a teacher. God forgave Moses, but there was still a consequence. Our lack of offering forgiveness often boils down to our lack of belief or not trusting, which was Moses’ issue. Forgiving seventy times seven can only result from believing God to make it right, from letting Him right the wrong.

Interestingly enough, after a number of changes, our choir ended up singing Purifoy’s setting of Frederick W. Faber’s (1814-63) wonderful hymn this morning:

1 There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.

2 There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good.
There is mercy with the Savior,
there is healing in his blood.

3 But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.

4 For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.

5 If our love were but more simple,
we should rest upon God’s word,
and our lives would be illumined
by the presence of our Lord.

Purifoy’s text uses “we should take Him at His word,” which emphasizes again the lesson for Moses and the importance of believing no matter what we’re feeling.

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Dangerous and Disgusting Habits

I used to have little patience for all the self-righteous naysayers who lamented too much Christmas too soon, and while I still subscribe to the idea of to each his own, I’m noticing my own affinities are shifting. Too much of a good thing, too soon, can often bring disappointment or even emptiness.

Even I was a little dismayed, then, to read today’s WSJ’s article, "It Must Be October in Britain Because the Beans Taste Like Christmas." The lead picture shows stars hanging like snowflakes as Christmas decorations were being installed on Oxford Street in London earlier this month. Discussing the “Christmas Creep,” the authors note: “When Liberty announced it was kicking off Christmas in August, things got a bit spicy on its Instagram account. ‘It’s August?! This is how retail has utterly wrecked the magic of the Holiday Season. How can it be special when it drags on for months?’ wrote one commenter. She was quickly accused by another commenter of being a grinch.”

In a comment left on the WSJ article, Francis Reich writes: “Just as bad as starting Christmas in October is seeing everything disappear by January 1. Let the season linger a little, at least through the traditional 12th day of Christmas.” Hear, hear!

Of course G.K. Chesterton has something to add to our discussion. Here’s his whole paragraph since I’d hate to shorten his hyperbolic fun:

There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is. Up to a certain specific instant you are feeling ordinary and sad; for it is only Wednesday. At the next moment your heart leaps up and your soul and body dance together like lovers; for in one burst and blaze it has become Thursday. I am assuming (of course) that you are a worshipper of Thor, and that you celebrate his day once a week, possibly with human sacrifice. If, on the other hand, you are a modern Christian Englishman, you hail (of course) with the same explosion of gaiety the appearance of the English Sunday. But I say that whatever the day is that is to you festive or symbolic, it is essential that there should be a quite clear black line between it and the time going before. And all the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications.

I find myself wanting to help delineate that clear black line more and more. I want to be in the present; I want to celebrate the days and the seasons: St. Simon and St. Jude, St. Andrew the Apostle, All Saints’ and All Souls’, Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas and the 12 Days of Christmastide… Savoring the moment. How many times have we heard that, said that? Maybe this year will be different.

20/20 Hindsight, our Frailty, and God's Succor

This past month or so has brought with it a lot of self-reflection about parenting, teaching our young people, and our society at large.

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and other concerning studies have sparked some very worthwhile professional discussions at school about students and cell phones.

Last week at church we heard about a new boys’ boarding school, St. Dunstan’s, whose goal will be to integrate life, school, and work with the rhythms of liturgical life. Grades lose their meaning and instead, getting the trig problem right means building a secure roof versus one that falls on your head. There’ll be no cell phones or social media. We were confronted with a real indictment of our society and how unique we are in allowing little to no independence along with little to no “curated” culture — such an apt description. We also no longer have any real rites of passage for our boys, especially.

Shaking our heads, we wonder how in the world we’ve gotten to where we are today — so many things to reconsider — so many things to question — so many decisions that missed the mark. How did our lives become so disjointed? But, the reason “hindsight is 20/20” has reached cliché status is because it’s so often true. We do the best we can in the moment and try to move forward with God’s grace.

I’m finding some encouragement in the Collects from last week and today: “Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen” and “O Lord, we beseech thee, let they continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”

There are a lot of hopeful truths here as we look to God’s mercy and pity for His cleansing, defending, and succor.

Another aspect of life that needs some serious reflection is our society and its understanding of (the) Church. We’re grateful for the path our lives have taken, but, again, we are almost dumbfounded at why it took us decades to realize the riches of Anglicanism.

We need to look to the whole of life as we integrate worship with our everyday lives. G.W.O. Addleshaw reminds us that we can’t separate our worship from the dogmatic truths that undergird it; he summarizes: “The liturgy is vitally connected with everyday life; it presupposes that the body, whose voice it is, should embrace every side of man’s life, and that the life of the body in all departments should reflect the justice and charity proclaimed by the dogma.” He asserts that we will never recover the “wholeness of life” unless “in the liturgy of the Church the Eucharistic sacrifice is given that emphasis and centrality which is its due.” Addleshaw concludes his work with this insight: “It is in the Eucharist that the community expresses itself according to its true nature, that which in the divine purpose it is meant to become; here it is offered in union with Our Lord to the Father and takes its place in the divine order; here it most truly adores the eternal Trinity for whose honour and glory it exists.” Here is the wholeness of life, the union between heaven and earth, God and man, eternity and time. Succor indeed.

On the occasion of rereading some notes from Jeremy Taylor's "The Worthy Communicant" (1660)

Routines are back in swing, school has started back, choir is resuming… Life sometimes gets in the way of offering our best, but I’m thankful for this silver-penned admonition from Taylor:

“But let us remember this, that there is nothing fit to be presented to God but what is great and excellent; for nothing comes from Him but what is great and best, and nothing should be returned to Him that is little and contemptible in its kind. […] An indevout prayer can never be joined with Christ’s prayers. Fire will easily combine with fire, and flame marries flame; but a cold devotion, and the fire of this altar, can never be friendly and unite in one pyramid to ascend together to the regions of God and the element of love. […] There is not indeed any greater indication of our worthiness or unworthiness to receive the holy communion, than to examine and understand the state of our daily prayer.”

It’s not for naught that our Holy Communion service begins with the General Confession…

Papa Haydn Saves the Day

Ruth had a conversation at work today that included Haydn’s “The Heavens are Telling” — that was all I needed — what a wonderful evening it’s been listening the Haydn’s masterwork. It’s a work I’ve loved my life long.

A sorry aside: Margaret and I got to attend the Salzburger Festspiele one year — I was beside myself —we had the opportunity to hear Haydn’s “Creation” with John Eliot Gardiner conducting — we were so excited. And then, we were so disappointed. Never have I been so disgusted that I got up and left a concert, but that was a first. Play your original instruments if you must, but play musically. The splats from the brass were almost funny at first and then it was almost offensive. Just an awful interpretation.

But it didn’t diminish my love for Haydn’s oratorio. If you want to be impressed and thrilled, check out Adam Fischer’s rendition of this great work. Fischer’s exuberance is contagious and he’s an absolute delight as he relishes Haydn’s genius. The marvelous soloists and chorus and orchestra come together here serendipitously to offer a truly exceptional performance for the ages. (If you want to follow the English as you listen, here’s a summary.)

Alas, the last chord was played this evening, and our glimpse of the Edenic garden came to end — it was back to the mundane, but the primordial conflict of darkness and light continued apparently. Turning the channel, we heard that politics is a “soul-craft,” that “soon and very soon” a political solution, not a spiritual one, will come to pass. They couch this political struggle now in the spiritual terms of darkness and joy. The answer is clear and common-sensical and “just feels right,” they say, like a family dinner with mac and cheese and a crazy dog — choose joy.

It’s a topic for another day, but words are dear to me. Haydn’s “Die Schöpfung” evokes joy unequivocally, but the political usage of this state of being irks and offends. A tawdry interpretation or usage doesn’t have to diminish the work or the word itself, however. So, yes — I’ll choose joy, but not the cheap imitation that the politicians peddle.

New Starts, New Year

Isn’t it interesting that both girls and a son-in-law are teachers now — we often joke with our son that he, too, might wind up teaching one day…

Seems like wisdom is a rarity these days and, if we’re not careful, there can be a paucity of hope as well, but that’s not really looking past the mundane, is it? Sorry.

So grateful for where our girls find themselves this year… One head said he hoped they would break the cycle of fear this year: admin’s fearing the board, teachers’ the admin, kids’ the teachers and instead, replace it with love. He proposed that the virtue of the year be courtesy. (They strive to cultivate virtues. !) The other head quoted Jeremiah 6:16: “These are the words of the Lord of hosts: Stand at the crossroads and look around; ask for the ancient paths. When you are shown where the good way lies, walk along it and your souls will find rest.” (Have I ever read that verse before?) Their school’s goal is showing the way of the tried and true, about souls finding their rest.

After how many years of teaching? I’m inspired. Goodness.

Booie’s prayer for our youngest could apply to us all: “God give you the grace to meet every challenge with gusto, so that your work shall be a song, thrilled with the sense of service and creative artistry.”

Amen.

The Liturgical Life

As I meditate on the truth of Christ in me (see my last post), E.L. Mascall’s rich understanding of the Eucharist and its transformative nature comes to mind. Directly related to Grafton’s thoughts, he writes:

“So, then, the Eucharist is the one perfect act of worship that we can offer to God. And far from Eucharistic worship being a matter merely of the sanctuary and the sacristy, it is of direct relevance to the world in which Christians live and work and love and die. For the Body which appears in its sacramental form upon our altars is the same Body which in its mystical form is at work in the world and of which we are members, in a quite true sense, therefore, what Christians do in the world, in their work and in their play, is identical with the offering made upon the altar and with the act of worship made by Christ in heaven. That is to say, for the Christian as a member of the Body of Christ, his whole life is liturgical […] For the Christian, then, in the Mystical Body, life and worship are but two elements in one great act, the self-offering of Christ the God-man to the Father in heaven. Life itself is liturgical, for whether the Christian serves God or whether he sins against him, he is acting as a member of the Body, and it is in the Eucharist that his life is given true interpretation as not merely his life, but the life of Christ in him: ‘I live; and yet, no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.’”

More from Grafton's "My Life in Christ"

Grafton’s comment about the prodigal son comes at the end of his consideration of the “Parable of the Tares.” His diagnosis (of my current mindset) is both astute and accurate.

He writes: “The formation of Christian character is a slow process. Think what it ought to be. Our Christian life is a supernatural life. It has a supernatural end, a union with God in glory. Now a supernatural end can only be attained by supernatural means. No man, by the cultivation of a mere natural virtue and by principles of philosophy, can attain heaven. Christians are the adopted sons of God. They have been made partakers of the divine nature. They have been incorporated into Christ. It is promised that they should be filled with all the fulness of God. They are to go on from strength to strength and attain a perfection in Christ. But look at thyself, O soul. Why these cares? These little mortifying sins? These daily imperfections? These interior disquietudes? These faults of speech? These little irritations? This gloominess or despondency? Why is not thine interior always calm, quiet, peaceful, resting with God? Some of these faults may come from our own selves, but also it is true that the enemy hath done this. Hating us with malignant hatred, and plotting against us with a tremendous experience in the art of ruining souls, Satan attacks the Christian with little and subtle temptations. If he tempted them to commit great sins, he is aware they would repulse him. But if he can only get them to commit a number of little ones, these will harden into habit, or the poor soul be thrown into a state of despondency. But Satan, with all his craft and knowledge of man, is ignorant of grace, and grace continually baffles him. Let it ever be remembered that God is never discouraged with us, because He knows His own power. And all those spirits, despondency, melancholic feelings, come either from physical causes or from Satan.”

Disquieted, irritated, gloomy — busted, in our lingua franca. As my mom used to say, my biorhythms have been down. But it’s more insidious than just that. My eyes have been on self, but, as Grafton says, it’s time for my soul to look at itself. Who am I in Christ?

But he doesn’t leave it there. But God. What perspicuity: “Let it ever be remembered that God is never discouraged with us, because He knows His own power.” Whew. I need to just sit with that for awhile. Christ in me, the hope of glory.

We are “partakers of the divine nature.” The word often calls a favorite Communion hymn to mind, Winkworth’s translation of Franck:

“Sun, who all my life dost brighten,
light, who dost my soul enlighten,
joy, the sweetest heart e'er knoweth,
fount, whence all my being floweth,
at thy feet I cry, my Maker,
let me be a fit partaker
of this blessed food from heaven,
for our good, thy glory, given.”

So,

“Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness,
leave the gloomy haunts of sadness;
come into the daylight's splendour,
there with joy thy praises render
unto him whose grace unbounded
hath this wondrous banquet founded:
high o'er all the heavens he reigneth,
yet to dwell with thee he deigneth.”

My Life in Christ

"Christ in me, the hope of glory"

So I discovered Charles C. Grafton today. The other day, Margaret was telling me about a conversation she had had with her rector about how it’s curious that some theologians often can be saying the same thing, but somehow we have an affinity for one and not the other.

So true.

Grafton just immediately draws me in. In A Journey Godward of a Servant of Jesus Christ, his chapter XI, “My Life in Christ,” — despite making me chortle as I remembered Lionel and his “My Life in Kenya”! — is strikingly eloquent:

“EVERY life is full of the wonders of God's providential care. The great Love watches over us and leads the responsive soul onward. It turns our very falls into stepping-stones for our progress. Every soul in glory will look back on a providentially lighted way and a guiding Hand. There will arise from all the saints an eternal song of thanksgiving to Him Who redeemed us. How unwearied was the love that perpetually restored and renewed us! How great has been His goodness! And how great His mercy! How everlastingly progressive shall be the response of our love! Angels adoringly love Him, but can they love Him as we must, who have been saved by His Precious Blood? The saints in Glory adoringly praise Him for the thousand pardons that perfected them in grace. The Christian soul here in its time of struggle, while feeling its sinfulness, yet trusting in the merits of Christ, presses on to the mark of its high calling. Every soul is a marvellous monument of divine grace, and its secret is with the Lord.”

Don’t you want to read that again? Goodness. Such a beautiful depiction of life, which he describes in his first chapter as a “stumbling on towards God.” Such a beautiful depiction of God’s grace. In his exploration of grace, Grafton brings in the experience of the prodigal son: “The sense of his misery may set him thinking, but it is the thought of the Father's love that leads him home.” Our lives in Christ, God’s love leading us home. Oh, the wonder of it all.



Gentle Hearts Mirroring Celestial Fire

A banner day today: the second wedding anniversary of Margaret and Ethan!

Joy abounds.

I’ve been reading the poetry of Robert Bridges lately and have been contemplating “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” this morning — (does that not describe M?):

My eyes for beauty pine,
My soul for Goddès grace :
No other care nor hope is mine ;
To heaven I turn my face.

One splendour thence is shed
From all the stars above :
'Tis namèd when God’s name is said,
’Tis Love, ’tis heavenly Love.

And every gentle heart,
That burns with true desire,
Is lit from eyes that mirror part
Of that celestial fire.

and somehow I chanced (!) upon this beautiful anthem-setting of it by Elizabeth and Thomas Coxhead (a brother-sister duo).

And then I could hear in my head Bishop’s Richard Chartres marvelous, sonorous opening of his sermon at William and Catherine’s wedding: “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire” (St. Catherine of Siena). We should remind ourselves often of this weighty sermon which is especially appropriate for today.

Bridges writes of God’s love, spiritual love, but Chartres reminds us that a husband and wife’s love can be a “door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this: the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.”

Happy Anniversary to two “gentle hearts” with eyes to heaven that mirror the “celestial fire” of Heavenly Love.

Summertime's Soundtrack(s) and Fathers

Summertime…"I Love Beach Music”…

Summertime… In years past, we always used to blast Sonicflood’s “You Are My Refuge” as we reached our destination. (Don’t judge.)

Summertime...weddings…Rhosymedre or “Lovely.”
R. Vaughan-Williams’ setting is lovely, indeed. Texts to the tune include “My Song is Love Unknown” and “Our Father, by Whose Name.” The latter, written by F. Bland Tucker for the Hymnal 1940, was not familiar to me, but certainly adds a new dimension to our meditations as we listen, whether at weddings or other services.

“Our Father, by whose name
All fatherhood is known,
Who dost in love proclaim
Each family Thine own,
Bless Thou all parents, guarding well,
With constant love as sentinel,
The homes in which Thy people dwell.

O Christ, Thyself a child
Within an earthly home,
With heart still undefiled,
Thou didst to manhood come;
Our children bless, in every place,
That they may all behold Thy face,
And knowing Thee may grow in grace.

O Spirit, who dost bind
Our hearts in unity,
Who teaches us to find
The love from self set free,
In all our hearts such love increase,
That every home, by this release,
May be dwelling place of peace.”

Summertime…Father’s Day…
So thankful for my Dad, who looked and looks to our Heavenly Father as his pattern, who proclaims His love and loves constantly, whose goal it is to grow in grace, who puts others first, who strove to make our home a place of peace…

A Prayer Before Communion (Jeremy Taylor)

“O most blessed, most glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus; Thou that waterest the furrows of the earth and refreshest her weariness, and makest it very plenteous, behold, O God, my desert and unfruitful soul; I have already a parched ground; give me a land of rivers of waters; my soul is dry but not thirsty; it hath no water nor it desires none; I have been like a dead man to all the desires of heaven. I am earnest and concerned in the things of the world; but very indifferent, or rather not been greedy of Thy word, or longed for Thy sacraments; the worst of Thy followers came running after Thee for loaves though they cared not for the miracle; but Thou offerest me loaves and miracles together, and I have cared for neither: Thou offerest me Thyself and all Thy infinite sweetnesses, I have needed even the compulsion of laws to drive me to Thee; and then indeed I lost the sweetness of Thy presence, and reaped no fruit. These things, O God, are not well; they are infinitely amiss. But Thou that providest meat, Thou also givest appetite; for the desire and the meat, the necessity and the relief are all from Thee.”
(from The Worthy Communicant; Or, a Discourse of the Nature, Effects, and Blessings consequent to the Worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper, And of all the Duties required in Order to a Worthy Preparation: Together with the Cases of Conscience occurring in the Duty of Him that Ministers, and of Him that Communicates; As also Devotions Fitted to Every Part of the Ministration, 1667)

… dry but not thirsty … going along not even desiring the water … not even cognizant …
grateful for this today