Tag Archives: love

Christmas Eve Almost Friends

24 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in Christmas, Faith

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Well, it’s been a tough year, for all of us, our blogs, and our countries. I’ve lost dear friends, to death, and to internet silence, the vaccine madness, and I’ve dearly missed my friends on All along the Watchtower, so this Christmas Eve let’s join again in fellowship.

I was reminded today of Winston Churchill’s Christmas message in 1941 from the White House, to us all, Briton, American, and the rest of the Anglophone world. We were then engaged in a mighty endeavor to save our nations and our freedom. So it is again. (h/t Victory Girls)

24 December 1941

Washington, D.C.

I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family, yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home.  Whether it be the ties of blood on my mother’s side, or the friendships I have developed here over many years of active life, or the commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great peoples who speak the same language, who kneel at the same altars and, to a very large extent, pursue the same ideals, I cannot feel myself a stranger here in the centre and at the summit of the United States.  I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association which, added to the kindliness of your welcome,  convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.

This is a strange Christmas Eve.  Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other.  Ill would it be for us this Christmastide if we were not sure that no greed for the land or wealth of any other people, no vulgar ambition, no morbid lust for material gain at the expense of others, had led us to the field.  Here, in the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart.  Therefore we may cast aside for this night at least the cares and dangers which beset us, and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm.  Here, then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly-lighted island of happiness and peace.

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter.  Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play.  Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

And so, in God’s mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.”

In that same broadcast Franklin Roosevelt reminded us:

Our strongest weapon against this war is the conviction of the dignity and brotherhood of man which Christmas Day signifies—more than any other day or any other symbol.”

He continued, “Against enemies who preach the principles of hate and practice them, we set our faith in human love and in God’s care for us and all men everywhere.”

From me, Audre, and Nicholas, and all who frequent NEO

Merry Christmas to all

with our hopes and prayers for the renewal of this, one of our favorite places on the internet.

 

Good? Friday

02 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by in Lent, Salvation

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When I was a child, I always wondered how the day when Jesus suffered murder by the state could be called Good. As I grew up and put away childish things and thoughts, I came to understand the story. It is the ultimate story of servant leadership. It is the story of how God himself came down in the guise of a man, to show us the way. Here’s a part of the story.

And so now we come to the climax. We have seen Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we have seen the Last Supper with its echoing call “Do this in Remembrance of Me”, we have seen the arrest during prayers in the garden.

We have seen Peter, renamed Cephas (the Rock) deny the Christ 3 times. We have seen the trial before the Sanhedrin, and the passing of the buck to the Roman, Pontius Pilate who could find no fault in this man but allowed him to be condemned according to Roman practice.

We have even seen the treachery of Judas, paupers who for 30 pieces of silver betrayed his Lord, soon repented, attempted to return the reward (which ended up funding paupers cemetery), and his death as a suicide.

And so now we come to the fatal procession from Jerusalem to Golgotha.

In one way or another, we will all walk the Via Dolorosa. One of the mottoes I use to keep trying to do the right thing, “No one, not even Christ, ever got out of life alive”. For me, that about sums it up. You may as well do the right thing, you might not get the reward on earth that you were striving for, but at the judgment seat, you will be rewarded.

Here is the story according to St. Matthew:

And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross, and the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew.

And the chief priests said unto Pilate, It should be written and set up over his head, his accusation, This is he that said he was Jesus, the King of the Jews. But Pilate answered and said, What I have written, I have written; let it alone.

Then were there two thieves crucified with him; one on the right hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it again in three days save thyself. If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others, himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now; if he will save him, let him save him; for he said, I am the Son of God.

One of the thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. But the other rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation; and this man is just, and hath not sinned; and he cried unto the Lord that he would save him. And the Lord said unto him This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli,lama sabachthani?(That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) Some of them that stood there, when they heard him, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let him be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

Jesus when he had cried again with a loud voice, saying, Father, it is finished, thy will is done, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and the bodies of the saints which slept, arose, who were many, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, heard the earth quake, and saw those things which were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him for his burial; among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children.

Now, remember this was on Friday following the triumphant entry the prior Sunday. How the mighty had fallen, from the crowd’s hero, one might say a rock star, to an executed criminal buried in a borrowed grave in a week.

This was the man many had expected to free Israel from Rome, there would be others for that mission, it would culminate at Masada and in the destruction of Jerusalem and the diaspora. The next ruler of the city, after Rome, would be Islam, contested by the Crusader knights. But until our own time, Jerusalem would not be ruled again by the Jews.

And so the Messiah, the King of the Jews died. The lesson would seem to be not to upset the applecart, to go along to get along, even to sit down and shut up, wouldn’t it?

It’s a pretty sharp lesson too. One of the most cruel methods of execution ever devised by man.

And so ends the story;

or does it?

And so, to the Garden

01 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by in Faith, Lent

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And so, today and tonight the story moves to the Last Supper, a Seder meal remembering that God had set the Jews free from the Eqyptian Captivity, and for us, that is not unconnected, for that tradition moved into Christianity, and has led to the unparalleled freedom we have enjoyed and defended against all others. That freedom is one of the fruits of Christianity, it has never existed except where Judaism and Christianity ruled, and it still doesn’t.

From the time when Christians were the wonder of the ancient world as they disregarded the all but universal practice of leaving unwanted infants to die of exposure to this very day as we fight against the horrors of infanticide whose proponents use the euphemism of abortion to hide their crime. It is all down to Judeao-Christians honoring God’s promise.

But tonight Jesus will go to Gethsemene to camp one last time (in the flesh) with His disciples. There Judas will find his chance to betray the Lord and will take it.

In 2013 Jessica published an excellent meditation on Judas here on her blog. It starts like this.

Even the first time he appears, Judas’ name is associated with the betrayal which makes him infamous and immortal in history. We have two accounts of how he met his end: St Matthew tells us he hanged himself in a fit of shame and remorse; in Acts, Luke tells us ‘Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out.’ He has become the epitome of the false friend. Why did he do it?

The Synoptic Gospels agree that Judas was bribed. Greed then, 30 pieces of silver; was it for this that the Saviour of the World was handed over to the torturers? John goes further, telling us that Judas ‘was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.’  He objected to Mary using expensive, scented oil to anoint the feet of the Lord, giving us one of the few other insights we have into his behaviour.

I heartily recommend it, Jess does these better than almost anyone ever has. On that same day, on my blog, she was also speaking of Judas, and while you would do well to read the whole post, I’ll give you some of her conclusions.

Judas had clearly had enough. Though the Synoptic Gospels tell us he betrayed Jesus for silver, John gives us the clue that it was Mary’s use of expensive oil to anoint Jesus’ feet which pushed him over the edge. It might, of course, be, as John said, that he had been tipping into the till and helping himself to money, but his taking offence was clear enough evidence of what type of man he was.  He was a zealot, a puritan – how dare Jesus allow people to waste oil which could have been spent to help the poor. He, Judas, knew what was right, and he had lost patience with Jesus.

Simon Peter was headstrong, and didn’t always get it right. After supper, when Jesus had said He was going to wash the feet of the disciples, Peter protested and said He wouldn’t allow it. But when Jesus told him that if he didn’t, he couldn’t be with Him, Peter didn’t ask for an explanation, he told Jesus he wanted to be washed all over.

Caiaphas and Judas reasoned their way through to a conclusion based on their own insights, and they saw, as we all do, only so far. Peter also reasoned his way to what seemed to him a sensible conclusion, but the love he felt for Jesus opened his heart and he saw further than he had with his intellect. Jesus warned him that he had been handed over to Satan to be ‘sifted’. Peter declared he never would deny Jesus – but Christ knew what was coming.

As the disciples slept and the Romans and the Jewish guard came closer, the silence of that dark night was broken only by the anguish of Jesus. His time had come.

And so it was foretold, and so it happened.

A Modern Passion Play

29 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by in Faith, Lent

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As we work our way into the second year of lockdown to flatten the curve, many of us remain more or less forcibly unchurched. Well, I was that way in college, since there was no local church of my denomination, nor did I have a car available. So it was time to improvise, adapt, and overcome, as it is now for people of faith.

Our forebearers had their passion plays to act out parts of the story of the Bible, most especially the Passion of Christ. And in fact, there is a modern one that was my mainstay in college. It’s certainly not as good as the services we normally would attend this week, but it is much better than nothing, or perhaps for some of us, even reading the words and being unable to visualize what this sacrifice the God himself made to save us was like.

I hope and yes, pray, that this will remind some of you, as it did me years ago, about how much God loves us all, no matter how we have behaved. Oh, and enjoy as well, for it came out of a burst of creativity rarely seen.

Refusing God?

11 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Reading the BIble, St Matthew's Gospel

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Today’s Gospel can be shocking on first reading and provides a perfect example of why we need guidance in reading Scriptures. Matthew 22.15-22 seems, on the surface, to provide all the reinforcement one might need to justify an almost vengeful reading of God’s nature. When those invited refuse the invitation, the King gets so angry that he sends his army to destroy those who have refused him. Then, having brought in those found in the highways and the byways, he picks on one poor man who has not dressed up and gets him thrown out. How, you might ask, can the poor man be all dressed up when he wasn’t even expecting to be invited to a wedding?

St Jerome, as so often, guides our feet to where they should be. He tells us, in his commentary on Matthew that the ‘wedding garments’ are ‘the Lord’s commands and the works that are fulfilled from the Law and the Gospel.’ If we have responded to God’s invitation then we have signed up to having ourselves changed – we have put on the ‘new Adam’ (or indeed the ‘new Eve’). The King asks the man why he has not done this and the man does not answer. He wishes to accept God’s invitation on his own terms, not God’s.

We see here the true meaning – and how correct it is. Initially God chose the Jews, but many of those rejected him, and so the invitation was thrown out to us all. In Christ there is no more ‘Jew’ nor ‘Gentile’, though we see from Acts how hard many of the Jewish religious establishment found it to accept Paul’s message. But so many of us are ‘too busy’ to take up the invitation. We have more important things to do; and even when some of us take it up, we think to do so on our own terms. We’re busy people. God loves us, but leaves us, as any father will, to make our own choice about whether that love is reciprocated.

St Augustine is clear that the proper wedding garment is the charity that is the fruit of our faith: ‘the garment required is in the heart, not on the body.’ (Sermon 90:4; 90:6) As St Paul tells us, we can do all manner of good things, but if we do not have ‘charity’ then they are of no avail. It is we who are rejecting God, not the other way around. We are warned here of the consequences of our actions, or rather, inactions.

The Good News is that there is time for us to change. The bad news is all around us, namely that so few of us do that. But before we get all censorious and risk being self-righteouss, let each one of us search her heart and ask what we have done and are doing to witness to the truth that is in us? Does the way we behave, does the way our church behave, suggest to others that the invitation is worth taking up? Are we, indeed, dressed in the ‘wedding garment’ or have we turned up on our own terms, expecting to be accepted on our terms?

There Is Something About Mary

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by in Faith, Marian devotion

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In her first post here, Jessica said this:

Our Lord Jesus Christ (OLJC) told the Apostles that men would know His followers by their love for each other, and He counselled them to be united; knowing us as He does, He can’t have been all that surprised that we’ve fallen away from those ideals. Perhaps if we were better at them there would be less for the polemicists to reproach us with? Great crimes have been committed in the name of Christianity, that is true, as it is of any great cause entrusted to fallen mankind. It is in our fallen nature to pervert whatever good things we have from God. In our folly we use the consequences of our own sinful state to reject the opportunity to reach out for God’s love; and in our pride erect a superstructure of Pharisaism on OLJC’s words, before proceeding to live in it rather than the love of Christ.

How very true that is we demonstrate each and every day. Yet there are things that we revere that bring us closer together. Today our Catholic brethren will celebrate Our Lady of Walsingham. That dream of Richeeldis de Faverches, A Saxon noblewoman who founded the shrine in 1061. It prospered all through medieval times visited by every King of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VIII. It was destroyed in the second round of the Dissolution of the Monasteries with its renowned statue of Mary being taken to London to be burnt, either in Chelsea or at Smithfield along with many other statues from the monasteries. or was it?

In an article on his blog, Dr. Francis Young summarizes an article he and Fr Michael Rear wrote for the Catholic Herald a year or so ago, on the circumstantial evidence they have found that a statue of the Virgin and child (apparently 13th century) referred to as the Langham Madonna, (pictured above) now at the Victoria and Albert Museum may, in fact, be the statue that once adorned the Holy House at Walsingham. He really doesn’t go into enough detail for me to have an opinion in his blog post, and the Catholic Herald article comes up 404. But he makes a pretty good case for it. Apparently, it was a common form at that time and this is the only one that survived. It’s worth your time to read and wonder. Walsingham has always had something of the miraculous about it, as you’ll know if you’ve read our various posts about it.

It started with Jessica’s Pilgrimage there in 2012 only a couple months after starting this blog, which she detailed here, here, and here. She gives a very good outline history of the shrine in the course of these posts, and in a personal note, she did indeed light candles for her readers, and at that almost precise time, I felt a great peace go through me, and that is when our friendship became deep and unshakable.

The shrine is also connected with us in other ways, including her miraculous cure from cancer.

The Shrine which has been so central to this blog (if you search for ‘Walsingham” you will find many articles, from Jessica, from Chalcedon, and from me dealing with it. But the main thing bout it seems to me to be a unifying force for Christians of all types and places.

There is a Catholic Shrine at the Slipper Chapel which is historically connected with it, there is an orthodox Shrine and Methodist and (I think) even Coptic chapels. And that is also what we for eight years have attempted to do here, to be ecumenical without being syncretic. In the main, we have succeeded.

In a post on Our Lady Day in Harvest, in 2017 A Clerk of Oxford gave us a very good reading as to what Mary meant to our forbearers.

Though they contain plenty of miracles and marvels and angels, they’re somehow very human and ordinary. At the heart of them is a woman, loving and much loved, whose life is traced from the first wonder of her conception to her peaceful death. In a sequence like that at Chalgrove, or in Ely’s Lady Chapel, or in the Book of Hours or the plays, Mary’s life is mapped out through domestic, everyday scenes: parents rejoicing in the birth of a longed-for baby; a little girl learning to read with her mother, or climbing the steps to the temple like a child on her first day at school; a teenage Mary with her female friends, happy with her baby, at her churching, or in the last days of her life. These were familiar rituals of childhood and motherhood which resonated with medieval audiences – with women especially, but not only women. They are completely relatable, not only for mothers like Margery Kempe but for anyone who has ever had a mother, ever been a child, and there’s something beautiful about elevating such ordinary family relationships to the dignity of high art. In these scenes Mary is not an unapproachably distant figure but a woman imagined in relationship to others: a daughter, wife, mother, friend. In particular, the story of her passing is full of other people and their love for her – the apostles and her friends gathering around her bedside, Christ cradling her soul in his arms like a child. She is unique, but never alone.

Personally, I always like to end these posts with these words from St Isaac the Syrian

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

Consistent with love?

01 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Reading the BIble

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I recently had occasion to quote this to our long-time commentator, Bosco: “Whatever is not consistent with love of God and neighbour cannot be a right interpretation of Scripture.” St Augustine was the author of this wise saying, and it is the key to our understanding of Scripture.

One reason, politeness apart, that I interact with Bosco here is that beneath the unappealing surface of what he writes, there is a child of God and a man who believes that he is “saved” and has a concern for the rest of us. Ironically, when he criticises St Thomas More and others in the Church for the way they treated heretics in the past, he fails to see that they were motivated by much the same thoughts that motivate him, namely the view that someone else is teaching “another gospel” and putting their soul in peril, as well as the souls of others. More, like his Protestant successors, had the power of the State on his side and could use it to correct error. Bosco only has the internet, which he uses to scarify the Catholic Church, which he believes is in error. And so it goes on.

The Bible is not a text-book, it is not a history book, it is not a work of scientific accuracy, and yet we believe, nay we know, that it contains everything we need to know in order to attain salvation. But how are we to understand it? Bosco tells us confidently that it explains itself to the person of faith, and follows that up by demonstrating that it doesn’t, by coming to conclusions the diametric opposite of others who read it. Now, it is of course, just possible that a small group of American Fundamentalists understand the Book Canonised by the Church better than the Church which Canonised it, but on the balance of probabilities, it would be unwise to bet the farm, let alone your soul, on it.

At this point in internet “dialogue” it is common to get into proof-texting. Well, I can speak only for myself and I don’t kow about you, but I am heartily sick of Christians from different Churches throwing proof texts at each other.

In her post yesterday, Audre advised us that she was a “big picture” person, and that is good advice. Once we realise that the biggest picture is that God is love, and therefore any interpretation of Scripture inconsistent with love of God and neighbour cannot be correct. It follows that in our dealings with each other, whilst love might lead us to be alarmed that x or y is “wrong” in their interpretation, so might we be.

It is for that reason that Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox look to the teaching of the Church to support the readings which their own reasoning suggests. No-one who knows anything about the Catholic Church could believe what only those who know nothing about it propound when they suggest that it seeks to tell its members how the read the Bible in every aspect of its richness. That is not, and never has been, the function of the Church.

The Church is the repository of the “rule of Faith”. It is the guardian of the Creeds through which it interprets what it received from the hands of the Apostles themselves. So, to take one example, you can argue about what you think the Trinity is, and you can support yourself with proof-texts, but the Church knows that heretical positions were, in the past (as now) supported by clever men (and it is always men … just saying) with arguments of their own devising, and so, if we are wise, we will turn to the Church to see what it has to say on the matter. There we discover the wisdom of the ages, guided by the Holy Spirit. We can then measure our own conclusions against that collective wisdom. If we think we are right, then of course, we shall act on that. But if we are wise, we will pray for discernment. I don’t know about you, but I lack whatever spirit it is that leads people to believe that they know better than the mind of the Church.

Love is the guide for how we should read Scripture. We bring to it emotional and cultural baggage which is bound to influence how we read and interpret, and it is right that should be the case; even were it not right, it is inevitable. But then let us measure our thoughts against the yardstick that God is Love. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in love, but in the struggle to translate that into words, we can miss the deeper level at which He communicates to us. God abides with us always. Of course we will feel ourselves “unworthy”, and we are – by our standards. If we look at us through God’s eyes, we are the reason that Christ suffered, died, was buried and rose again, we are loved that much. Do you get it? I don’t in my head, but I do emotionally. It makes no sense to my earthly standards, but that just tells me how far those are from God’s.

The Holy Spirit speaks through the Church, and He speaks to all of us if we have ears to hear and a heart open to receiving Him. I am unworthy, and yet Christ died for me, so I am worthy. Yes, I see the distance between this weak and fallible person and the infinite goodness of the Trinity, but then through prayer and through Grace, I have faith that the gap will narrow and I can enter more deeply into the ultimate reality of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The prodigality of God

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Bible, Faith, St Luke's Gospel

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Prodigal

Today’s reading for morning prayer was Luke 15:11-end. As I reflected on it I was struck, not by the action of the Father, or the forgiveness of the son or the grudging spirit of the eldest son, all of which are my usual focus, but by the prodigality of God. By any standards of any time the actions of the Father go above and beyond any expectations. The younger son has dishonoured the family name, he has wasted a portion of the family inheritance and has brought shame upon his father. It is to his credit that he realises this and wants nothing more than a place among the hired servants; he knows he has forfeited any rights his birth might have conferred upon him; he has thrown them all away, and on nothing of value and for nothing of value, unless, of course, the wisdom of hindsight is thought to be worth it.

The Father’s love is prodigal. Running was something done by servants and children, elders did not run; yet the Father runs. He runs not to an honoured guest who by the standards of the time would have brought honour on him and his household, but to someone who has done the opposite.

The Father has already gone beyond anything reasonable in dividing the inheritance, he is under no social obligation even to receive his dishonoured son; had he reacted as his eldest son did no one could have complained. Sin has consequences, moral hazard demanded that the sinner suffer. But again, the Father  goes above the beyond. He forgives, welcomes and restores the penitent.

The God we see revealed here is indeed “Love.” He is lavish, his bounty is inexhaustible, even, to our way of thinking, wasteful. The elder son reacts as we might well, and as we might take our faith to require us to act – were it not for what Jesus says here. He who was lost has been found, and we see what He means when He says there is more joy over one sinner saved than in many righteous people.

How unfair that sounds to our ears. How can those who come at the last hour get the same as those who were there from the start? Those who faithfully observe the commandments (and often, as faithfully observe those who do not), who tithe, who love their neightbour as themselves and give of their substance to the poor, have they not deserved the Kingdom of Heaven? Jesus’ answer is “no.”

We cannot and do not “win” our way to Heaven. Grace is free to all who will receive it, as is forgiveness. That is a prodigality as beyond our comprehension as the love of God is. These are words we can understand only in relation to what we know and feel. Which of us would die for someone who was indifferent to us? God is indifferent to none of us; if He seems far off, it is we, not Him, who is far off.

He is there. He waits. He will run to us. He loved us first. Let us do the same.

The importance of love

26 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by in Bible, Faith, St. Isaac

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To some, even the use of the word “love” induces a visceral reaction, such, perhaps, has been its over-use. But as the Beloved Disciple reminds us:

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

In Christ, God reveals His purpose to us. He did not write a manifesto or send us a list of things we must and must not do, He spoke to us in the only language we can understand – that is through another human life. Jesus tells us what God wants for us, but more, much more than that, He shows us what love means. We can understand love only through relationships, and that is what Jesus shows us – the true meaning of love.

That love is a manifestation of the eternal love that is the Holy Trinity. The sanctifying love of the Spirit and of the Son are poured forth for our salvation. it is through Jesus that we receive the gift of eternal life, not because we first love God, but because He first loves us.

If we love others, and He loves us, then, as the Catechism tells us, in this way the Trinitarian love is reflected here on earth as it is in Heaven. Human love is not the cause of our love, it is a manifestation of God’s love. It follows, as St John tells us, that those who claim to know God but do not manifest love speak under the influence of a false spirit. And yet how very hard it is for us to show love for one another.

St John outlines four ways in which God lives is us: if we love one another; if we have been given His Spirit: if we can confess that Jesus is the Son of God; and finally, if we abide in the love of God. If this is so, then keeping God’s commandments isno more burdensome than love itself. Love is not, as we know, without its difficulties. It is far from saccharine and always sweetness and light; but what we suffer when we love we do because we know that in this fallen world it must be so.

St Anselm of Canterbury prayed:

Lord, let me seek you in desiring you:

and desire you in seeking you.

Let me find you by loving you,

and love you in finding you.

As so often when it comes to love, let us leave St Isaac the Syrian to have the final word:

In love did God bring the world into existence;

in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state,

and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things;

in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

Fr Aiden Kimel has some wiser and deeper reflections on this theme here.

 

 

Not fear but love

10 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith

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I was struck, watching the Stations of the Cross live-streamed from Shrewsbury Cathedral by the reflection that it is not fear of Hell but love of Christ which makes me repent of my sins. The horrors and agonies of crucifixion are things on which few of us wish to reflect. As Fr Marcus Walker reminds us, most of the art depicting the pivotal event of this Friday erases the darkness and the pain. Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for rebels and slaves, and the portrayal of it in Richard Harrison’s Golgotha is gruesome; it is a picture of pain; as Fr Marcus puts it, “there is nothing else there.” It is not a painting one could “like,” but it is one which commands attention because it recalls to us the love that God has for us.

I pray, daily, that God may “spare us from the fires of hell,” but those “fires,” and the fear they engender, would be a poor foundation of faith. They would not help in those moments when one finally imitates Jesus and asks “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” What helps draw me to repentance is the knowledge of God’s love. What hurts most is the knowledge that He hung and suffered there because of my sins. What makes me rejoice most is that He did it for love of me, and that through that love He set me free. I am free. I am free to worship Him – or not. And why should I not?

Though there are times when the darkness hides Him, the Light is never extinguished. Though I cannot always hear Him, His voice is never silent. Though there are times He seems hidden, that is as it should and must be. We take from our society an impatience and a desire to have what we want and to have it now. So, when we make God in our image and mutter that He is not there, it is we who are not there. We are not there attending to the message of the silence or the mystery of what we see only as through a glass darkly.

But He is there. He is there, not least today. Not least when we pray the Stations of the Cross. Not least when we contemplate the Tree on which the Prince of Glory died. Our richest gain, we count but loss, and we pour contempt on all our pride. What are we that He should have gone through this pain for us? Yet He did so. Whatever we suffer, He has suffered. In the spaces and the silences we should reflect on that fact and upon the message of the Cross.

This day is “Good” because it witnesses, as nothing else could, to what draws us to God. St John, as ever, said it best: “ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

I wish all our readers and commentators a holy Easter, and as today, we enter into the darkness, let us travel towards the light of Sunday together in hope and prayer.