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All Along the Watchtower

~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

All Along the Watchtower

Tag Archives: Prayers

In the tares

27 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by JessicaHoff in Anglicanism, Blogging, Catholic Tradition, Faith

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

pandemic, Prayers

Thinking about the parable of the wheat and the tares, it occurred to me that as a society and civilzation we are all in the tares.

Our search for that right to happiness which lies underneath and above the various ‘liberations’ we have had, seems to have led to the discovery of more chains upon us. As a woman I am liberated from patriarchy, but if I object to being described as a “menstuator” or as a “person who bleeds” I am trangressing against the rights of transgender people. As “rights” multiply according to our identity, we face the question of what binds us together as a society? Here in the UK, since Brexit, that has shown that what unites one part of us also digs a gulf between that part and another part. Yes, 52% was a majority, but when 48% feels desolate, saying, in effect, “tough” does not help, any more than the 48% banging on about it helps. There seems to be no health in us.

And then, on cue, comes Covid19, so there is, literally “no health in us”. The idea of “following the science” was a good sound-bite, but since “science” is no more capable of deciding how a government should proceed than it is of telling us what the purpose of life is, we simply end up more divided. In the public square it’s the most clamant voices we seem to hear.

Some, me among them, have adopted the tactic of cutting ourselves off from the public square; I don’t actually want to know. That’s not because I really do not want to know, it’s because I despair of knowing. The bias, this way and that, of the media seems so obvious that even I can spot it. I’ll do what Voltaire recommends in Candide and literally cultivate my own garden.

But no woman is an island. My other half does not have my luxury. I can stay at home and dig for victory and fill the house with the smell of freshly baked bread. My skills as a seamstress are sufficient to literally make do and mend, and I was never much of a one for shopping – except for books. But my other half does not have this luxury – there’s an important job to be done, Zoom meetings to attend, and trips to London when necessary. In that sense, I am not an island.

But even the community to which I have been closest since recovering from my breakdown – the local church – has changed. For months none of us could attend. For those, such as myself, who know that receiving the blessed sacrament is a critical part of our spiritual growth, even offering it up was not sufficient; the want of it hurt, and there were times I longed to receive communion so much that I would stand outside the church near to where the blessed scrament is reserved and pray. On reflection, that probably didn’t help my neighbours think I’d got better; but I didn’t care.

Now we are back, but separated out and masked. I can’t give or receive the kiss of peace (I know some of you are no doubt relieved, but I love it, so there), and I can’t linger for coffee, biscuits and a chat afterwards. I don’t know about you, but wearing a mask for an hour or so is wearing; but them’s the rules and I obey. I object more than I thought I would to receiving on one kind only – it’s the residual Protestant in me – but am so grateful that I just accept it with gratitude – it’s so much better than lockdown.

Yet, even in my seclusion, I hear if not wars and rumours of war, I get rumours of an escalation in numbers of cases of Covid. In the spring the weather was bright and even if I did not feel like walking, I am fortunate enough to have a garden in which I could sit and sip tea and say my Rosary. I felt then, for those who lacked such luxuries. I feel even more for them now.

Maybe it’s attrition? But with the weather wet and dreary, my spirits go in empathy – the poet’s pathetic fallacy no doubt, but more than that.

Individualism is not enough. It never was and never could be. The very word church comes from the Greek word for an assembly. However much our salvation is personal, its working out is communal. Here we work with the local foodbanks, and as it is school holidays, we work on getting free school meals to those who need them. Some complain that we should not have to do this, that the State should. I have no problem with the criticism of the State, the Government seems a disgrace to me, and not just on this. But as a gathered community, we work where the Lord has placed us, and I, like others, find some relief from the depression settling on us by being able to work as Christ wants us to, with others to bring relief to those who need it.

I am conscious, however, that this is material relief, and I don’t in any way downplay the importance of it. We are fortunate to be among the “haves” and it is our duty as Christians to gove freely. But part of me wants more. As I see hopelessness descend on so many, I wish I could do more to share the faith that, along with my other half, gets me through all of this.

I have found great comfort in this set of prayers from my Church and highly recommend them; the pattern for daily prayer is one I follow and it brings me comfort when I need it. The other prayer I find helpful, apart from my daily rosary, is the old eastern orthodox prayer which C451 taught me years ago and to which I return before bedtime:

Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of the living God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

May the Lord bless us and keep us all.

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Sola Scriptura or Solo Scriptura

06 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Neo in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Lutheranism, Reading the BIble

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Christianity, Faith, orthodoxy, Prayers, sin

blog-solo-scriptura-4Gene Veith of Cranach reported an article the other day by Mathew Block, Communications Director of the Lutheran Church of Canada. I think it has bearing on the ongoing dialogue with Bosco, in which as we all know, he continually inveighs against the Church, usually the Catholic Church specifically, but in truth, all churches. Most of us realize as Chalcedon has said many times, “Christ founded a church”. And he did, Chalcedon’s definition differs a bit from mine as a Lutheran, but as America came from a reformed Great Britain, so too did Lutheranism come from a reformed Catholic Church. You could say much the same for all the other churches, in some form or another. We all hold some truths self-evident, for instance:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

That’s all that is required to be a Christian really. All the rest is mostly about how to live that Creed, which we all do imperfectly.

But Veith’s opening perfectly summarizes Bosco, and probably many like him. “[…] He argues that part of the problem is a misunderstanding of the authority of the Bible.  People say the Bible is their authority, then consider that to be a license to interpret scripture any way they want to.  Instead of sola scriptura, we have solo scriptura.”

Block makes several points, which are applicable here.

Because they privilege their own personal understanding of Scripture over the historic witness of the Church, it’s not surprising that Evangelicals deny that their congregation should have any meaningful authority over them: For example, 57 percent denied that their local church should have “the authority to withhold the Lord’s Supper from me and exclude me from the fellowship of the church.” In other words, Evangelicals believe the Bible is authoritative; and that authority is mediated by individual believers, rather than the church (even though the Bible explicitly says that authority is to be exercised by the church—e.g., Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 5:11-13, Titus 3:10-11, etc.) […]

If instead we ignore the ways in which the Church has expressed its beliefs—if we ignore the ways in which God has shaped the faith of the Church historic through His Word—then we are really denying that the Scriptures are authoritative at all. We are in effect saying that we do not trust God’s Word to have acted on any Christians other than ourselves. Instead, we are elevating ourselves—our own hearts—as the ultimate judge, both over Scripture and the God who has shared that Word with the Church down through history. And that is heresy of the highest degree.

via: EVANGELICALS, HERESY, AND SCRIPTURE ALONE. Do read the whole thing.

I’m reminded that the Rev Dr. Martin Luther in his Homily for Trinity XIX, Church Postils said that, “God does not desire the Christian to live for himself.” I also doubt that he really intended us to live by ourselves either, without the community to keep us in check, and our pastors should be of large account in that community, otherwise we will undoubtedly come to see ourself as the final authority, supplanting God Himself in that role. And that is always the sin of pride showing itself.

There is something else here also, that G.K. Chesterton phrased far better than I can.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

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Toward Advent: a reflection

27 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by John Charmley in Advent, Blogging, Faith

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity, Prayers

candle_flame_21

It comes in the darkest time of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and at a time when our ancestors needed fire and a celebration to remind them that the light would come again, as would the warmth. Ad venire – looking towards his coming, hence Advent, is our Christian way of expressing the same feeling, but in a deeper fashion. In our modern era it is a time of rush and busyness, but for Christians we must, somehow and from somewhere, find the time and space for the quietness in which we can contemplate the mystery of the Incarnate Lord. For it is the deepest and greatest of mysteries, that the omnipotent God should have responded to our disobedience and selfishness with love, and love that extended to the Cross.

All of this tends to make many modern people uncomfortable – one of the many sad consequences of the imbalance that has entered into our theology – as though mercy and judgment were somehow not part of each other. If we have no sense that there is anything from which we need saving, we shall never know the need for a Saviour, and may think that our problems can have some worldly cure; they cannot, and down that road of illusion lies ultimate despair. The darkness is broken only by the Light, and as long as we focus on that Light, the darkness cannot win; our broken sinfulness can distract us, can lead us away from the light into the deeper darkness, and that is the aim of satan, whose only pleasure is that others should have a share in his despair; mosery likes company.

Our consumerist culture has, to use a popular term, culturally appropriated Christmas, and we cannot wholly escape that; but we can turn it to our own purposes, just as our forebears turned the Winter Solstice celebrations. We can be sure to read the Scriptures set for the season and to pray on them; we can be sure to set aside time for prayer and prepare ourselves for the anniversary of his coming. The Sunday Advent readings remind us of what is to come, and if we stay with them, then we shall be prepared for the Christ Mass.

This, then, above all times, is a time of prayer. Jessica’s wonderful post yesterday is a reminder to us all of how powerful prayer is, and how those who are its object can be buoyed up by it. It is our conversation with God, and even if we think he is not talking back, he is, it is just that we do not, perhaps, know how to listen.

Jessica has asked me to say a big thank you to all of you who responded to her surprise post, and says we shouldn’t get over-excited – but she is very grateful. And with that, whilst the secular world uses this Friday to splurge out, we can use it to focus our minds on the reason for the coming season.

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When in doubt

12 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by Geoffrey RS Sales in Blogging, Faith, Synod 14

≈ 48 Comments

Tags

Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity, controversy, orthodoxy, Prayers

synod2

It is impossible to have feelings and for them not to be engaged on the part of members of this blog who are Catholics. As far as I am aware, there is only one ‘cradle Catholic’ here, David Monier-Williams, who celebrated his 84th birthday last week – and to whom many happy returns. I am struck by the fact that he, alone, of the Catholics here, seems to accept things as they come and refuses to get himself worked up by Synods – my guess would be that after 84 years as a Catholic he’s seen a good deal and learned to accept the rough with the smooth in a way you can if you’re born to something. As a lifelong Nonconformist, I refuse to get worked up by whatever this year’s fashionable cause of angst might be; I have seen it come, I have seen it go, and have lived long enough to see it come back and go again; there is nothing new under the sun. As long as there have been Christians there have been disputes about what needed to be believed, and Christians have turned on each other in a manner which suggests to outsiders that they are deaf to the Gospel command to love one another. As an acquaintance of mine at school once said: “Who would want to be loved by a pack of hounds who snarl at each other as easily as they breathe?” She had a point.

The other Catholics on this blog all came to the Church by a process during which they must have tested what they believe in a way that only those who feel the need to be elsewhere can – that is a serious process of discernment and to be respected. I have known a few such, and even though I have disagreed with their conclusion, I have respect for the manner and the scrupulosity by which they reached it.

I don’t know how much of the inwardness of a church converts can grasp on the journey. The ones I have known have approached their new church with the enthusiasm of a man who had found, at last, the pearl of great price, and several of them went there with what I thought we starry-eyed views of what they would find there. During the reigns of the previous two Popes, the Catholic Church was an obvious refuge for those of orthodox doctrinal positions and conservative views; indeed, it was during that period and perhaps for that reason that my own native anti-Catholic prejudices largely melted away. But I bore in mind the words of a very dear colleague – another cradle Catholic – “the real test will come, Geoffrey, when we get a ‘Spirit of Vatican II’ Pope – and we shall, we shall.” And we have, with rambling Pope Frank. And, as my old friend predicted, it has made many converts uneasy – they did not cross the Tiber through storms only to find on the other bank the issues they thought they had left behind; now they find it so, it is difficult – and one sympathises.

Our commentator, quiavideruntoculi writes amusing ditties in the style of Flanders and Swann and Tom Lehrer – and rather witty they are too; our old friend, Dave Smith, like others, worries that the modernists are packing the Synod to get the result they want – a view shared by some of our commentators; I worry for them if their fears are right. Our host, Chalcedon451, is adopting, if I read him aright, the old Oxford model of using history to comment on matters which too current and hot to comment on directly; that is the old Oxford Movement model and creates some distance between writer and subject, whilst still allowing useful things to be said. David Monier-Williams alone here is content to let things flow on.

They say when in doubt … don’t. It is hard, I think, to convert to what you thought to be the security of the rock and find yourself on a sandy beach after all. I hope and pray for my friends here that there is rock under the sand, and that, to use a phrase I know Jessica and Neo are fond of, that ‘all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’

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Emerging from silence

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Geoffrey RS Sales in Bible, Blogging, Faith

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

Christianity, God, Grace, Prayers, St Peter

redeemed-and-forgiven

First, I am touched by the kindness of the folk here. Taking it alongside a difficult eight months, it supplies me with this text:

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

I cannot think there are Christians who imagine that a life with Christ is a passport to a life of ease, for we are told that the world will hate us if we are his, and that we shall have to bear our crosses. But if we are in him, and he in us, then we do not lack support when we require help. Perseverance requires hope, and if we have brotherly kindness and love (in my own case, that would be daughterly kindness and love) that makes it all the more bearable. It isn’t easy to explain to non-believers what it means to offer our trials up to Christ, but believers will understand.

Trials are part of life. They remind even the sturdiest individualists amongst us that we are not alone, and if they help us to lean on Jesus, then we may gain an insight into what they bring us other than suffering. They are not ‘barren’ or ‘unfruitful’ in coming to understand more about our relationship with Jesus. Whoever wrote that second epistle of Peter (and I’m not inclined to accept that tradition has it wrong just because some modern scholars cast doubt on it), he was a Christian who had passed through the fires of suffering and come to know Jesus the better for it.

As I emerge from a silence imposed by personal circumstances (as some of you know, Mrs S has been unwell), it is in part to offer encouragement to all who suffer, and to all who feel that the darkness is descending. This world is not our home, but if we will but take the time to talk to God in prayer, then its trials and tribulations are not unfruitful. We may not, and I would not, seek them, but if we believe in him, we have a great high priests who knows our sufferings and loves us, and the one mediator with the Father who will save us.

I can say with Peter:

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts

 

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My Journey: Part II

29 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Neo in Anglicanism, Faith, Lutheranism, Marian devotion, poetry

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

choices, Christianity, Marian Devotion, mission, Prayers

2014-06-03 12.13.20Last time I ended with this, “And that I thought was the end of the story. Just another complacent American Christian of the Lutheran variety.” So let’s continue

But one day, on a whim, because I was bored, I started a blog, and it still exists (here), and like most of us, I began reading and commenting on a variety of blogs. On one of them, on the day the Supreme Court ruled on Obamacare, there was a Bible quote from a Brit girl commiserating with us. Usually, I’m not impressed with people who simply quote (or cherry pick) the Bible. But there was something compelling about that one, and I came back later and followed the link. Most of you know that that commenter was our own Jessica.

And that is when I started becoming a serious Christian. My basic beliefs have hardly changed at all but Jess, and Chalcedon, and Servus, and the rest past and present, and a very high percentage of them still read here although their comments are sparser than I would wish, have deepened and broadened my faith more than I would  have ever believed possible.

Still what can I say about Jess, for more than anything it was her guidance, her gift for teaching, her basic Christian decency, and her love that fertilized my growth. Not to mention the poetry. Who could resist Chesterton when one is down and ready to despair?

And this was the might of Alfred,
At the ending of the way;
That of such smiters, wise or wild,
He was least distant from the child,
Piling the stones all day.

The King looked up, and what he saw

Was a great light like death,
For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,
As lonely and as innocent
As when between white walls she went
And the lilies of Nazareth.

She made a pilgrimage to Walsingham that summer before starting her job. She wrote about it here and in other following articles (search for Walsingham). Walsingham was known throughout the middle ages as England’s Nazareth, and every King of England made that pilgrimage from Richard I to Henry VIII and then it was destroyed as part of the suppression of the Monasteries.  A shocking bit of vandalism.

But she opened my eyes that weekend to a part of the Faith that I had never considered: Marian veneration. She did it in an altogether unexpected way, she simply lit a candle for me and prayed for me. I was very moved. Her explanation was so clear and sensible that I instantly understood, and after a bit of research it has become part of my life as well. She has a gift of being able to explain the most complex things so clearly that even a broken down old lineman can understand. That was also the weekend that she became my dearest friend. And she also introduced me to some of Eliot’s poetry that has become my favorite, from Little Gidding, as well as hers:

  If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

And so it went, she always found me fertile ground for well reasoned analysis as I did her. In time she became my editor at NEO, and her gifts translated well into the fields I write about, which didn’t surprise me at all, although modest girl  that she is, she may have been.

And so we went on, leaning on each other as we had problems, always, and helping each other as we could. She became muse, partner, supporter, and dearest friend, whom I love more than I ever have anyone.

That is very true, as events have proved. When she went to the hospital last September with cancer, my world essentially stopped. I spent most of September on my knees praying for her. When she was miraculously cured, at the very last moment and her move to the retreat center, while reasonable, and not unexpected, left me with a huge hole in my life. I spent a good part of last fall physically ill from some of the dissonances set up in my mind and soul, until for the third time since I’ve known Jess, the Lord reached down and lifted my burden to the point I can bear it, barely. And yet, even in this, Jess had left advice for us, in her absence:

In this life we lose those we love, and they lose us; even the happiest of marriages ends in a bereavement. Often, we are rejected by others, and we are dead to them, and they to us. But unless we die, this alone we know, we cannot rise to life in Jesus.

And for the regulars here that know us both, you know there will be Kipling:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Which I think is about the best description of real life you will ever find.

And yes, her absence still gnaws at my heart and soul, I expect it always shall, so the lesson from this part of my life was best expressed by John Donne.

No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

 

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Prayer

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by JessicaHoff in Anglicanism, Faith, Julian of Norwich, poetry, Prayers

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Christianity, Faith, Marian Devotion, Prayers

Portrait of George Herbert

Fr. George Herbert describes prayer thus:

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
         God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
         The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
         Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
         The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
         Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
         Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
         Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

         The land of spices; something understood.

There is an utterly wonderful meditation on this at Malcolm Guite’s marvellous site. His comment on the second line is so profound, and so fitting the case of a friend who needs prayer that I cannot resist quoting it here for him and for us all:

This line invites us into a very early tradition of prayer and meditation rooted in a reflection on the image of breath and breathing in the Bible. To understand this line we need first to remember that Hebrew, Greek and Latin all use a single word to mean both ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’. ‘God’s breath in man’ evokes that primal image in Genesis of God breathing the breath of life into humanity, the moment of our wakening as living beings, a moment of tender closeness to our Maker. But after that inspiration comes the equally decisive moment of expiration. We have to trace our history through fall and alienation pain and sin and death at last to the foot of the cross where a Second Adam, one in whom also the whole of humanity is bound and involved, stretches out his arms to embrace the pain of the world and breathes back to God that gift of life.

The Holy Spirit breathes upon us. In the Orthodox Church the catechumen being received is breathed upon. In stillness and in meditation upon God (and that is what my Rosary is to me) we can enter into that quietness where the soul is soothed and the dizzy brain is calmed. Sometimes, because of some of the associations of ‘meditation’ we think of it as something to do with ‘eastern mysticism’ and therefore to be distrusted. But the true eastern mysticism is that of Christ, who is the all in all, and he taught us how to pray. For those who find the Rosary too ‘busy’, there is the prayer of Jesus which the Orthodox pray: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’. Whatever brings calm and comfort and is of Jesus, we should take it as part of the rich banquet Our Lord has prepared for us.

I don’t know how many of you know the Sacred Space site, but for those of us with busy lives which involve computers a lot, it is a marvellous oasis from which to refresh us and feed the soul’s blood.

So, as we go through today, my friends, can I ask simply we pray each for the other, with a special prayer for DR, over whom the Blessed Virgin has cast her mantle of protection, and who needs to remember, always, the words of Mother Julian:

“But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’

 

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Rest

31 Saturday May 2014

Posted by John Charmley in Anglicanism, Faith, Marian devotion, Prayers

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Christianity, love, Marian Devotion, Prayers, Walsingham

mary_rosary-31

By the time this is posted, I shall be on my way to, amongst other places, Walsingham. My thanks to Neo for his very kind comments, and to others for their many kindnesses.

Holiday, of course, comes from ‘Holy Day’, and I intend to restore the link between the two, at least for me. One of the hardest parts of Christian life for me is living it every day, and not letting it become ghettoized to morning and evening prayers. When St Paul tells us to pray constantly, we know it is a good idea, but I, for one, find it problematic, not least with the deadline for a report to the boss looming, and several meetings’ worth of minutes to be prepared – and then there’s that business of lunch, and, goodness, it is 2 o’clock and it didn’t happen. It is as though the whole pace of life is designed to give one no opportunity to draw breath, let alone pray.

I carry my Rosary with me everywhere, and sometimes find that just clutching in my hand helps; it gives a moment’s oasis in the desert of work. The place where I have been working had a ‘quiet room’, but when I asked the chaplain how often it was used by staff, he looked at me as though that was an odd question; “hardly ever, they’re too busy”. The medieval Church was better than we are at providing spaces in the year for people to spend time with God. I should love to have been able to go to Church on Thursday to celebrate the feast of the Ascension, but work beckoned, and apart from a short morning service first thing, I had no opportunity before prayer-time in the evening to reflect on this important event in our calendar. These sacred spaces which the Church used to provide in such abundance were swept away during the Reformation, and I am told that the English have fewer religious holidays than any country in Europe; this, I think, it a great shame. If we have no time in our days for God, then we suffer; well, I know I do.

I am hoping that this period away will be one which allows me to reorient my prayer-life in preparation for my new post, which will allow, I hope, some real place for it. The school has an act of Christian worship every morning, and I look forward to treasuring that, as I do to the period of ‘quietness’ at the end of the teaching day. One of the attractions to me of this new post is not simply that it puts me back doing what I was trained to do – teaching primary school children – but it puts me into the atmosphere of a Church school which takes its ethos seriously.

I see the next week as a period of spiritual ‘detox’ where I can slough off old practices and begin to acquire some new ones. I will light candles at Walsingham.

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Ecumenical reflections

24 Saturday May 2014

Posted by John Charmley in Faith, Pope

≈ 52 Comments

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Catholic Church, Christianity, Prayers

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I have refrained from commenting on Geoffrey’s interesting pieces this week, partly because I have been exceptionally busy, and partly because I wanted to see where he was going before doing so. Now I have seen the destination, and am moved.

I am moved in part by the spectacle of a good man staying in the place where he thinks God put him, and getting on with the spreading of the Good News for more than half a century; that in itself is admirable. Geoffrey, as his church and Mrs Sales can attest, is one for fidelity. For one such as myself, that is all the more admirable because it is not something of which I can boast (not that Geoffrey does any such thing); theorising is easy; it is the practice which is hard.

There is a splendid piece here about the significance of the Pope’s visit to the Patriarch, and about the true meaning of ecumenism; I commend it to anyone whose first reaction on reading that word is ‘heresy’ or ‘syncretism’. The author points out that this is not, pace the amateur politicians on both sides, about politics, it is about finding how it is that we are divided when we both ground our faith in Jesus Christ and claim a lineage back to the Apostles; that there is something in common, as well as much that divides, is not a place from which to begin despair, any more than it is one from which to contemplate denominational suicide. Dr De Ville has some sound things to say, not least this, which will strike a chord with readers of AATW:

Who among us, convinced of our own self-righteousness, has not (especially in online “discussions”), reacted with swift sarcasm and sneering about the speck in our opponent’s eye while ignoring the massive log in our own? Whom does this convince? Whom does this help? If I insist that my Church alone has the fullness of truth, while yours is but a sect of self-deluded heretics and papists, all equally without grace and all equally damned to hell, can I realistically expect that any human being on the planet will respond by exclaiming, “Of course! I see at once the errors of my ways, and will repent and convert before sunset, so moved am I by your graciously Christ-like countenance and charity.”

To which the answer appears to be, from some quarters, “who cares, that’s how it is and I show my love for you by telling you”; worked out well, that method across the centuries. Mind you, I am sure our enemies wish it to continue.

In fact, ecumenism on the national and international stage, whilst it can set a good example, cannot succeed without local Christians being part of it; that was why the Council of Florence failed. One of Geoffrey’s profoundest points is one of his simplest, which is that in our society we choose to be Christians, and if we so choose, we often end up choosing, more than once, where we think the Truth is to be found. This can, indeed, make converts impatient with those still where they once were; it is a good idea to cultivate a spirit of humility at such times, and remember where we once were, as well as asking whether our journey to where we are now would have been facilitated by being hectored and insulted.

Jessica placed on the masthead of this blog the Lord’s command that we be one. If this place does nothing else, it creates a space where we can explore what we believe and, on the whole, converse as Christians should – with humility and a prayer for Grace.

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More light

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by JessicaHoff in Bible, Early Church, Faith

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Christianity, love, Prayers

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On his death-bed, Goethe is said to have cried: ‘More light’. An appropriate sentiment today, the shortest day of the year. The sun, were there to be any on this grey and gloomy day, would be gone from the sky by 3.41, giving us just over seven and a half hours of daylight; the quality of daylight today makes it seem like a perpetual twilight. When I was younger, my Daddy used to take me for a walk on the farm on this day, and we would walk over to the far field where, if there was sun, we would watch it set between two oaks, before stumbling back to a steaming cup of cocoa and biscuits in front of the fire. There was, in that, the human desire to escape the dark for the warmth of the light.

Our Christian faith speaks of Jesus as the ‘Light of the World’, with St John repeating what Christ Himself told us:  “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”  Jesus also described His followers as ‘the light of the world’ telling us:

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

It is a reminder on this short day when light is in such short supply that Jesus Himself saw this world as lacking in it; He bids us to be that light, reflecting Him to the world.

Holman Hunt’s wonderful Victorian painting which heads up this post, is one of my favourite images of Christ.  It does not conceal the effects of the crucifixion, indeed the crown of thorns is prominent, and the marks of the nails can be seen on his hands. If we look at his feet, they are pointing away from the door – has he been waiting there so long for our poor hearts to open that he is beginning to move away? The cloak he wears is reminiscent of that of a Jewish high priest, which reminds me of the tradition that St John used to wear such a garment. Behind him, and his lantern, is the dark and frightening wood. The message of the painting is that of Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” The original Greek carries the implication that the knocking of which Christ speaks is an ongoing process, and this we miss in the English.

But it is good to remember on this short, dark day, that the Light of the World is knocking on the door of our hearts, and that we should let Him in so that we, too, may become small candles in the great illumination of the darkness.

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