The Benefits of Solitude

 

To go in search of solitude, even for a short time, will make a difference. It is so important in spiritual growth.  You can throw out all other  kinds of discipline as long as you 'stay in you cell' (stay with yourself).  ...The ancient wisdom is to stay in your cell and it will teach you everything ... The hermit living in the desert is free from a threefold strife: the strifes of eyes, ears and tongues.  One strife alone remains, the strife of the heart... In solitude it is the heart which comes to the top, with its innate discord;  sold to sin (Rom 7:14), but already indwelt by God and the prayer of the Holy Spirit But it is sin which in solitary prayer comes first to the surface.  Daunting, overwhelming....Solitude sets me off from everything and takes me back to my own nothingness... Every superficial prop, every distraction, has gone... A person stands naked and defenseless before God, that is to say, in that poverty and weakness which are his only asset,  Before solitude brings me to the encounter with God, it shows me my own limitations and insignificance... I uncover in myself sin and frailty... The effect of solitude gives release from many false ideas and illusions.  It teaches how to be an ordinary human being , frail and in need of help... It is in the struggle with sin and evil that God intervenes  to strengthen the solitary... and here one begins to find one's true heart... This solitude is by turns wilderness and paradise, the tomb of sin and the womb of the new world, the Passover of Jesus.

                                        

                                                        Andre Louf  Teach Us To Pray

 

The Time is Always Right

  Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
    They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
    “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
    The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
    It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.
    It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
    Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
    Let him put his mouth in the dust—
There may yet be hope.
                         Lamentations 3.22-29 The Holy Bible, New King James Version

New Every Morning by John Keble

New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If, on our daily course, our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see;
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Shall dawn on every cross and care.

We need not bid, for cloistered cell,
Our neighbor and our words farewell,
Nor strive to find ourselves too high
For sinful man beneath the sky.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

Seek we no more; content with these,
Let present rapture, comfort, ease—
As heaven shall bid them, come and go:
The secret this of rest below.

Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love,
Fit us for perfect rest above,
And help us, this and every day,
To live more nearly as we pray.

Have a blessed NEW day!   Brian+

Lent is a Work of Love: Forgiveness and Repentance

Forgiveness and repentance: this is the joyful work of our Lenten journey.  Just before the Lenten Season The Collect for Quinquagesima reminds us of "the most excellent gift of charity (love):

O LORD, who hast taught us that all our
doings without charity are nothing worth:
Send thy Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts
that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond
of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever
liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant
this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

We must never lose this 'goal set before us,' this goal of love, during the Lenten call to repentance and forgiveness.  

And it is WORK!!

Only by confronting our bitterness and resentment, and finding forgiveness for those who have hurt us, can we be free from the rage that binds us in despair. Repentance is not about beating ourselves up for our errors and feeling guilty; that is a sin in and of itself! Guilt keeps us entombed in self-pity. All sin is some form of self-centeredness, selfishness. Repentance is the transformation of our minds and hearts as we turn away from our sin, and turn to God, and to one another. Repentance means to forgive. Forgiveness does not mean to justify someone’s sin against us. When we resent and hold a grudge, we objectify the person who hurt us according to their action, and erect a barrier between us and them. And, we continue to beat ourselves up with their sin. To forgive means to overcome that barrier, and see that there is a person who, just like us, is hurt and broken, and to overlook the sin and embrace him or her in love. When we live in a state of repentance and reconciliation, we live in a communion of love, and overcome all the barriers that prevented us from fulfilling our own personhood.    Metropolitan Jonah of Washington

I suppose that one might say Forgiveness and Repentance is love for it is directed towards the Lord and neighbour.  Our love without it, is worth little if even nothing.

Have a great work day! and have a blessed love directed Lent,

Pray for me, Lord have mercy,  Brian

Thanks to Salt of the Earth for the quote.

Repentance Never Ends

“People have lost the feeling that they need to repent,” he said, and it grieved him. They commit sin and their conscience doesn’t bother them. There’s never-ending work to be done on ourselves. Repentance never ends, just like a wood carving someone can work on his whole life, with a magnifying glass. If a person doesn’t start working on himself, the devil will find work for him to do, and he’ll concern himself with other people’s lives. We have to acquire spiritual sensitivity. A Christian has to be able to see the passions that he has inside him, to repent for them and not to forget about them. People have put a lid on their conscience, and they end up in a state where they’ve got nothing and they’re never happy. When something happens, we don’t need to beat ourselves up over it – but let’s deal with it. When I’d see one of my sins, I’d be happy, because a wound had been revealed so I could treat it.

~Elder Paisios of Mt. Athos 

Thanks to Christ in Our Midst

A Prayer to start a Bible Study

Illumine our hearts, O Master who lovest mankind, with the pure light of Thy divine knowledge.  Open the eyes of our mind to the understanding of thy Gospel teachings.  Implant also in us the fear of Thy blessed commandments, that trampling down all carnal desires, we may enter upon a spiritual manner of living, both thinking and doing such things as are well-pleasing unto Thee.  For Thou art the illumination of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.  Amen

The Agesima's - Getting Ready For Lent

For over 18 centuries the Church has has a period of preparation for the Great Fast of Lent. The three Sunday's leading into Lent in the BCP are called Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. In England, the wisdom of preparing for Lent is preserved, but the Latin names, the 'agesima's' are given their English meanings; The 3rd Sunday before Lent, The 2nd Sunday before Lent, The Sunday before Lent.

This lead-in period to psychologically prepare for the discipline of Lent is important. The wisdom of this period of preparing should not be lost. We rightly prepare for tests: for important undertakings. Understanding Lent as a discipline to strengthen our 'Yes," to Jesus, and our "No," to Satan; understanding Lent as a time to intentionally and with holy seriousness to lean upon divine grace; understanding Lent as a time of renewal of surrendering self-will to god's will; to refocus upon the victory of the Cross and hope of the resurrection is a test. This 'test' of Lent calls us to refocus our hearts.

So are we thinking about getting serious about renewing our Love for the LORD and each other? I pray we are.  LORD have Mercy,  Brian

Dear friends in Christ,
every year at the time of the Christian Passover
we celebrate our redemption
through the death and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lent is a time to prepare for this celebration
and to renew our life in the paschal mystery.
We begin this holy season
by remembering our need for repentance,
and for the mercy and forgiveness
proclaimed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I invite you therefore, in the name of the Lord,
to observe a holy Lent
by self-examination, penitence, prayer,
fasting, and almsgiving,
and by reading and meditating on the word of God.
Let us kneel before our Creator and Redeemer.
From the Book of Alternative Services - Ash Wednesday Service

 

Eucharistic Ponderings and Proclamations

Is this poor morsel,
  The Flesh of He who opened Himself
  To the suffering of the Cross?
Is this parched wheat,
  The banqueting food of the eternal festival
  Of the Resurrected Groom in His Kingdom?
Is this fermented juice,
  The life stream dripped
  Unto cruel cross and dry ground?
Is this Cup
  The time and eternity drink
  Of earth and Heaven made one?
I believe, I believe
  His Flesh is Food indeed - The Bread of Heaven
  His Cup is Drink indeed - The Blood of Christ
I believe, I believe.
  Lord, help me in my unbelief..

LORD, have mercy,   Brian+

The Church, the Eucharist, and living the Scriptures

"The Church is the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is the Church"  Fr. Steven Freeman of Glory to God for All Things.

Fr. Freeman is writing a wonderful series on Christianity and Post-modernism. The following quote relates to how we can only understand the Scriptures within the life and particularly in the worship of the Church.  Much to think about here.

The Church should not be seen as an institution, a business or a club, or an organization existing through the centuries, managing history. Some “Churches” in the West may very well fit this description, but they are not “Church” in the proper sense of the word. The Church is the Eucharist and the Eucharist is the Church. The people, members of the Body of Christ, are those assembled in the liturgy (and in its continual life beyond the immediate assembly itself). That the Church reads is patently part of its liturgical life. What is considered canon, authoritative, is that which is read in the liturgy. The Church not only reads the Scriptures, it prays and enacts the Scriptures. It sings the Scriptures and interprets them in the embodied life of praise and thanksgiving to God. “Bible study,” and such notions, outside of the worshipping Church are akin to nonsense. There can be no study of the Scripture for the sake of the Scripture (or simply for the sake of learning). This would be similar to discussing (ad nauseum) the lyrics of a song whose music you never hear and whose tune you never sing.
The Scripture is the song of God, both sung to the Church by God and sung to God by the Church. In the life that is that song, the Church is continually conformed to the image of Christ. This is the Church’s liturgy (and God’s liturgy), the song of the image of God.
The life that is the continual liturgy is the Christ-conforming life of the believer in union with others within the Body of Christ sharing in the one Spirit. The Scriptures are not a source or reference-book for that Christ-conforming life, they are part of that life itself.  SEE HERE

LORD have mercy,  Brian+

Contemplation and Liturgy

In his recent address to the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, our Archbishop Rowan Williams said,

"Contemplation is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom – freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them.  To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit.  To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly.  It is a deeply revolutionary matter."

This echos much of what I have posted in recent weeks.  Contemplative worship, which has the characteristic of predictable words and actions, forces the worshiper into the work of alert reflection and focused listening.  The constant renewal of liturgy, to capture the imagination of the dulled worshiper plays into the self-oriented passions that are the vanguard of consumer-marketing models.  The contemplative worship that Williams is speaking of is counter-intuitive to much of what has passed as lively worship, or relevant worship. We need to help people understand the dulling nature of the contemporary world, which on the surface appears to be exciting and energizing, but actually robs us of the very things that helps make disciples out of worshipers.  And we need to help people understand and encounter what Rowan Williams is saying, which in my opinion is that contemplative worship, that which appears to contemporaries as as dull and uninspiring on the surface, is actually life giving, life enhancing, and life energizing, because it enables the human heart to connect with the heart of God.

Lord have mercy,  Brian+

A recent post by Brian Owen at his blog Creedal Christianity speaks to this need for contemplative worship through the words of C.S. Lewis:

see  C. S. Lewis: "An Entreaty for Permanence and Uniformity" in Worship  HERE

 Lord have mercy,  Brian+

The Church is called to live love, not sell it.

"It is not a case of build it and they will come: it is a case of live it and they will come. We are one with the One; it is He who calls each and every man woman and child to His Son, it is the Spirit who mystically tugs at the inner place of all and the all can respond or not.

Let the Church live the life of the body, let it worship, let it come to the altar and partake of the Sacraments, that mystical union with the One beyond our knowing, beyond our knowledge. Let the Church set aside its debate and arguments over things that add nothing but divide and destroy the soul and despair the Spirit.

Forget the marketing, forget the mail drops, forget the 'relevancy' and instead of going out and contending with the Spirit for souls become a place where people can come in and know they have found home. Find rest. Find Love manifest by the love of others.

A Sunday morning (if it is a Sunday morning that is prescribed) should be a place of soaking of refueling of being reborn time and time again, of union not division, of embracing those who attend not counting those who are not, of trusting in God to bring about his will not wondering what must be done to fill the pews or the coffers because God has failed to do so (in our eyes).

The Church is called to live love, not sell it."   George Dunning

This comment was inspired by a post at Creedal Christian's Bryan Owen  

HERE  

called, "The Church is only the Church insofar as it offers the Sacraments with meek heart and due reverence" 

In particular Mr Owan was commenting on a post from  Fr. Robert Hendrickson titled, "The Church which is His Body: On Restructuring, the Episcopate, and the Sacraments"
 HERE  

Fr. Robert makes a very, very important comment:



“….she said, “well you are a sacramental priest – so that makes sense for you. We need to be thinking of other ways to be priests too.” I could not disagree more.
The Church is only the Church insofar as it offers the Sacraments with meek heart and due reverence. It seems to me that in the conversations about restructuring the Church, or a missional Church, or the many other ways we can imagine the Church changing that we are losing the simple fact that we first and foremost offer the Sacraments. If one visits the Episcopal Church’s website and clicks on “What We Do” you will not find the Sacraments. They are certainly listed under “What we Believe” but they are not just what we believe – they are what we do, who we are, how we are meant to be, and what we are called to be more of.
We are initiated in baptism, fed in the Eucharist, express our devotion in confirmation, find forgiveness in confession, seek healing in anointing, embrace love in marriage, and some seek new forms of service in ordination. The sacraments walk us through the life cycle, drawing us to God and back to God and home to God. They are the foundation of ministry and unify the faithful in grace. The administration of the Sacraments cannot be unwoven from our pastoral function, nor from our teaching function, nor from social justice for it is through them that we are healed, united, and learn of God’s mercies.”

This couples well with an article I read about how modern approaches to worship are failing.     See my post called, DE-NEWING WORSHIP
HERE


Do we not have to be true to who we are as the Church?  If it is the Eucharist that defines us, forms us, renews us, and sends us, then shouldn't we be embracing the Eucharistic worship for all we are worth? 

LORD have mercy,  Brian+ 

De-newing Worship

Once upon a time our faith thrived in a non-Christian empire. It took less than 300 years for 11 scared dudes to take over the most powerful empire the world had ever seen. How did they do it? Where we have opted for a relevant, homogenously grouped, segregated, attractional professionalized model; the early church did it with a  multi-ethnic, multi-social class, seeker INsensitive church. Worship was filled with sacrament and symbol. It engaged the believing community in the Christian narrative. This worship was so God-directed and insider-shaping that in the early church non-Christians were asked to leave the building before communion! With what effect? From that fellowship of the transformed, the church went out to the highways and byways loving and serving the least, last and lost. In that body of Christ, Christians shared their faith with Romans 1:16 boldness, served the poor with abandon, fed widows and took orphans into their homes. The world noticed. We went to them in love rather than invited them to our event.  Matt Marino

Read the entire article titled: What is so uncool about 'cool' churches Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity.  HERE

 I believe we have some serious rethinking to do regarding how and why we worship.

 LORD have mercy,  Brian+

Spirituality as Hobby - The Importance of Tithing

The thought that spirituality without tithing reduces such pursuits to mere 'hobby' is quite sobering.  This will be quite a challenge to most of us Anglicans. 

LORD have mercy.  Brian+

"For most, the word “offering” immediately invokes the image of “money.” This is not incorrect, even if it is limited. Money can certainly be an “offering,” but our thoughts on the subject probably miss the point. Money indeed has a sacramental character (as does all of creation). In  a modern culture, money is something of a sacrament of all of our activity. As Christ Himself noted, it remains the primary means by which we may know the heart (Matt 6:21). Interest in spiritual things by those who do not practice “tithing” (returning to God a tenth of what we receive) can easily become an exercise in vanity. The failure to give alms generously (as in the tithe) can reduce spiritual activity to the level of a hobby. In this matter, the Orthodox differ in no wise from the non-Orthodox. Our culture is deeply enslaved by Mammon. Moderns are deeply suspicious of all things having to do with money. We see greed everywhere around us (except within ourselves)."               

Fr. Stephen Freeman from his posting on "Life in a Sacramental World." found HERE

Christianity: Personhood vs Individualism

“Ever since the Enlightenment, people have assumed that to be a person is to be an individual, one who is defined by separateness from others, by categories of “I” and “not-I.”  Here we return to the primal experience of our infant, who smiles at her mother even before the discovery of her own hand – we are, in the first place, persons because we are towards others, not over and against them.”  From Ecstasy and Intimacy, by Edith Humphrey

Here we can see the chaos of defining human rights from the framework of individuals rather than persons; here we can see the angst of the youth trying to define themselves "over and against" the other; here we can see the tragedy of being alone, yet surrounded by people.

Personhood, not individualism is the heritage of Christianity, revealed by the Trinity, the Divine Community of Persons that are perfectly 'towards' the Other.  We are invited into the fulness of this life, of this personship that is the heritage of humanity being made in the image and likeness of God.  Thus Jesus says, "Love your neighbour as yourself," and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," revealing your personhood of being 'toward' the other.

Lord have mercy,  Brian+ 

Christian Spirituality and the Incarnation

"Christian spirituality is the study and experience of what happens when the Holy Spirit meets the human spirit.   This definition is not meant to exclude God’s contact with the entire person, including the body.  Indeed, Christian spirituality is profoundly incarnational, since that meeting-place between spirit and Spirit, that holy tryst, finds its example par excellence – indeed, its proto-type and its cause – in Jesus, the God-Man.  Our Christian story is the marvelous drama of a “holy tryst” – a holy meeting in which God, through His very own love, brings humanity (spirit, soul, body) to Himself.  …Let us not hope to find a spiritual life unconnected to that one tangible, wondrous place in which perfect God and perfect humanity are joined.  In observing the tendencies of the contemporary search for spirituality, we must beware of that wrongheaded quest  for “religious experience without faith…a religion of pure experience.”  (Dupre and Wiseman, p23) .  Such a quest recently has been proposed to the troubled Anglican faith community by Bishop Michael Ingham, who, in his Mansions of the Spirit, cautiously valorized an “esoteric” search for that  mystical experimental point beyond doctrine where “all faiths meet” (pp.119-23).  But to do this is to place that One from whom are all things and in whom all things converge in a subordinate position; it is to miss the staggering import of the unique and revolutionary Incarnation of God the Son.  It is to worship experience, and not that One from whom all experience flows."   

Edith Humphrey, Ecstasy and Intimacy: When the Holy Spirit meets the Human Spirit, pp17-18