Collects for Holy Week

Monday of Holy Week
AAlmighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Tuesday of Holy Week
OO God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Wednesday of Holy Week
LLord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lent and Fasting 7

Here are the last two paragraphs from the section entitled "...But By Prayer and Fasting" in Alexander Schmemann's "Great Lent."

"After all this is said, one must still remember that however limited our fasting, if it is true fasting it will lead to temptation, weakness, doubt, and irritation. In other terms, it will be a real fight and probably we shall fail many times. But the very discovery of Christian life as fight and effort is the essential aspect of fasting. A faith which has not overcome doubts and temptation is seldom a real faith. No progress in Christian life is possible, alas, without the bitter experience of failures. Too many people start fasting with enthusiasm and give up after the first failure. I would say that it is at this first failure that the real test comes. If after having failed and surrendered to our appetites and passions we start all over again and do not give up no matter how many times we fail, sooner or later our fasting will bear its spiritual fruits. Between holiness and disenchanted cynicism lies the great and divine virtue of patience - patience, first of al with ourselves. There is no short-cut to holiness; for every step we have to pay the full price. Thus it is better and safer to begin at a minimum - just lightly above our natural possibilities - and to increase our effort little by little, than to try jumping too high at the beginning and to break a few bones when falling back to earth.

"In summary: from a symbolic and nominal fast - the fast as obligation and custom - we must return to the real fast. Let it be limited and humble but consistent and serious. Let us honestly face our spiritual and physical capacity and act accordingly - remembering however that there is no fast without challenging that capacity, without introducing into our life a divine proof that things impossible with men are possible with God."
(pages 98-99)

The Happy Debtor

I keep hearing Tim Keller quote John Newton hymns so I decided to try to find a collection of them. Olney Hymns is a collection of his hymns, and of his friend William Cowper, that he put together for use in his parish.

The Happy Debtor, # 67

1. Ten thousand talents once I owed,
and nothing had to pay;
But Jesus freed me from the load,
and wash'd my debt away.

2. Yet since the Lord forgave my sin,
and blotted out my score,
Much more indebted I have been
Than e'er I was before

3. My guilt is cancell'd quite, I know,
And satisfaction made,
But the vast debt of love I owe,
Can never be repaid.

4. The love I owe for sin forgiven,
For power to believe,
For present peace and promis'd heaven,
No angel can conceive.

5. That love of thine, Thou sinner's Friend!
Witness thy bleeding heart!
My little all can ne'er extend
To pay a thousandth part.

6. Nay, more; the poor returns I make,
I first from thee obtain;
And tis of grace, that Thou wilt take
Such poor returns again.

7. "Tis well - it shall my glory be,
(Let who will boast their store)
In time and to eternity,
to owe Thee more and more.

Lent and Fasting 6

The Book of Common Prayer directs two fast days for Christians in its tradition: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Also "the other weekdays of Lent and of Holy Week... and all other Fridays of the year, in commemoration of the Lord's crucifixion, except for Fridays in the Christmas and Easter seasons" are "observed by special acts of discipline and self-denial." (BCP, p. 17)

Here is the second to the last post from Schmemann's "Great Lent" on fasting:

"Then comes the fast in itself. In accordance with what has been said above, it should be practiced on two levels: first, as ascetical fast; and second, as total fast. The ascetical fast consists of a drastic reduction of food so that the permanent state of a certain hunger might be live as a reminder of God and a constant effort to keep our mind on Him. Everyone who has practiced it - be it only a little - knows that this ascetical fast rather than weakening us makes us light, concentrated, sober, joyful, pure. One receives food as a real gift of God. One is constantly directed at that inner word which inexplicably becomes a kind of food in its own right. The exact amount of food to be received in this ascetical fasting, its rhythm and its quality, need not be discussed here; they depend on our individual capacities, the external conditions of our lives. But the principle is clear: it is a state of half-hunger whose 'negative' nature is at all times transformed by prayer, memory, attention, and concentration into a positive power. As to the total fast, it is of necessity to be limited in duration and coordinated with the Eucharist. In our present condition of life, its best form is the day before the evening celebration of the Presanctified Liturgy. Whether we fast on that day from early morning or from noon, the main point here is to live through that day as a day of expectation, hope, hunger for God Himself. It is a spiritual concentration on that which comes, on the gift to be received, and for the sake of which one gives up all other gifts." (pages 97-98)

Lent and Fasting 5

"How far we are by now from the usual understanding of fasting as a mere change of diet, as what is permitted and what is forbidden, from all that superficial hypocrisy! Ultimately, to fast means only one thing: to be hungry - to go to the limit of that human condition which depends entirely on food and, being hungry, to discover that this dependency is not the whole truth about man, that hunger itself is first of all a spiritual state and that it is in its last reality hunger for God. In the early Church, fasting always meant total abstinence, a state of hunger, pushing the body to the extreme. It is here, however, that we discover also that fasting as a physical effort is totally meaningless without its spiritual counterpart: "... by fasting and prayer." This means that without the corresponding spiritual effort, without feeding ourselves with Divine Reality, without discovering our total dependence on God and God alone, physical fasting would indeed be suicide. If Christ Himself was tempted while fasting, we have not a single chance of avoiding that temptation. Physical fasting, essential as it is, is not only meaningless, it is truly dangerous if it is disconnected from the spiritual effort - from prayer and concentration on God. Fasting is an art fully mastered by Saints; it would be presumptuous and dangerous for us if we attempted that art without discernment and caution. The entire lenten worship is a constant reminder of the difficulties, the obstacles, and the temptations that await those who think that they may depend on their will power and not on God.

"It is for this reason that we need first of all a spiritual preparation for the effort of fasting. It consists in asking God for help and also in making our fast God-centered. We should fast for God's sake. We must rediscover our body as the Temple of His Presence. We must recover a religious respect for the body, for food, for the very rhythm of life. All this must be done before the actual fast begins so that when we begin to fast, we would be supplied with spiritual weapons, with a vision, with a spirit of fight and victory."

(Alexander Schmemann, "Great Lent," pages 96-97. italics are the author's)

Lent and Fasting 4

More from Alexander Schmemann:

"What is fasting for us Christians? It is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself by which He liberates us from the total depndence on food, matter, and the world. By no means is our liberation a full one. Living still in the fallen world, in the world of the Old Adam, being part of it, we still depend on food. But just as our death - through which we still must pass - has become by virtue of Christ's Death a passage into life, the food we eat and the life it sustains can be life in God and for God. Part of our food has already become "food of immortality" - the Body and Blood of Christ Himself. But even the daily bread we receive from God can be in this life and in this world that which strengthens us, our communion with God, rather than that which separates us from God. Yet it is only fasting that can perform that transformation, giving us the existential proof that our dependence on food and matter is not total, not absolute, that united to prayer, grace, and adoration, it can itself be spiritual.

"All this means that deeply understood, fasting is the only means by which man recovers his true spiritual nature. It is not a theoretical but truly a practical challenge to the great Liar who managed to convince us that we depend on bread alone and built all human knowledge, science, and existence on that lie. Fasting is a denunciation of that lie and also the proof that it is a lie. It is highly significant that it was while fasting that Christ met Satan and that He said later that Satan cannot be overcome 'but by fasting and prayer.' Fasting is the real fight against the Devil because it is the challenge to that one all-embracing law which makes him the 'Prince of this world.' Yet if one is hungry and then discovers that he can truly be independent of that hunger, not destroyed by it but just on the contrary, can transform it into the source of spiritual power and victory, then nothing remains of that great lie in which we have been living since Adam.
(p. 96)

Lent and Fasting 3

from Alexander Schmemann's book "The Great Lent" - this is good stuff. This is similar in concept to John Milton's "Paradise Regained" which is basically Irenaeus' theory of "recapitulation" - that Jesus was representative Adam (and Israel) and faithfully lived out and won back through his life, death and resurrection all God's promises for a new humanity.

"Christ is the New Adam. He comes to repair the damage inflicted on life by Adam, to restore man to true life, and thus He also begins with fasting 'When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He became hungry' (Matt. 4:2). Hunger is that state in which we realize our dependence on something else - when we urgently and essentially need food - showing thus that we have no life in ourselves. It is that limit beyond which I either die from starvation or, having satisfied my body, have again the impression of being alive. It is, in other words, the time when we face the ultimate question: on what does my life depend? And, since the question is not an academic one but is felt with my entire body, it is also the time of temptation. Satan came to Adam in Paradise; he came to Christ in the desert. He came to two hungry men and said: eat, for your hunger is the proof that you depend entirely on food, that your life is in food. And Adam believed and ate; but Christ rejected that temptation and said: man shall not live by bread alone but by God. He refused to accept that cosmic lie which Satan imposed on the world, making that lie a self-evident truth not even debated any more, the foundation of our entire world view, of science, medicine, and perhaps even of religion. By doing this, Christ restored that relationship between food, life, and God which Adam broke, and which we still break every day." (pp. 95-96)

Lent and Fasting 2

Here's the next paragraph from this great section on fasting by Alexander Schmemann (italics are his):

"In the Orthodox teaching, sin is not only the transgression of a rule leading to punishment; it is always a mutilation of life given to us by God. It is for this reason that the story of the original sin is presented us as act of eating. For food is means of life; it is that which keeps us alive. But here lies the whole question: what does it mean to be alive and what does 'life' mean? For us today this term has a primarily biological meaning: life is precisely that which entirely depends on food, and more generally, on the physical world. But for the Holy Scripture and for Christian Tradition, this life 'by bread alone' is identified with death because it is mortal life, because death is a principle always at work in it. God, we are told, 'created no death.' He is the Giver of Life. How then did life become mortal? Why is death and death alone the only absolute condition of that which exists? The Church answers: because man rejected life as it was offered and given to him by God and preferred a life depending not on God alone but on 'bread alone.' Not only did he disobey God for which he was punished; he changed the very relationship between himself and the world. To be sure, the world was given to him by God as 'food' - as means of life; yet life was meant to communion with God; it had not only its end but its full content in Him. 'In Him was Life and the Life was the light of man.' The world and food were thus created as means of communion with God, and only if accepted for God's sake were to give life. In itself food has no life and cannot give life. Only God has Life and is Life. In food itself God - and not calories - was the principle of life. Thus to eat, to be alive, to know God and be in communion with Him were one and the same thing. The unfathomable tragedy of Adam is that he ate for its own sake. More than that, he ate 'apart' from God in order to be independent of Him. And if he did it, it is because he believed that food had life in itself and that he, by partaking of that food, could be like God, i.e., have life in himself. To put it very simply: he believed in food, whereas the only object of belief, of faith, of dependence is God and God alone. World, food, became his gods, the sources and principles of his life. He became their slave. Adam - in Hebrew - means 'man.' It is my name, our common name. Man is still Adam, still the slave of 'food' He may claim that he believes in God but God is not his life, his food, the all-embracing content of his existence. He may claim that he receives his life from God but he doesn't live in God and for God. His science, his experience, his self-consciousness are all built on that same principle: 'by bread alone.' We eat in order to be alive but we are not alive in God. This is the sin of all sins. This is the verdict of death pronounced on our life." (pp. 94-95)

Matthew 18:6-9, the severity of sin

Matthew 18:6-9
6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.


It's critical to see this in light of what seems to be the central section of this chapter. Davies and Alison emphasize this, and I think they're right. Matthew seems to surround verses 15-20 (or really, verses 15-17: dealing with a brother's sin, with the possibility of ultimately having no fellowship with him) with teaching to guard and protect a potentially divisive and hurtful process.

With that in mind, here we have extreme language (very similar to what we heard in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:29-30) with regard causing others to sin - which may include undermining their faith or leading them to forsake the Lord, and with regard to dealing severely with sin in our own lives. It is almost like he's saying, "Don't you dare even think about calling your brother on his sin unless and until you deal with yours." Sounds like the "log in your eye, speck in your brother's eye" teaching (again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 7:1-5).
>I think it was Davies and Alison who commented that salvation (“the kingdom”) is in part a social process or project. Just as we hear the word preached by a sent one (Romans 10) and are saved; so it seems we can be scandalized, by another, and so potentially even lose “life.”

As we have often said, this new thing that is begun in Jesus is a new humanity, a new community. It is about so much more than me not going to hell; it is about so much more than individualism. Our lives are interconnected, we are to be interdependent on one another.

[It has also been suggested that perhaps Matthew is implying that this "cut off your hand or foot" section may be a more positive introduction to the concept of dealing with sin in the "body of Christ." While in a sense it could be applied in that way, this would be a very harsh way for Jesus to refer to members of his movement, his kingdom - especially when in the next sentence he will refer to straying sheep very compassionately.]

In discussing the "Aims and Purposes" of the ministry of the Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality, Dorothy Day wrote in 1940,

"Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing, and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate. We must 'give the reason for the faith that is in us.' Otherwise we are scattered members of the Body of Christ, we are not 'all members one of another.' Otherwise our religion is an opiate, for ourselves alone, for our comfort or for our individual safety or indifferent custom.

"We cannot live alone. We cannot go to heaven alone. Otherwise, as Peguy said, God will say to us, 'Where are the others?'"

Lent and Fasting 1

I have been rereading Alexander Schmemann's "Great Lent: Journey to Pascha". In particular, a section on fasting that is really good. I may end up just sharing paragraph by paragraph the section entitled "3. ...But by Prayer and Fasting." Stay with it, there are parts of this that are so good, it's worth reading all the installments!

"There is no Lent without fasting. It seems however, that many people today either do not take fasting seriously or, if they do, misunderstand its real spiritual goals. For some people, fasting consists in a symbolic 'giving up' of something; for some others, it is a scrupulous observance of dietary regulations. But in both cases, seldom is fasting referred to the total lenten effort. Here as elsewhere, therefore, we must first try to understand the Church's teaching about fasting and then ask ourselves: how can we apply this teaching to our life?

"Fasting or abstinence from food is not exclusively a Christian practice. It existed and still exists in other religions and even outside religion, as for example in some specific therapies. Today people fast (or abstain) for all kinds of reasons, including sometimes political reasons. It is important therefore, to discern the uniquely Christian content of fasting. It is first of all revealed to us in the interdependence between two events which we find in the Bible: one at the beginning of the Old Testament and the other at the beginning of the New Testament. The first event is the "breaking of the fast" by Adam in Paradise. He ate of the forbidden fruit. This is how man's original sin is revealed to us. Christ, the New Adam - and this is the second event - begins by fasting. Adam was tempted and he succumbed to temptation; Christ was tempted and He overcame that temptation. The results of Adam's failure are expulsion from Paradise and death. The fruits of Christ's victory are the destruction of death and our return to Paradise. The lack of space prevents us from giving a detailed explanation of the meaning of this parallelism. It is clear, however that in this perspective fasting is revealed to us as something decisive and ultimate in its importance. It is not a mere 'obligation,' a custom; it is connected with the very mystery of life and death, of salvation and damnation." (pp. 93-94)

The Meaning and Mystery of God's Wrath

I'm reading another Marva Dawn book, "Unfettered Hope: Living faithfully in an affluent society" and she quoted Abraham Joshua Heschel while talking about God's anger. It's a section I have highlighted in my copy of "The Prophets, Volume II, which Marv Wilson had us read back at Gordon College. It's from chapter 5, "The Meaning and Mystery of Wrath" and it's really good stuff. I love the last line:

"This is the mysterious paradox of Hebrew faith: The All-wise and Almighty may change a word that He proclaims. Man has the power to modify His design... The anger of the Lord is instrumental, hypothetical, conditional, and subject to His will. Let the people modify their line of conduct, and anger will disappear. Far from being an expression of "petulant vindictiveness," the message of anger includes a call to return and to be saved. The call of anger is a call to cancel anger. It is not the expression of irrational, sudden, and instinctive excitement, but a free and deliberate reaction of God's justice to what is wrong and evil. For all its intensity, it may be averted by prayer. There is no divine anger for anger's sake. It's meaning is, as already said, instrumental: to bring about repentance; its purpose and consummation is its own disappearance."