A Meditation for St Joseph's Day
St Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, comes and goes quickly in Scripture. Quickly, but not quietly.
Almost all we know about St Joseph comes from a handful of verses in St Matthew’s Gospel. He was betrothed to the Blessed Virgin, but, when he learned she was pregnant, “he was,” the Gospel says, “minded to put her away privily,” to quietly divorce her. Regardless of what he thought of her, he didn’t need that.
While he pondered (and you can imagine the internal conflicts and sense of betrayal that fed his pondering), an angel appeared to him in a dream, telling of Mary’s Child as fulfilling ancient prophecies, redeeming Israel and establishing the Kingdom of God. As Mary is the Woman of Faith, Joseph is shown to be the Man of Obedience. Both listened to God’s call and obeyed. As a result of their faithful obedience to God’s call, neither of their lives went as they’d expected from that day.
Joseph made his generous resolution about Mary (technically, he could have called for her to be stoned), even though he no doubt was hurt, perhaps embittered, by the unwelcome news. His daytime resolution faded under the influence of a nighttime dream, a visitation of angels.
Joseph gave himself to God. He gave God his doubts and fears—and even his hopes for the future. He gave up everything he knew—his village, his reputation—to care of the Virgin and the Child God entrusted to him. He gave up his anger, and it turned his life upside down: protecting and providing for St Mary and her Child led him from the narrow streets of Nazareth to Bethlehem and nearby Jerusalem, where he and his family were visited by eastern mages, hunted by Herod’s soldiers, made an escape to exotic Egypt, and finally, after the evil king’s death, slowly plodding their way back to the hills of Galilee. Not the staid carpenter’s life he’d anticipated!
He gave up his hopes and plans and turned his life to God, and because he did, God did with him wondrous, sometimes scary things. Not a bad patron for us here at St Joseph’s parish—where God calls each of us individually and all of us together to follow St Mary’s faith and St Joseph’s obedience.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
How and Why We Fast
The ancients had a saying, "You are what you eat." For a Christian, who feeds regularly on the Body and Blood of Christ, that is an especially happy thought. It is certainly true that, even in our daily food, what we eat - and don’t eat - has a profound impact on us. Too many delicious sausages will most certainly produce heartburn.
The Church has long recognized the importance of feasting and fasting. In our practice we follow both our Lord’s prompting and the teaching of the Church from her earliest days.
The Book of Common Prayer exhorts us to the practice of Fasting and Abstinence.
“Fasting” refers to the amount of food we eat - we might say, the quantity. On Fast Days we eat less food than usual. We might, for example, have a very light breakfast and lunch with a normal evening meal. Some days, like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, are days of strict Fasting and Abstinence. The usual practice is not to eat at all until after sunset.
“Abstinence” refers to the sort of food we eat - we might say the quality. Usually on days of Abstinence we refrain from eating certain foods - meats, sweets or the like. For many centuries Christians have observed Fridays as days of Abstinence, remembering that our Lord was crucified on Friday. We abstain as a way of remembering and, in a small way, sharing His Sacrifice. The Prayer Book teaches us the same, counting among the days of fasting “All the Fridays of the Year, except Christmas Day, and the Epiphany, or any Friday that may intervene between these Feasts” (BCP page li).
While both Fasting and Abstinence can be very useful in private spiritual growth, these are best undertaken with the guidance of a Spiritual Director. The Church calls all of us, though, to follow the guidelines of Fasting and Abstinence fixed in her liturgical cycle. The Book of Common Prayer lists these days:
Strict Fast with Abstinence: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Fasting with Abstinence: The Forty Days of Lent, the Quarterly Ember Days
Abstinence: All Fridays of the year (save those which fall within the Octave of a Major Feast)
Generally speaking, we can say that these rules should apply to healthy individuals from roughly the age of Confirmation until the time of retirement (for those who need numbers - from about 12-65 years). Those beyond this spectrum are usually excused as are sick or infirm persons, who should eat whatever their doctor says, regardless of the season.
THE EUCHARISTIC FAST
From very early times the Church has encouraged Christians to receive the Holy Communion fasting. It is very fitting that the first food we receive each day we communicate should be the Bread of Heaven. For this reason, many Christians fast from midnight on until the morning when they communicate at Mass. In these days when the Eucharist is also offered in the evenings, this is not, for those who intend to communicate at an evening Mass, very practical. For this reason it is customary to fast for three hours prior to attending Mass.
Communicating is far more important than fasting, but proper preparation for Holy Communion is more important yet. Fasting before receiving Communion is a good part of a proper preparation.
Once again, to those whose medical condition will not allow them to fast, there is no obligation of any sort.
THE PURPOSE OF FASTING
We fast not because foodstuffs are evil, but because we need to be reminded that our fallen natures tend to abuse the good things that God has given us. Fasting reminds us (what we often want to forget) that we are sinners, and that the struggle in which we Christians are engaged is a spiritual one, but with its roots firmly set in this world.
Fasting helps keep us spiritually balanced. Of itself, Its value is indeed limited; in conjunction with prayer and the Sacraments, it's an indispensable tool in living the Christian life.
The Church has long recognized the importance of feasting and fasting. In our practice we follow both our Lord’s prompting and the teaching of the Church from her earliest days.
The Book of Common Prayer exhorts us to the practice of Fasting and Abstinence.
“Fasting” refers to the amount of food we eat - we might say, the quantity. On Fast Days we eat less food than usual. We might, for example, have a very light breakfast and lunch with a normal evening meal. Some days, like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, are days of strict Fasting and Abstinence. The usual practice is not to eat at all until after sunset.
“Abstinence” refers to the sort of food we eat - we might say the quality. Usually on days of Abstinence we refrain from eating certain foods - meats, sweets or the like. For many centuries Christians have observed Fridays as days of Abstinence, remembering that our Lord was crucified on Friday. We abstain as a way of remembering and, in a small way, sharing His Sacrifice. The Prayer Book teaches us the same, counting among the days of fasting “All the Fridays of the Year, except Christmas Day, and the Epiphany, or any Friday that may intervene between these Feasts” (BCP page li).
While both Fasting and Abstinence can be very useful in private spiritual growth, these are best undertaken with the guidance of a Spiritual Director. The Church calls all of us, though, to follow the guidelines of Fasting and Abstinence fixed in her liturgical cycle. The Book of Common Prayer lists these days:
Strict Fast with Abstinence: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Fasting with Abstinence: The Forty Days of Lent, the Quarterly Ember Days
Abstinence: All Fridays of the year (save those which fall within the Octave of a Major Feast)
Generally speaking, we can say that these rules should apply to healthy individuals from roughly the age of Confirmation until the time of retirement (for those who need numbers - from about 12-65 years). Those beyond this spectrum are usually excused as are sick or infirm persons, who should eat whatever their doctor says, regardless of the season.
THE EUCHARISTIC FAST
From very early times the Church has encouraged Christians to receive the Holy Communion fasting. It is very fitting that the first food we receive each day we communicate should be the Bread of Heaven. For this reason, many Christians fast from midnight on until the morning when they communicate at Mass. In these days when the Eucharist is also offered in the evenings, this is not, for those who intend to communicate at an evening Mass, very practical. For this reason it is customary to fast for three hours prior to attending Mass.
Communicating is far more important than fasting, but proper preparation for Holy Communion is more important yet. Fasting before receiving Communion is a good part of a proper preparation.
Once again, to those whose medical condition will not allow them to fast, there is no obligation of any sort.
THE PURPOSE OF FASTING
We fast not because foodstuffs are evil, but because we need to be reminded that our fallen natures tend to abuse the good things that God has given us. Fasting reminds us (what we often want to forget) that we are sinners, and that the struggle in which we Christians are engaged is a spiritual one, but with its roots firmly set in this world.
Fasting helps keep us spiritually balanced. Of itself, Its value is indeed limited; in conjunction with prayer and the Sacraments, it's an indispensable tool in living the Christian life.
Friday, March 4, 2011
A Lenten Toolbox
Last week I mentioned the practicality of Lent. Our Lord kept His own Lent, His own Forty Days of prayer and fasting, and the Church calls us to follow His Lenten discipline, to make His fast ours. Not only does she call us to follow Him in His fasting, she calls us to fast for the same reason He did and for the same purpose.
The Lord Christ went to the desert to be tempted, to face down the supernatural wiles of the devil with His humanity, the humanity He shares with each of us. Scripture tells us of three temptations He endured: temptations of the flesh, expressed in everyday human hunger; temptations to power and wealth, being shown all the kingdoms of the world; and the devil’s constant and most powerful temptation, in his bag of tricks since he used it on Adam and Eve. The wily serpent whispered “You can be like God.” That’s the one all of us fall for, though we call it many things. It’s the temptation to put ourselves at the center of everything. To say to God “Not as Thou wilt, but as I will.”
This is why the Lord Jesus kept the first Lent: to face the temptations of human nature and turn that nature over to God. That’s why we keep Lent, too. We don’t need to wander off into the wilds of West Texas to find our temptations. We just need to pay a bit of attention to how we’re living our lives. The Lord Jesus never sinned. We each have plenty of experience with sin. We’re all experts at it; experts, too, at hiding our sins—from each other, but even more so, from ourselves.
We know the temptations of the flesh, to pervert pleasure to lust and gluttony and sloth. We share the temptations of the soul, to hoard and conceal and lie, amassing the trinkets of life. We want to lord it over the people around us, twisting the relationships of our lives, our family, friends and neighbors, in a grotesque game to bloat our sense of self-worth. And the temptation of the spirit that runs through it all, to turn from God and make ourselves the measure of all things.
To face these temptations and to beat them down, we have the same old tools the Church has been laying before us since Christians began keeping Lent. They’re the same old tools because we each of us are addressing the same old problems.
Temptations of the flesh, temptations of the soul, temptations of the spirit: they never change. We’ve been falling for the same old Seven Deadly Sins over and over again since the days Adam and Eve crept around the Garden looking for fig leaves.
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving: these are the Lenten tools to deal with our everyday temptations.
How do we use them? We use tools to take care of specific problems. Banging with a hammer at something requiring a screwdriver usually doesn’t work. Why fast? Why pray? Why give alms? What are we intending to do with these things?
God made us as sacramental creatures, men and women whose bodies, souls and spirits are intimately linked. Kneeling, kissing, eating and drinking, saluting, bowing, hugging: these are acts of the body with meaning for the soul and spirit. When I fast, I’m not just refusing to eat—I’m refusing to eat for a reason. My spirit is telling my body that pleasure isn’t everything. Pleasure isn’t a bad thing, but there are things much more important. For us to understand that, we fast. We don’t eat. We let our stomachs growl and our spirits grow. St Augustine said, “Give your prayer the wings of fasting.” In past times, when Christians were less timid than today, they abstained not just from food but from sex during Lent: they understood—and believed—the links between body, soul and spirit better then, and were less afraid to say so. Give up not just tacos for Lent but sex? I’m not saying you should, but I’m not saying you shouldn’t, either!
In this “modern” world, we’re described principally in statistical and economic terms. Our families are “units,” we are “consumers.” We “buy into” the notion ourselves. Money and power, security and status, these have become the stuff of our lives, how we understand ourselves. Almsgiving, giving away money and all it implies, is intended to show us we are not “of this world.” The Prayer Book teaches us graphically in the Funeral Service that it doesn’t matter what we have when we die, it’s all lost to us. The Lord Jesus Himself teaches us no less graphically that it doesn’t matter what we have when we live either, dead or alive, we’re in God’s hands. Lent reminds us to not forget the poor, to give to those in need. But with equal force Lent says we don’t need most of what we have anyway. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Prayer is, according to St John of Damascus, “the lifting of the heart and mind to God.” Prayer is asking God for the things we need, physically and spiritually. But that’s only the beginning of prayer, not its goal. Every day for many years, the Cure d’Ars, a French priest of the early 19th century and the patron saint of all parish priests, saw an old peasant sitting near the Altar of the church, looking up at the crucifix. Finally the Cure asked him, “What are you saying to Him?” The old man replied, “Nothing. I look up at Him, and He looks down at me, and it is good.” Prayer is being with God, giving ourselves to Him; prayer is the only real antidote for the poison of selfishness.
What are the temptations you face? What is your favorite sin, the one you so cling to? The Church’s toolbox contains just what you need to address it. Come this Lent, will you pick up the tool you need and use it?
If you don’t quite know how, ask. The clergy are expert sinners, too.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
The Lord Christ went to the desert to be tempted, to face down the supernatural wiles of the devil with His humanity, the humanity He shares with each of us. Scripture tells us of three temptations He endured: temptations of the flesh, expressed in everyday human hunger; temptations to power and wealth, being shown all the kingdoms of the world; and the devil’s constant and most powerful temptation, in his bag of tricks since he used it on Adam and Eve. The wily serpent whispered “You can be like God.” That’s the one all of us fall for, though we call it many things. It’s the temptation to put ourselves at the center of everything. To say to God “Not as Thou wilt, but as I will.”
This is why the Lord Jesus kept the first Lent: to face the temptations of human nature and turn that nature over to God. That’s why we keep Lent, too. We don’t need to wander off into the wilds of West Texas to find our temptations. We just need to pay a bit of attention to how we’re living our lives. The Lord Jesus never sinned. We each have plenty of experience with sin. We’re all experts at it; experts, too, at hiding our sins—from each other, but even more so, from ourselves.
We know the temptations of the flesh, to pervert pleasure to lust and gluttony and sloth. We share the temptations of the soul, to hoard and conceal and lie, amassing the trinkets of life. We want to lord it over the people around us, twisting the relationships of our lives, our family, friends and neighbors, in a grotesque game to bloat our sense of self-worth. And the temptation of the spirit that runs through it all, to turn from God and make ourselves the measure of all things.
To face these temptations and to beat them down, we have the same old tools the Church has been laying before us since Christians began keeping Lent. They’re the same old tools because we each of us are addressing the same old problems.
Temptations of the flesh, temptations of the soul, temptations of the spirit: they never change. We’ve been falling for the same old Seven Deadly Sins over and over again since the days Adam and Eve crept around the Garden looking for fig leaves.
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving: these are the Lenten tools to deal with our everyday temptations.
How do we use them? We use tools to take care of specific problems. Banging with a hammer at something requiring a screwdriver usually doesn’t work. Why fast? Why pray? Why give alms? What are we intending to do with these things?
God made us as sacramental creatures, men and women whose bodies, souls and spirits are intimately linked. Kneeling, kissing, eating and drinking, saluting, bowing, hugging: these are acts of the body with meaning for the soul and spirit. When I fast, I’m not just refusing to eat—I’m refusing to eat for a reason. My spirit is telling my body that pleasure isn’t everything. Pleasure isn’t a bad thing, but there are things much more important. For us to understand that, we fast. We don’t eat. We let our stomachs growl and our spirits grow. St Augustine said, “Give your prayer the wings of fasting.” In past times, when Christians were less timid than today, they abstained not just from food but from sex during Lent: they understood—and believed—the links between body, soul and spirit better then, and were less afraid to say so. Give up not just tacos for Lent but sex? I’m not saying you should, but I’m not saying you shouldn’t, either!
In this “modern” world, we’re described principally in statistical and economic terms. Our families are “units,” we are “consumers.” We “buy into” the notion ourselves. Money and power, security and status, these have become the stuff of our lives, how we understand ourselves. Almsgiving, giving away money and all it implies, is intended to show us we are not “of this world.” The Prayer Book teaches us graphically in the Funeral Service that it doesn’t matter what we have when we die, it’s all lost to us. The Lord Jesus Himself teaches us no less graphically that it doesn’t matter what we have when we live either, dead or alive, we’re in God’s hands. Lent reminds us to not forget the poor, to give to those in need. But with equal force Lent says we don’t need most of what we have anyway. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Prayer is, according to St John of Damascus, “the lifting of the heart and mind to God.” Prayer is asking God for the things we need, physically and spiritually. But that’s only the beginning of prayer, not its goal. Every day for many years, the Cure d’Ars, a French priest of the early 19th century and the patron saint of all parish priests, saw an old peasant sitting near the Altar of the church, looking up at the crucifix. Finally the Cure asked him, “What are you saying to Him?” The old man replied, “Nothing. I look up at Him, and He looks down at me, and it is good.” Prayer is being with God, giving ourselves to Him; prayer is the only real antidote for the poison of selfishness.
What are the temptations you face? What is your favorite sin, the one you so cling to? The Church’s toolbox contains just what you need to address it. Come this Lent, will you pick up the tool you need and use it?
If you don’t quite know how, ask. The clergy are expert sinners, too.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Friday, February 25, 2011
A Lenten Trip
Lent is a most practical season. It’s meant to take us somewhere (Easter), do something along the way (grow spiritually), and it gives us practical tools to accomplish its goals (prayer, fasting and almsgiving). Nowadays it’s not even a cliché to say “Lent is a journey”; it’s become a saccharine and irritating phrase. Bearing all that in mind, let me say Lent is—uh—a trip. When you go on a trip, you mean to go somewhere other than the palace you are at. You may have a variety of reasons for going (a vacation, to see someone, to do some business, to track down a rare book), but before you leave, you have a pretty good idea where you’re going and why you’re going there.
When you make a trip, you get your maps and tickets together, your reservations and appointments entered into whatever the latest electronic thingamajig is, and make sure you have enough money to do all the things you want to do. You plan your trip.
If Lent is a trip, we need to do the same thing. We plan our Lent.
As you know, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year, that’s March 9, just about two weeks from now. Lent lasts (counting Holy Week) six weeks and three days. The old hymn says “Forty Days and Forty Nights,” but the Sundays aren’t added into that total.
Forty days is interesting. The forty days of Lent are patterned after the forty days our Lord spent in the wilderness, just after His Baptism. He planned His time in the wilderness. He didn’t simply wander off, or go for a walk and found Himself in the Judean desert. He went there on purpose. He patterned His forty days after the Forty Years the Jews under Moses wandered through the desert, seeing where God would lead them, after the forty days and forty nights Moses spent with God on Mount Sinai before receiving the Law and the forty days and forty nights the Prophet Elijah spent in the desert of Horeb, after which God revealed Himself to Elijah “in the still, small Voice.” Jesus went to the desert for forty days according to His plan, a plan fixed by tradition.
Forty is a rich, Biblical number. Interestingly though, it also forms a potent part of our psyches. A few decades back, it became a truism of advertising that psychological tests showed that it took, on average, forty unconscious exposures to a product before a person actually thinks about it. Other studies have shown that it takes forty regular repetitions of an act for it to become a habit.
I’m fairly certain the Fathers of the Church, in centuries past, didn’t plan the length of Lent to coincide with these psychological facts. But they come into play anyway. Lent is a time to focus on habits good and bad.
Lent is meant to be a trip, but at some point this wheezy old truism wears out, and here’s where: it’s a trip we’re not meant to return from. We meant to live closer to God during Lent, but come the Feast of the Resurrection, we’re not meant to retrace our steps. We’re not to go back to the same person we were before. If we’ve grown in grace, we don’t want to shrink back, but consolidate our spiritual gains.
What do you want out of Lent?
How do you want to be different come Easter Day than you are today?
What is the most powerful sin in your life? Do you have the courage to face it? If so, Lent is a good way and a good time to do it.
The Church has given you the perfect tools for you to reach your Lenten goal—prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Because each of is a bit different though, we need to know how to use these tools to address our own individual temptations and sins.
More about that next week. For this week, ponder some of the above questions. Plan your Lenten trip; it needn’t be sour and dismal, it can be invigorating and fun, but most of all, let it be a trip worth taking.
When you make a trip, you get your maps and tickets together, your reservations and appointments entered into whatever the latest electronic thingamajig is, and make sure you have enough money to do all the things you want to do. You plan your trip.
If Lent is a trip, we need to do the same thing. We plan our Lent.
As you know, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year, that’s March 9, just about two weeks from now. Lent lasts (counting Holy Week) six weeks and three days. The old hymn says “Forty Days and Forty Nights,” but the Sundays aren’t added into that total.
Forty days is interesting. The forty days of Lent are patterned after the forty days our Lord spent in the wilderness, just after His Baptism. He planned His time in the wilderness. He didn’t simply wander off, or go for a walk and found Himself in the Judean desert. He went there on purpose. He patterned His forty days after the Forty Years the Jews under Moses wandered through the desert, seeing where God would lead them, after the forty days and forty nights Moses spent with God on Mount Sinai before receiving the Law and the forty days and forty nights the Prophet Elijah spent in the desert of Horeb, after which God revealed Himself to Elijah “in the still, small Voice.” Jesus went to the desert for forty days according to His plan, a plan fixed by tradition.
Forty is a rich, Biblical number. Interestingly though, it also forms a potent part of our psyches. A few decades back, it became a truism of advertising that psychological tests showed that it took, on average, forty unconscious exposures to a product before a person actually thinks about it. Other studies have shown that it takes forty regular repetitions of an act for it to become a habit.
I’m fairly certain the Fathers of the Church, in centuries past, didn’t plan the length of Lent to coincide with these psychological facts. But they come into play anyway. Lent is a time to focus on habits good and bad.
Lent is meant to be a trip, but at some point this wheezy old truism wears out, and here’s where: it’s a trip we’re not meant to return from. We meant to live closer to God during Lent, but come the Feast of the Resurrection, we’re not meant to retrace our steps. We’re not to go back to the same person we were before. If we’ve grown in grace, we don’t want to shrink back, but consolidate our spiritual gains.
What do you want out of Lent?
How do you want to be different come Easter Day than you are today?
What is the most powerful sin in your life? Do you have the courage to face it? If so, Lent is a good way and a good time to do it.
The Church has given you the perfect tools for you to reach your Lenten goal—prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Because each of is a bit different though, we need to know how to use these tools to address our own individual temptations and sins.
More about that next week. For this week, ponder some of the above questions. Plan your Lenten trip; it needn’t be sour and dismal, it can be invigorating and fun, but most of all, let it be a trip worth taking.
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Gesima Sundays
This Saturday, Epiphanytide ends. Sunday, the liturgical color in the church shifts from green to purple (or violet), marking a change in the church calendar. Epiphanytide is over, Lent is coming. But it’s not here yet. There are the Gesimas to consider.
The Gesima Sundays—Septuagesima-Latin for seventy, Sexagesima-Latin for sixty, Quinquagesima-Latin for fifty—count days. Seventy, Sixty and Fifty of them, give or take a few. They number the days till Easter. Though a heading in the Prayer Book calls them “The Pre-Lenten Season,” the Gesima Days aren’t a “season” like Lent or Epiphanytide or the Twelve Days which make up Christmastide. Experts on the church calendar (called “herontologists,” if you’re looking for a good scrabble word) say the days between the closing of Epiphanytide and the beginning of Lent is not a “season” but the countdown to a season. Though the Gesimas reckon the days till Easter, they’re counting us down to Lent.
I’m sure you recall the word “Lent” is an old Anglo-Saxon word that means “Spring.” In Latin, the word used to designate the season is “Quadragesima.” You won’t be surprised to learn that it just means “Forty.” Lent is the Forty Day Fast.
For Christians, Lent is the annual contest of the spiritual life. Forty Days (not counting Sundays, to make the number come out) of special fasting, praying and almsgiving; forty days we’re given to grow to be a bit more like Jesus.
So why the Seventy and Sixty and Fifty? If it’s the Forty Days that count (and it is), then what’s the point of the Gesimas? Why not just make Epiphanytide longer? Why does the Prayer Book bother with the “Pre-Lenten Season?”
Lent is indeed a contest, a time we can devote ourselves to our spiritual lives. The point of Lent is for you and me to struggle with our sins, to fight our fallen selves, to look where we don’t want to look—into the rotten part of us that we each hope nobody else knows about. In Lent, you and I wrestle with ourselves—and we wrestle to win.
St Paul compares our Christian struggle with an athletic contest in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:
“Do ye not know that they which run in a race run all, but only one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. Every man that striveth for the mastery of self-control is temperate in all things. Now they struggle after a corruptible crown; but we, an incorruptible one. I therefore run, not uncertain of my goal; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I discipline my body, and bring it into subjection…”
Uh—okay, but what does this have to do with the Gesimas?
The countdown of the Gesima Days, the “Pre-Lenten Season,” is not empty counting. These are days set aside for us to “prepare.” It’s not Lent—but it’s the time the Church gives us to prepare for Lent. The athlete prepares for his contest by planning what he’ll do, mapping out his strategy, stretching his muscles for the race. He develops a plan for himself, makes himself a rule to follow.
That’s what the Gesima Days are for. Planning, thinking praying, drawing up a Rule to follow for the Forty Days to come. Watch here for some ideas. Don’t let Septuagesima turn to Sexagesima then Quinquagesima become Quadragesima before you think “Will I give up boxed chocolates again this year?”--Fr Gregory Wilcox
The Gesima Sundays—Septuagesima-Latin for seventy, Sexagesima-Latin for sixty, Quinquagesima-Latin for fifty—count days. Seventy, Sixty and Fifty of them, give or take a few. They number the days till Easter. Though a heading in the Prayer Book calls them “The Pre-Lenten Season,” the Gesima Days aren’t a “season” like Lent or Epiphanytide or the Twelve Days which make up Christmastide. Experts on the church calendar (called “herontologists,” if you’re looking for a good scrabble word) say the days between the closing of Epiphanytide and the beginning of Lent is not a “season” but the countdown to a season. Though the Gesimas reckon the days till Easter, they’re counting us down to Lent.
I’m sure you recall the word “Lent” is an old Anglo-Saxon word that means “Spring.” In Latin, the word used to designate the season is “Quadragesima.” You won’t be surprised to learn that it just means “Forty.” Lent is the Forty Day Fast.
For Christians, Lent is the annual contest of the spiritual life. Forty Days (not counting Sundays, to make the number come out) of special fasting, praying and almsgiving; forty days we’re given to grow to be a bit more like Jesus.
So why the Seventy and Sixty and Fifty? If it’s the Forty Days that count (and it is), then what’s the point of the Gesimas? Why not just make Epiphanytide longer? Why does the Prayer Book bother with the “Pre-Lenten Season?”
Lent is indeed a contest, a time we can devote ourselves to our spiritual lives. The point of Lent is for you and me to struggle with our sins, to fight our fallen selves, to look where we don’t want to look—into the rotten part of us that we each hope nobody else knows about. In Lent, you and I wrestle with ourselves—and we wrestle to win.
St Paul compares our Christian struggle with an athletic contest in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:
“Do ye not know that they which run in a race run all, but only one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. Every man that striveth for the mastery of self-control is temperate in all things. Now they struggle after a corruptible crown; but we, an incorruptible one. I therefore run, not uncertain of my goal; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I discipline my body, and bring it into subjection…”
Uh—okay, but what does this have to do with the Gesimas?
The countdown of the Gesima Days, the “Pre-Lenten Season,” is not empty counting. These are days set aside for us to “prepare.” It’s not Lent—but it’s the time the Church gives us to prepare for Lent. The athlete prepares for his contest by planning what he’ll do, mapping out his strategy, stretching his muscles for the race. He develops a plan for himself, makes himself a rule to follow.
That’s what the Gesima Days are for. Planning, thinking praying, drawing up a Rule to follow for the Forty Days to come. Watch here for some ideas. Don’t let Septuagesima turn to Sexagesima then Quinquagesima become Quadragesima before you think “Will I give up boxed chocolates again this year?”--Fr Gregory Wilcox
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Language of the Bible and Prayer Book-2
The other night after Vespers at St Joseph’s, we had an interesting discussion, sparked by a question from Bill Lee. He asked, “If you were asked to tell somebody about Anglicanism is in ten words or less, what would you say?”
His question cuts to the chase of who we Anglicans are and what we're about. What makes Anglicanism different from other Christian denominations? What makes it distinctive and worthwhile? What lies at its core?
A lot of definitions can be offered; many have been suggested over the past four centuries and more. Whatever theological terminology might be used or historical explanation offered to define Anglicanism, two things stand out: the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. The Anglican tradition produced both of them and, taken together, they form what is an essentially Anglican view of life. In the Bible we encounter God Who has revealed Himself as our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. He calls us to live as companions in His creation. This is the unchanging message of Scripture: we are meant to be the people of Scripture. And to the Holy Scriptures we need a guide, a way of understanding what they say. Anglican tradition gives us the Prayer Book as our guide to how we are meant live as people of the Scriptures.
The Prayer Book is not simply a collection of prayers. More than anything else it is a pattern for living. At its core is a daily, weekly and yearly cycle of prayer and worship. Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the Sunday offering of the Mass, repeated over and over again in an annual cycle of Holy Days: of Feasts and Fasts. Added to this unending cycle of worship are the sacraments and sacred rites which mark the days of our lives: Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, illness, death, and burial.
This Prayer Book pattern of a Christian life draws on a vision which is the essential vision of Scripture. We are not “saved” by virtue of “accepting Jesus as our personal Savior.” The Bible and Prayer Book teach us that salvation is an on-going process, a life of redemption is a life of continuing sin and forgiveness, of faltering prayer and never-ending worship. This happy combination of Bible and Prayer Book teaches us something much older than either: our individual salvation takes place in the context of the common redemption of fallen humanity. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost call every human person to salvation—which isn’t escaping the fires of hell (what a pathetic concept of God that is). Salvation is an unending friendship with God. We are called to Common Prayer because Anglicanism sees Scripture as calling us to a Common Life—the One Church which the Lord Jesus came to establish.
The One Church, though, is the means to an end. The faltering Church here on earth, the imperfect fellowship of the baptized, points beyond itself. The Kingdom of God here on earth points to the Kingdom Which Is to Come in Heaven.
And that brings us back to language. The Jews have their sacred language; when they gather for common prayer, the most sacred of their prayers are prayed in Hebrew (which many of them don’t understand or understand only in bits and pieces). The Roman Church for many centuries offered the Liturgy in Latin, which fulfilled much the same purpose for them that Hebrew did for the Jews. The Christians of the Eastern Churches have the daily cycle of worship in the Greek of the Byzantine Empire or Old Church Slavonic, pre-dating any of the family of languages spoken by the Slavic peoples of today.
The King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer form a sacred language for us. Linguists extol the vibrant English with which they ring; stylists find them incomparable in their use of our language at a time it was at its most supple; lovers of our language trace what is best in it to these twin roots. The language of the Bible and Prayer Book has formed a sacred language for us. Human beings need a sacred language, because we have in us a sacred aspiration, a sacred longing: we’ve been created with an inherent longing for Heaven, for friendship with God. Sacred language gives us a heavenly language we can speak here on earth.
Whatever else can be said of our Anglican tradition (and there is much that can be criticized), this much is true: we have produced and hold to a vision of Christian life grounded in Scripture and the ancient tradition of Common Prayer. And we do this in a sacred language which allows us here on earth, to join “with angels and archangels and all the Company of Heaven, to laud and magnify” the glorious Name of our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
His question cuts to the chase of who we Anglicans are and what we're about. What makes Anglicanism different from other Christian denominations? What makes it distinctive and worthwhile? What lies at its core?
A lot of definitions can be offered; many have been suggested over the past four centuries and more. Whatever theological terminology might be used or historical explanation offered to define Anglicanism, two things stand out: the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. The Anglican tradition produced both of them and, taken together, they form what is an essentially Anglican view of life. In the Bible we encounter God Who has revealed Himself as our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. He calls us to live as companions in His creation. This is the unchanging message of Scripture: we are meant to be the people of Scripture. And to the Holy Scriptures we need a guide, a way of understanding what they say. Anglican tradition gives us the Prayer Book as our guide to how we are meant live as people of the Scriptures.
The Prayer Book is not simply a collection of prayers. More than anything else it is a pattern for living. At its core is a daily, weekly and yearly cycle of prayer and worship. Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the Sunday offering of the Mass, repeated over and over again in an annual cycle of Holy Days: of Feasts and Fasts. Added to this unending cycle of worship are the sacraments and sacred rites which mark the days of our lives: Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, illness, death, and burial.
This Prayer Book pattern of a Christian life draws on a vision which is the essential vision of Scripture. We are not “saved” by virtue of “accepting Jesus as our personal Savior.” The Bible and Prayer Book teach us that salvation is an on-going process, a life of redemption is a life of continuing sin and forgiveness, of faltering prayer and never-ending worship. This happy combination of Bible and Prayer Book teaches us something much older than either: our individual salvation takes place in the context of the common redemption of fallen humanity. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost call every human person to salvation—which isn’t escaping the fires of hell (what a pathetic concept of God that is). Salvation is an unending friendship with God. We are called to Common Prayer because Anglicanism sees Scripture as calling us to a Common Life—the One Church which the Lord Jesus came to establish.
The One Church, though, is the means to an end. The faltering Church here on earth, the imperfect fellowship of the baptized, points beyond itself. The Kingdom of God here on earth points to the Kingdom Which Is to Come in Heaven.
And that brings us back to language. The Jews have their sacred language; when they gather for common prayer, the most sacred of their prayers are prayed in Hebrew (which many of them don’t understand or understand only in bits and pieces). The Roman Church for many centuries offered the Liturgy in Latin, which fulfilled much the same purpose for them that Hebrew did for the Jews. The Christians of the Eastern Churches have the daily cycle of worship in the Greek of the Byzantine Empire or Old Church Slavonic, pre-dating any of the family of languages spoken by the Slavic peoples of today.
The King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer form a sacred language for us. Linguists extol the vibrant English with which they ring; stylists find them incomparable in their use of our language at a time it was at its most supple; lovers of our language trace what is best in it to these twin roots. The language of the Bible and Prayer Book has formed a sacred language for us. Human beings need a sacred language, because we have in us a sacred aspiration, a sacred longing: we’ve been created with an inherent longing for Heaven, for friendship with God. Sacred language gives us a heavenly language we can speak here on earth.
Whatever else can be said of our Anglican tradition (and there is much that can be criticized), this much is true: we have produced and hold to a vision of Christian life grounded in Scripture and the ancient tradition of Common Prayer. And we do this in a sacred language which allows us here on earth, to join “with angels and archangels and all the Company of Heaven, to laud and magnify” the glorious Name of our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Friday, February 4, 2011
The Language of the Bible and Prayer Book-1
Last week I mentioned that this year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The Authorized Version was published in November, 1611, and there are special observances being planned across the globe this year, but most especially in England.
The Authorized Version was not the first English Bible, nor even the first authorized version of the Bible in English. The first translation of the whole Bible into English was made under the supervision of John Wycliff in 1384. It was based on the Latin Bible of the medieval Church, St Jerome’s Vulgate. Wycliff’s was meant to be in the English commonly spoken in his day. Here are the first two verses of the Book of Genesis:
“In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe. Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris.”
Here is the Authorized Version:
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
In 1526, William Tyndale published the first printed version of the New Testament (Wycliff’s translation pre-dated the printing press); about 10 years later, in 1535, Miles Coverdale, working at the behest of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, oversaw the publication of the first printed version of the whole Bible, which combined Tyndale’s New Testament with Coverdale’s translation of the Old (Coverdale’s translation of the Book of Psalms is the basis for the Psalter used in the Book of Common Prayer—the first Prayer Book was published more than 60 years before King James Bible). Coverdales’ Bible, with some minor alterations, was published in 1540 with the authorization of both King Henry VIII and the Archbishop. It was ordered to be “set up in some convenient place within the said [parish] church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it."
In 1568, a second “authorized version” appeared, under the authority of Queen Elizabeth I and her Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. Parker commanded the English bishops to undertake a translation. Their version is called the “Bishop’s Bible,” and remained the Bible for official use in the Church of England until the publication of the King James Version fifty year later.
There was this distinction between the Authorized Version of 1611 and those translation which preceded it: unlike the earlier versions, which were intended to be in the everyday language of the people, the translators took as their pattern no "spoken" language language at all. They sought to replicate the original Hebrew and Greek sentences and the linguistic structure, not in 16th century English, but in the Biblical languages themselves. The translators were not chosen for their abilities with English prose but for their knowledge and skills as Biblical scholars. A happy result of this is that the “style” of English used in the Authorized Version isn’t that of literature of the day (recall the complex language of Spencer’s Faerie Queene, for example). The translators weren’t intending to create a literary masterpiece, but to reproduce as faithfully as they could the languages of the Bible in English. The result of their work, however, was the greatest piece of English literature ever penned. The Authorized Translation, along with the works of Shakespeare and the Book of Common Prayer, are the greatest monuments of our language.
The problem with monuments, though, is they become too familiar. We acknowledge their past importance while failing to grasp their current potential. There are all kinds of reasons to admire the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, but in our day both are said to be things of the past. They are seen as part of our heritage, without much present relevance. They fit nicely in museums under glass. The language of the Bible and Prayer Book is often criticized as too archaic, too obscure, to be of much use to us today. Since 1970, at least 126 new versions of the Bible have appeared; 14 more are currently being prepared. While all may differ in their approach to translation, all agree that the King James Version needs supplementing—or replacement: our culture finds the language outdated and hard to understand.
The same rationale applies to the language of worship. The language of the Prayer Book is too anchored in the 16th century to be of use today, many tell us. Modern liturgies, grounded in the most banal and pedestrian language, have become the order of the day.
There is something to be said for these criticisms. The language of the Prayer Book and the Bible, is not the language we use when gossiping about the latest tabloid story or place our orders at Burger King. Sometimes the old language is hard to understand. We seem to have forgotten it's not supposed to be the language of the tabloids. We've been taught to talk to God the same way we order a hamburger: instead of saying “We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord” (the opening of the Prayer Book version of the Te Deum), many Christians now say “You are God: we praise You.” A hymn now in use in many Episcopal churches (and others, too) in our country begins: “Lord, You are so incredible.”
When we talk in fast-food language to God, God isn’t lessened: we are. Our concepts and beliefs about God suffer, and when those things are cheapened, our relationship with God is cheapened too.
The King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer “learn us in the way wherein we should go,” as Coverdale’s Psalter says. In the most subtle ways, the language we use about God and the words we say to God forge important links in our life with God. To lose these strong chains is to lose something essential to our Anglican tradition—and something profound for the Christian Faith.
Our Anglican heritage runs deep; it's something for which we should be profoundly thankful, and none too eager to change-at least until we really understand what we're giving up.-Fr Gregory Wilcox
The Authorized Version was not the first English Bible, nor even the first authorized version of the Bible in English. The first translation of the whole Bible into English was made under the supervision of John Wycliff in 1384. It was based on the Latin Bible of the medieval Church, St Jerome’s Vulgate. Wycliff’s was meant to be in the English commonly spoken in his day. Here are the first two verses of the Book of Genesis:
“In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe. Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris.”
Here is the Authorized Version:
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
In 1526, William Tyndale published the first printed version of the New Testament (Wycliff’s translation pre-dated the printing press); about 10 years later, in 1535, Miles Coverdale, working at the behest of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, oversaw the publication of the first printed version of the whole Bible, which combined Tyndale’s New Testament with Coverdale’s translation of the Old (Coverdale’s translation of the Book of Psalms is the basis for the Psalter used in the Book of Common Prayer—the first Prayer Book was published more than 60 years before King James Bible). Coverdales’ Bible, with some minor alterations, was published in 1540 with the authorization of both King Henry VIII and the Archbishop. It was ordered to be “set up in some convenient place within the said [parish] church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it."
In 1568, a second “authorized version” appeared, under the authority of Queen Elizabeth I and her Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. Parker commanded the English bishops to undertake a translation. Their version is called the “Bishop’s Bible,” and remained the Bible for official use in the Church of England until the publication of the King James Version fifty year later.
There was this distinction between the Authorized Version of 1611 and those translation which preceded it: unlike the earlier versions, which were intended to be in the everyday language of the people, the translators took as their pattern no "spoken" language language at all. They sought to replicate the original Hebrew and Greek sentences and the linguistic structure, not in 16th century English, but in the Biblical languages themselves. The translators were not chosen for their abilities with English prose but for their knowledge and skills as Biblical scholars. A happy result of this is that the “style” of English used in the Authorized Version isn’t that of literature of the day (recall the complex language of Spencer’s Faerie Queene, for example). The translators weren’t intending to create a literary masterpiece, but to reproduce as faithfully as they could the languages of the Bible in English. The result of their work, however, was the greatest piece of English literature ever penned. The Authorized Translation, along with the works of Shakespeare and the Book of Common Prayer, are the greatest monuments of our language.
The problem with monuments, though, is they become too familiar. We acknowledge their past importance while failing to grasp their current potential. There are all kinds of reasons to admire the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, but in our day both are said to be things of the past. They are seen as part of our heritage, without much present relevance. They fit nicely in museums under glass. The language of the Bible and Prayer Book is often criticized as too archaic, too obscure, to be of much use to us today. Since 1970, at least 126 new versions of the Bible have appeared; 14 more are currently being prepared. While all may differ in their approach to translation, all agree that the King James Version needs supplementing—or replacement: our culture finds the language outdated and hard to understand.
The same rationale applies to the language of worship. The language of the Prayer Book is too anchored in the 16th century to be of use today, many tell us. Modern liturgies, grounded in the most banal and pedestrian language, have become the order of the day.
There is something to be said for these criticisms. The language of the Prayer Book and the Bible, is not the language we use when gossiping about the latest tabloid story or place our orders at Burger King. Sometimes the old language is hard to understand. We seem to have forgotten it's not supposed to be the language of the tabloids. We've been taught to talk to God the same way we order a hamburger: instead of saying “We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord” (the opening of the Prayer Book version of the Te Deum), many Christians now say “You are God: we praise You.” A hymn now in use in many Episcopal churches (and others, too) in our country begins: “Lord, You are so incredible.”
When we talk in fast-food language to God, God isn’t lessened: we are. Our concepts and beliefs about God suffer, and when those things are cheapened, our relationship with God is cheapened too.
The King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer “learn us in the way wherein we should go,” as Coverdale’s Psalter says. In the most subtle ways, the language we use about God and the words we say to God forge important links in our life with God. To lose these strong chains is to lose something essential to our Anglican tradition—and something profound for the Christian Faith.
Our Anglican heritage runs deep; it's something for which we should be profoundly thankful, and none too eager to change-at least until we really understand what we're giving up.-Fr Gregory Wilcox
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