This weekend we’ll anticipate St Joseph’s Day (Monday, March 19) by celebrating his feast on Sunday. Rose Sunday seems a good day for keeping a feast. So we’ll be setting up St Joseph’s Table (after which this site is named), with tasty pasta dishes, antipastos, festive breads, Italian creams, gelatos and wine. This is the way to keep a feast during a fast!
The veneration of St Joseph dates from before 800 AD, when he was celebrated as the “guardian of the Lord.” Over the centuries he’s been seen as the ideal of masculine chastity, the protector of families and in 1870, Pope Pius XII declared him the Patron of the Universal Church (he also has become the upside-down-underground intercessor for those Americans anxious to sell their homes!—if you do’t know what I mean by this, don’t ask; some things it’s better not to know). Among the Eastern Orthodox churches, St Joseph is called on as “the righteous Joseph the Betrothed.” St Ephrem the Syrian depicts St Joseph as crying: “Who hath given me the Son of the Most High to be a Son to me?”
There’s much to ponder about St Joseph, much to emulate and much to inspire.
St Joseph embodies masculine chastity, a never-too-popular virtue. If you Google “masculinity,” you won’t find “chastity” linked to it. Chastity hints at anemic and unmanly connotations, with androgyny and latent homosexuality lurking just below its surface. The devil has done his work well.
For many, chastity and celibacy are the same thing. They’re not. It’s possible to be chaste but not celibate, and celibate, but not chaste. All Christians are called to chastity—including every Christian man—but not all Christians are called to celibacy.
Chastity comes from the Latin castus, meaning “pure.” Bearing that in mind, I can be celibate because I might not have the opportunity to be otherwise, but I am chaste by choice. There’s nothing manly about the indulgence of unchastity—nothing challenging nor disciplined—but anybody who follows St Joseph’s chastity soon discovers how easy wrassling alligators is by comparison. Chastity is limp-wristed only to those who’ve never wrassled with unchastity.
“Righteous Joseph the Betrothed” wrassled. He wrassled with doubts about St Mary (and her chastity!), with doubts about what God was doing to him, and with God’s unique call to him to be the “guardian of the Lord.” He was called to be the chaste and celibate spouse of the Virgin. No doubt he wrassled with that, too.
By grace he succeeded. St Joseph lived up to his calling and more. Because he followed where God led, because he took up the castus to which he was called, the Lord opened Joseph’s heart: “Who hath given me the Son of the Most High to be a Son to me?”
His calling to chastity was a high one. Ours is no less.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Noonday Devil
Three weeks into Lent—we’re not quite half-way through the Fast, but far enough into it for you to have a sense of how it’s going. Some of us never really began the Fast at all, those tell themselves it’s just not for them; some of us started to keep a good Lent, but when their intentions wore thin, they let it go. Some of us are still trying. For the first ten days or so, your stomach made occasional protestations as it mourned the loss of its accustomed foods, but now that’s pretty much past. Whatever the Lenten disciplines are that we’ve chosen, we’ve getting used to them now: we’ve learned our Lenten prayers, we’re setting aside our alms, we’re not too tempted by the rows of Ghirardelli chocolates we pass in the store. We’ve got it under control.
That’s when the noonday devil worms in.
The “noonday devil” is mentioned in Psalm 91: “the devil that walketh at noonday.” The noonday devil saps the fervor of our faith: he leaves behind a dullness of spirit, a lack of energy for the challenges of the Spirit, boredom with the things of God. The noonday devil watches, waits, and creeps up unnoticed. He wants us to feel that “I’ve tried that”—prayer, fasting, almsgiving, forgiving enemies, restraining my tongue, saying my prayers every day, being nice to the co-worker I don’t like, reading the Bible—“but it doesn’t really make a difference. I’m not a saint, you know.”
The noonday devil doesn’t tempt us with sizzling enticements to sin, but with dull, ordinary ones—so ordinary we don’t even notice them; they don’t seem to be temptations at all. We’re not tempted to abandon our Faith, or become apostates from God: all we’re tempted to do is take a long, spiritual nap.
The noonday devil doesn’t strike at us—actually, he doesn’t “strike” at all, he insinuates himself—not only during Lent, but Lent is certainly one of his busiest times. Those who keep the Fast need to guard against his guile more than those who don’t—he’s already bagged the rest. We need to do an occasional spiritual inventory. Am I complacent with my keeping of Lent? Self-satisfied? Do I compare myself with others and secretly congratulate myself on what a good Christian I am? He’s always ready (in season and out) to sidle up to you and suggest what a very exceptional person you are—and most of us are always ready to believe he’s right!
So what do we do about spiritual self-complacency? How do I tweak the nose of the noonday devil?
There’s no need to try and “rev up” our spirits to produce an emotional excitement about our religion or whip up a sense of enthusiasm for our Faith. Our fundamentalist neighbors do just that with their periodic “revivals.” Such things don’t last. They produce a roller coaster sort of spirituality, centered less on my spiritual life than on my feelings.
So what do we do?
We continue. We plod on. We say our prayers when we don’t want to, fast when we want to eat, give when we want to grasp, be kind when we want to snarl. If we determine to do those things, it’s certain we’ll sometimes fail. We’ll skip our prayers now and then, eat what we’ve said we wouldn’t, be selfish when we’ve been given an opportunity to be generous. That’s when our Lenten test really comes. None of us will keep perfect Lents. What matters is what you do when you realize you’ve stumbled. If you “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again,” then you’re finding your way to a truly holy Lent. Then you realize you’re not keeping Lent for yourself and your sense of accomplishment. You’re learning humility the hard way (which, incidentally, is the only way it can be learned!).
Against that, the noonday devil has no snare; and your Lent is well-spent.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
That’s when the noonday devil worms in.
The “noonday devil” is mentioned in Psalm 91: “the devil that walketh at noonday.” The noonday devil saps the fervor of our faith: he leaves behind a dullness of spirit, a lack of energy for the challenges of the Spirit, boredom with the things of God. The noonday devil watches, waits, and creeps up unnoticed. He wants us to feel that “I’ve tried that”—prayer, fasting, almsgiving, forgiving enemies, restraining my tongue, saying my prayers every day, being nice to the co-worker I don’t like, reading the Bible—“but it doesn’t really make a difference. I’m not a saint, you know.”
The noonday devil doesn’t tempt us with sizzling enticements to sin, but with dull, ordinary ones—so ordinary we don’t even notice them; they don’t seem to be temptations at all. We’re not tempted to abandon our Faith, or become apostates from God: all we’re tempted to do is take a long, spiritual nap.
The noonday devil doesn’t strike at us—actually, he doesn’t “strike” at all, he insinuates himself—not only during Lent, but Lent is certainly one of his busiest times. Those who keep the Fast need to guard against his guile more than those who don’t—he’s already bagged the rest. We need to do an occasional spiritual inventory. Am I complacent with my keeping of Lent? Self-satisfied? Do I compare myself with others and secretly congratulate myself on what a good Christian I am? He’s always ready (in season and out) to sidle up to you and suggest what a very exceptional person you are—and most of us are always ready to believe he’s right!
So what do we do about spiritual self-complacency? How do I tweak the nose of the noonday devil?
There’s no need to try and “rev up” our spirits to produce an emotional excitement about our religion or whip up a sense of enthusiasm for our Faith. Our fundamentalist neighbors do just that with their periodic “revivals.” Such things don’t last. They produce a roller coaster sort of spirituality, centered less on my spiritual life than on my feelings.
So what do we do?
We continue. We plod on. We say our prayers when we don’t want to, fast when we want to eat, give when we want to grasp, be kind when we want to snarl. If we determine to do those things, it’s certain we’ll sometimes fail. We’ll skip our prayers now and then, eat what we’ve said we wouldn’t, be selfish when we’ve been given an opportunity to be generous. That’s when our Lenten test really comes. None of us will keep perfect Lents. What matters is what you do when you realize you’ve stumbled. If you “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again,” then you’re finding your way to a truly holy Lent. Then you realize you’re not keeping Lent for yourself and your sense of accomplishment. You’re learning humility the hard way (which, incidentally, is the only way it can be learned!).
Against that, the noonday devil has no snare; and your Lent is well-spent.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wenesday
Shrove Tuesday
February 21, 2012
6.30 PM Gathering of the Cooks
7.00 PM Evening Prayer
7.30 PM The Mardi Gras Festivities Commence: The Crowning of the Queen, the Pancake Fanfare and Procession; the Eating; the Jokes; the Last Bite before Lent; the Forgiveness
Ash Wednesday Services
February 22, 2012
7.00 AM—The Penitential Office, Imposition of Ashes and Holy Communion from the Reserved Sacrament
10.00 AM—Morning Prayer and the Imposition of Ashes
12.00 PM—The Penitential Office, Sermon and Imposition of Ashes
7.00 PM—Evening Prayer, the Penitential Office and Mass
Fr Wilcox will be available to hear Confessions from 7.30 AM until 12.00 PM and from 5.00 PM until 6.45,
February 21, 2012
6.30 PM Gathering of the Cooks
7.00 PM Evening Prayer
7.30 PM The Mardi Gras Festivities Commence: The Crowning of the Queen, the Pancake Fanfare and Procession; the Eating; the Jokes; the Last Bite before Lent; the Forgiveness
Ash Wednesday Services
February 22, 2012
7.00 AM—The Penitential Office, Imposition of Ashes and Holy Communion from the Reserved Sacrament
10.00 AM—Morning Prayer and the Imposition of Ashes
12.00 PM—The Penitential Office, Sermon and Imposition of Ashes
7.00 PM—Evening Prayer, the Penitential Office and Mass
Fr Wilcox will be available to hear Confessions from 7.30 AM until 12.00 PM and from 5.00 PM until 6.45,
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Anemic Fasts and Tasteless Feasts
I’m in a parish of cooks. Like Katherine Keenan and Sylvia Muff and Deacon McKenzie and Judith Vallejo: people who know how to create rich sauces and sizzle savory meats, who know what it means to dice an onion to bring out its possibilities and use real butter in their pans. I’m in a parish of people who know what it means to be hospitable: not merely to entertain, but how to open their homes and make you feel an honored and special guest, who host a lavish feast like the Mackies or an intimate evening like the Boyers. I count myself makarios—most happy and blessed—in these things.
Real cooking and real hospitality, alas! like good conversation and music, are vanishing arts. We’re being trained to settle for much less: haute cuisine from a steam bag, diners without candlelight, talk about television (or worse—computer advice), synthetic music from a boom box. We’re being re-trained how to live—all with the best intentions, I’m sure, but at what cost?
God made us to rejoice in His Creation, to drink deeply of its delights: to watch a sunrise from the first hints of rose in the night’s darkest blackness to its blinding glory as it floods the horizon with gold; to nurture the year’s first daffodil to blossom; to admire the arch of the deer’s perfect leap over the fenceline.
Hilaire Belloc, the poet, sometime theologian and occasional politician, wrote:
“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine
There’s always laughter and good red wine
At least I have always found it so
Benedicamus Domino!”
We rush through busy lives, but somehow a lot of us have misplaced the meaning of what we're doing.
Popular Protestantism wants to tell us life isn’t about anything so narrow as “religion,” but our Catholic Faith teaches us that “religion” is what life IS about! It’s just that our Protestant friends have too constipated an idea of what “religion” is. It is about laughter and sunshine and good red wine. It’s about how to live and die squeezing every drop of joy from the whole affair.
We’re losing our grip on the rich texture of life, settling for banalities: we’re reducing poetry to text messages. We’ve forgotten how to Feast and how to Fast, and we’re less for these losses.
Lent is coming. The Great Fast which a whole lot of Christians will observe by giving up chocolate for 40 days (it’s okay—the Chocolate Companies will already have banked their Valentine’s Day profits). This is fasting for children.
How about giving up enough food (if your doctor allows—mine would be shocked into amazed acquiescence) so your stomach growls at you for the first 20 days of the Fast? How about turning off the TV for all but the news and weather? How about reading one of the Gospels for 40 days (I have a little pamphlet to help you do just that)? How about fasting from criticizing behind their back your favorite verbal target? Make this a Fast to remember.
And then, when it’s over, when the Alleluia is resurrected along with the Son of God, make Easter a Feast you’ll never forget.
If we’ve forgotten how to Fast, Feasting is even more of a lost art. Our fasts have become anemic and our feasts tasteless. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our Fast should be rugged and our Feast robust. When they’re over, we should have fasted and feasted so we’ll remember.
Lent is coming. Get ready.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Real cooking and real hospitality, alas! like good conversation and music, are vanishing arts. We’re being trained to settle for much less: haute cuisine from a steam bag, diners without candlelight, talk about television (or worse—computer advice), synthetic music from a boom box. We’re being re-trained how to live—all with the best intentions, I’m sure, but at what cost?
God made us to rejoice in His Creation, to drink deeply of its delights: to watch a sunrise from the first hints of rose in the night’s darkest blackness to its blinding glory as it floods the horizon with gold; to nurture the year’s first daffodil to blossom; to admire the arch of the deer’s perfect leap over the fenceline.
Hilaire Belloc, the poet, sometime theologian and occasional politician, wrote:
“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine
There’s always laughter and good red wine
At least I have always found it so
Benedicamus Domino!”
We rush through busy lives, but somehow a lot of us have misplaced the meaning of what we're doing.
Popular Protestantism wants to tell us life isn’t about anything so narrow as “religion,” but our Catholic Faith teaches us that “religion” is what life IS about! It’s just that our Protestant friends have too constipated an idea of what “religion” is. It is about laughter and sunshine and good red wine. It’s about how to live and die squeezing every drop of joy from the whole affair.
We’re losing our grip on the rich texture of life, settling for banalities: we’re reducing poetry to text messages. We’ve forgotten how to Feast and how to Fast, and we’re less for these losses.
Lent is coming. The Great Fast which a whole lot of Christians will observe by giving up chocolate for 40 days (it’s okay—the Chocolate Companies will already have banked their Valentine’s Day profits). This is fasting for children.
How about giving up enough food (if your doctor allows—mine would be shocked into amazed acquiescence) so your stomach growls at you for the first 20 days of the Fast? How about turning off the TV for all but the news and weather? How about reading one of the Gospels for 40 days (I have a little pamphlet to help you do just that)? How about fasting from criticizing behind their back your favorite verbal target? Make this a Fast to remember.
And then, when it’s over, when the Alleluia is resurrected along with the Son of God, make Easter a Feast you’ll never forget.
If we’ve forgotten how to Fast, Feasting is even more of a lost art. Our fasts have become anemic and our feasts tasteless. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our Fast should be rugged and our Feast robust. When they’re over, we should have fasted and feasted so we’ll remember.
Lent is coming. Get ready.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Seeds of Lent
The Church sets aside a period of weeks, commonly called Pre-Lent, the “gesima” Sundays, which we begin tomorrow with Septuagesima. Two-and-a-half weeks for us to prepare for the Great Forty-Day Fast of Lent. She gives us this time to plan our Lenten exercises so we can keep a holy and vigorous Lent. Her intention is simple—she calls us to be a little less sinful, a little more holy after Lent than we were before. She asks us to plan the ensuing Forty Days and Forty Nights, so we don’t jut endure Lent but profit by it and grow through it.
She provides us with three tools to help us do that: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. There are many ways to “keep” Lent, but any profitable observance of the season requires us to use these three inestimable tools of spiritual growth.
Prayer—Morning and Evening Prayer, Compline, the recitation of Psalms, the Litany, and the Church’s greatest Prayer, the Mass—these “public” prayers of the Church must form a part of our Lenten observance. But public prayer is only half of the Christian’s prayer. Personal prayers, drawn from a manual such as St Augustine’s Prayer Book or The Practice of Religion, to name two American Anglican classics, “conversational” prayer, meditation, sacred reading, these too, are essential to a healthy and lively spiritual life. St John of Damascus, writing 1300 years ago, defined prayer as “the lifting of the heart and mind to God.” Our Lenten plan must include regular times personal prayer. The Book of Common Prayer has a collect recited every day of Lent during the Church’s public worship. It’s found on page 124 of the Prayer Book. You might consider adding it to your daily prayers during Lent.
Fasting and abstinence are integral to our Lenten devotions. We are composite creatures, having souls and bodies. That makes us sacramental beings. Our outward, visible self acts in conjunction with our inward, spiritual nature. What we do with our bodies impacts our souls; the inner life of our souls affects the bodies God has given us. To discipline our bodies with fasting is to train our souls for eternity.
The Church Year has times of feasting and fasting. Both are necessary. We need parties and fun and laughter, times to rejoice in God’s many gifts and wonders. But equally do we need times of quiet reflection and focused discipline. A plan of fasting and abstinence through Lent enables us to truly enter into the joys of Easter.
Almsgiving, the giving away of our money to benefit others, is a powerful ally during Lent (and any other time, for that matter). St Augustine calls almsgiving “the second wing, together with prayer, that allows our souls to fly to God.” Money is a gauge of what we think is important: the Lord Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Money tells of power, prestige and position. St Thomas says there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but he warns there’s nothing right about them either. Our characters are shown by how we use our money and power and prestige.
Almsgiving isn’t the same as giving money to upkeep the church or to support her work. Those are tithes and offerings. Almsgiving is giving to those in need, giving away something of our treasure to benefit another. Almsgiving is good, anonymous almsgiving is better. The Lord said, “Let not your right hand know what your left is doing.” Almsgiving allows us to participate in the charity of God. He gives freely and continuously, out of love, to benefit us—who are often unaware of His gifts and sometimes ungrateful for them. To give alms is to do something which benefits another without considering any benefit to ourselves. That kind of love is reflective of God’s love.
Lent is a time for spiritual growth, for deepening our relationship with God. For most of us, spiritual growth means struggling with sin. It means uncovering the temptations I’m most susceptible to. Each of us has what writers on the spiritual life call “besetting sins”—our favorite sins, the ones we commit most often. During these days of preparation for Lent, we need to plan our Lent to address our sins. Think of a farmer planning his year. He wants to grow certain crops in certain fields in certain seasons. He knows the harvest he hopes for, and to get it he prepares the field beforehand, aware of the dangers to his crop from insects and pests, drought and flood, cold weather and hot. He makes sure all his tools and equipment are in working order, that he has the right seed, the proper plan for irrigation, the workers on hand to do the job. All this before a seed is sown.
What do you hope for from Lent? Lose a few pounds? See whether you can go without chocolate or brussel sprouts for forty days? Give up the evening news? Nothing wrong with any of those things, but, as St Thomas says, nothing right about them, either. Lent is a time for sowing the seeds of your eternal life. What sort of harvest are you expecting? You will reap what you sow.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
She provides us with three tools to help us do that: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. There are many ways to “keep” Lent, but any profitable observance of the season requires us to use these three inestimable tools of spiritual growth.
Prayer—Morning and Evening Prayer, Compline, the recitation of Psalms, the Litany, and the Church’s greatest Prayer, the Mass—these “public” prayers of the Church must form a part of our Lenten observance. But public prayer is only half of the Christian’s prayer. Personal prayers, drawn from a manual such as St Augustine’s Prayer Book or The Practice of Religion, to name two American Anglican classics, “conversational” prayer, meditation, sacred reading, these too, are essential to a healthy and lively spiritual life. St John of Damascus, writing 1300 years ago, defined prayer as “the lifting of the heart and mind to God.” Our Lenten plan must include regular times personal prayer. The Book of Common Prayer has a collect recited every day of Lent during the Church’s public worship. It’s found on page 124 of the Prayer Book. You might consider adding it to your daily prayers during Lent.
Fasting and abstinence are integral to our Lenten devotions. We are composite creatures, having souls and bodies. That makes us sacramental beings. Our outward, visible self acts in conjunction with our inward, spiritual nature. What we do with our bodies impacts our souls; the inner life of our souls affects the bodies God has given us. To discipline our bodies with fasting is to train our souls for eternity.
The Church Year has times of feasting and fasting. Both are necessary. We need parties and fun and laughter, times to rejoice in God’s many gifts and wonders. But equally do we need times of quiet reflection and focused discipline. A plan of fasting and abstinence through Lent enables us to truly enter into the joys of Easter.
Almsgiving, the giving away of our money to benefit others, is a powerful ally during Lent (and any other time, for that matter). St Augustine calls almsgiving “the second wing, together with prayer, that allows our souls to fly to God.” Money is a gauge of what we think is important: the Lord Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Money tells of power, prestige and position. St Thomas says there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but he warns there’s nothing right about them either. Our characters are shown by how we use our money and power and prestige.
Almsgiving isn’t the same as giving money to upkeep the church or to support her work. Those are tithes and offerings. Almsgiving is giving to those in need, giving away something of our treasure to benefit another. Almsgiving is good, anonymous almsgiving is better. The Lord said, “Let not your right hand know what your left is doing.” Almsgiving allows us to participate in the charity of God. He gives freely and continuously, out of love, to benefit us—who are often unaware of His gifts and sometimes ungrateful for them. To give alms is to do something which benefits another without considering any benefit to ourselves. That kind of love is reflective of God’s love.
Lent is a time for spiritual growth, for deepening our relationship with God. For most of us, spiritual growth means struggling with sin. It means uncovering the temptations I’m most susceptible to. Each of us has what writers on the spiritual life call “besetting sins”—our favorite sins, the ones we commit most often. During these days of preparation for Lent, we need to plan our Lent to address our sins. Think of a farmer planning his year. He wants to grow certain crops in certain fields in certain seasons. He knows the harvest he hopes for, and to get it he prepares the field beforehand, aware of the dangers to his crop from insects and pests, drought and flood, cold weather and hot. He makes sure all his tools and equipment are in working order, that he has the right seed, the proper plan for irrigation, the workers on hand to do the job. All this before a seed is sown.
What do you hope for from Lent? Lose a few pounds? See whether you can go without chocolate or brussel sprouts for forty days? Give up the evening news? Nothing wrong with any of those things, but, as St Thomas says, nothing right about them, either. Lent is a time for sowing the seeds of your eternal life. What sort of harvest are you expecting? You will reap what you sow.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Epiphanytide epiphanies
The Eastern Churches call this season “Theopany”—a manifestation of God. Our word “Epiphany” conveys the same idea. The Christmas Gospel recounts the anonymity of His birth. The Lord Jesus was born in a cowstall in the middle of the night while the whole world slept. Epiphany shows us how that God reveals Himself to those who have eyes to see—then and now.
In the Gospel readings of Epiphanytide, His epiphanies are delightfully obvious with delightfully subtle asides. When we begin the season, with the all-too-familiar story of the Three Kings, it’s worth remembering it’s really a story about four Kings—the three Magi bearing their precious and prophetic gifts, and the evil Herod: Three Wise Men who understand Who the Child is, and a King who will not see because he doesn’t want to. Through the season we have these epiphanies—the Holy Ghost descends as a dove when the Lord is baptized, the Doctors of Theology in the Temple listen struck mute at “the understanding and answers of a twelve-year-old, cleaning water turned into the choicest wine so a wedding party can keep going strong. These are pictures, not just of God revealing Himself, but of how He does it, why He does it, and what our response is to it—then and now.
Of course, epiphanies continue. God still reveals Himself.
As then, so now. Scripture speaks so truthfully and powerfully to us because the stories it tells, the people it describes and the God it reveals are all ring true in the experiences of our own lives. Some of us find life pregnant and rich with the presence of God; others see—and so not surprisingly find—nothing.
For the Three Kings, God was born in Bethlehem; for the fourth, King Herod, it wasn’t a Savior but a threat born that night. While St John Baptist saw God descend as a dove that day on the banks of the Jordan, others saw only a bird.
The Church is Christ’s presence on earth now, living by His Spirit, active in the lives of His people: it’s His on-going epiphany. God speaks to us at Mass and in the Daily Office through His Scriptures; His presence manifests itself to us in His Sacraments; He guides us day to day through the teaching of His Saints. He entwines Himself into the daily circumstances of our lives.
And for all this, we wonder at His absence.
It’s not that God doesn’t show Himself; it's just that we’re looking for something else.
No matter how many other “something elses” we pursue—and all of us do, me more than many others—none of them will ever satisfy us. We leave a trail of broken toys behind us, things we had to have which we only discovered after the fact weren’t the Thing we wanted.
Epiphanytide comes around year after year, telling us the old stories, offering us the chance to find God afresh, delightfully obvious, in ways both ordinary and wonderful.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
In the Gospel readings of Epiphanytide, His epiphanies are delightfully obvious with delightfully subtle asides. When we begin the season, with the all-too-familiar story of the Three Kings, it’s worth remembering it’s really a story about four Kings—the three Magi bearing their precious and prophetic gifts, and the evil Herod: Three Wise Men who understand Who the Child is, and a King who will not see because he doesn’t want to. Through the season we have these epiphanies—the Holy Ghost descends as a dove when the Lord is baptized, the Doctors of Theology in the Temple listen struck mute at “the understanding and answers of a twelve-year-old, cleaning water turned into the choicest wine so a wedding party can keep going strong. These are pictures, not just of God revealing Himself, but of how He does it, why He does it, and what our response is to it—then and now.
Of course, epiphanies continue. God still reveals Himself.
As then, so now. Scripture speaks so truthfully and powerfully to us because the stories it tells, the people it describes and the God it reveals are all ring true in the experiences of our own lives. Some of us find life pregnant and rich with the presence of God; others see—and so not surprisingly find—nothing.
For the Three Kings, God was born in Bethlehem; for the fourth, King Herod, it wasn’t a Savior but a threat born that night. While St John Baptist saw God descend as a dove that day on the banks of the Jordan, others saw only a bird.
The Church is Christ’s presence on earth now, living by His Spirit, active in the lives of His people: it’s His on-going epiphany. God speaks to us at Mass and in the Daily Office through His Scriptures; His presence manifests itself to us in His Sacraments; He guides us day to day through the teaching of His Saints. He entwines Himself into the daily circumstances of our lives.
And for all this, we wonder at His absence.
It’s not that God doesn’t show Himself; it's just that we’re looking for something else.
No matter how many other “something elses” we pursue—and all of us do, me more than many others—none of them will ever satisfy us. We leave a trail of broken toys behind us, things we had to have which we only discovered after the fact weren’t the Thing we wanted.
Epiphanytide comes around year after year, telling us the old stories, offering us the chance to find God afresh, delightfully obvious, in ways both ordinary and wonderful.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, January 7, 2012
When Ye Feast...
In his wonderful theology/cookbook, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection, Fr Robert Capon wrote, “when you fast, fast with rigor—bare-knuckled, as if you meant it. Ah! and when you feast, eat such foods, drink such wines, sing such songs, relish such companions so as to make the angels envious!”
This week, we entered Epiphanytide. The entrance of the Three Kings encourages us to prolong our Christmas feasting with paper crowns and King Cakes and houseblessings. The traditional calendar, like Fr Capon, doesn’t want us to quit the feast until it’s well and truly ended.
Anglicans value our past without unnecessarily disparaging our present or future prospects. We cling to the old, sometimes not knowing why, certain only that it’s good, like an old Gershwin song we know can’t be bettered.
Our speech is filled with wonderful words, now falling into disuse, which tell of rich meanings: Christmastide, Epiphanytide, Eastertide, Whitsundtide, Trinitytide are among such words. The old English suffix “-tide” at the end of a word means “a time of feasting.” The use wasn’t exclusively ecclesiastical. “Hocktide,” the Monday and Tuesday of Easter Week, was many centuries ago not tied to Easter; it was a week-long celebration of the expulsion of the Viking invaders from England in 1002.
I point this out, not to bemoan the loss of antique Anglo-Saxon terminology, but to suggest those terms enshrine something we should not forget: there are times of feasting and times of fasting, and both are knotted to living the Christian life.
In our world nowadays, Christmas is December 25. It comes one day and goes away the next; somebody “tying one on” could miss the whole thing! Even those who know “the Twelve Days of Christmas” as something more than a Christmas-time song often think it refers to the twelve days before Christmas—more than one person has told me so, very knowingly.
Christmastide, Epiphanytide and the rest tell us that Christians are to celebrate, to revel in, to “throughly” (to use another grand old Anglo-Saxon word) enjoy our feasts. Fr Capon exhorts us: “fast with rigor” when the Fast is here (and it’s coming, beloved), but feast with joy. Heaven, we’ve been promised by the Lord Jesus Himself, is a joyful Banquet—a Feast which will never end. The feasts appointed for us are foretastes of that unending Banquet to which we’ve been specially invited.
We are sacramental creatures. God made us sacramental. That doesn’t only refer to the Seven Sacraments of the church—it’s really the other way around: the Sacraments work in and on us with such profundity because we are sacramental. A kiss, a flag, a smile—these things are sacramental, meaningful, carrying their meaning in the things themselves. Feasts, as everything else we do, are sacramental, too.
When we empty life of feasting (and fasting!) we empty it of content. Our Christmas has been gutted because it’s been re-defined by television advertising and a shopping frenzy into a time of saccharine sentimentality about “goodwill to men,” forgetting Gloria in excelsis as politically inconvenient.
The sacramental Christian is called by his very existence, by the fact that God bothered to create him, to suck the marrow-bone of life dry. Live as if you matter. We were made for joy, for feasting (only a feaster can really know how to fast!).
An old Louisiana custom grasps this without bothering to stop and explain. At a Christmastide dinner party the other night, a fun discussion about the tradition of the King’s Cake showed this afresh. We talked about the King’s Cake, a European custom dating back almost a thousand years. Universally it's served up as part of the Epiphanytide celebration—except in Louisiana and south-east Texas. There it’s a custom of Mardi Gras. Why? Because it keeps the Epiphanytide celebrations going to the very last minute, carrying them not beyond, but to the threshold of Lent itself.
We’re made for feasting because we’re made for joy. Epiphanytide lasts till February 4. Keep the feast till then, and “make the angels envious!”—Fr Gregory Wilcox
This week, we entered Epiphanytide. The entrance of the Three Kings encourages us to prolong our Christmas feasting with paper crowns and King Cakes and houseblessings. The traditional calendar, like Fr Capon, doesn’t want us to quit the feast until it’s well and truly ended.
Anglicans value our past without unnecessarily disparaging our present or future prospects. We cling to the old, sometimes not knowing why, certain only that it’s good, like an old Gershwin song we know can’t be bettered.
Our speech is filled with wonderful words, now falling into disuse, which tell of rich meanings: Christmastide, Epiphanytide, Eastertide, Whitsundtide, Trinitytide are among such words. The old English suffix “-tide” at the end of a word means “a time of feasting.” The use wasn’t exclusively ecclesiastical. “Hocktide,” the Monday and Tuesday of Easter Week, was many centuries ago not tied to Easter; it was a week-long celebration of the expulsion of the Viking invaders from England in 1002.
I point this out, not to bemoan the loss of antique Anglo-Saxon terminology, but to suggest those terms enshrine something we should not forget: there are times of feasting and times of fasting, and both are knotted to living the Christian life.
In our world nowadays, Christmas is December 25. It comes one day and goes away the next; somebody “tying one on” could miss the whole thing! Even those who know “the Twelve Days of Christmas” as something more than a Christmas-time song often think it refers to the twelve days before Christmas—more than one person has told me so, very knowingly.
Christmastide, Epiphanytide and the rest tell us that Christians are to celebrate, to revel in, to “throughly” (to use another grand old Anglo-Saxon word) enjoy our feasts. Fr Capon exhorts us: “fast with rigor” when the Fast is here (and it’s coming, beloved), but feast with joy. Heaven, we’ve been promised by the Lord Jesus Himself, is a joyful Banquet—a Feast which will never end. The feasts appointed for us are foretastes of that unending Banquet to which we’ve been specially invited.
We are sacramental creatures. God made us sacramental. That doesn’t only refer to the Seven Sacraments of the church—it’s really the other way around: the Sacraments work in and on us with such profundity because we are sacramental. A kiss, a flag, a smile—these things are sacramental, meaningful, carrying their meaning in the things themselves. Feasts, as everything else we do, are sacramental, too.
When we empty life of feasting (and fasting!) we empty it of content. Our Christmas has been gutted because it’s been re-defined by television advertising and a shopping frenzy into a time of saccharine sentimentality about “goodwill to men,” forgetting Gloria in excelsis as politically inconvenient.
The sacramental Christian is called by his very existence, by the fact that God bothered to create him, to suck the marrow-bone of life dry. Live as if you matter. We were made for joy, for feasting (only a feaster can really know how to fast!).
An old Louisiana custom grasps this without bothering to stop and explain. At a Christmastide dinner party the other night, a fun discussion about the tradition of the King’s Cake showed this afresh. We talked about the King’s Cake, a European custom dating back almost a thousand years. Universally it's served up as part of the Epiphanytide celebration—except in Louisiana and south-east Texas. There it’s a custom of Mardi Gras. Why? Because it keeps the Epiphanytide celebrations going to the very last minute, carrying them not beyond, but to the threshold of Lent itself.
We’re made for feasting because we’re made for joy. Epiphanytide lasts till February 4. Keep the feast till then, and “make the angels envious!”—Fr Gregory Wilcox
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