Ok. This was just too priceless to pass up. A recent article poking fun at the dress of denizens of the Vatican. I’m particularly amused by Pope Benedict XVI’s reintroduction of papal garb not seen since the nineteenth century. You can check it out here.
Yesterday, our services began with The Great Litany. It has been the custom at St. James, and is the custom in many Episcopal Churches to use The Great Litany on the First Sunday of Lent. It is the first piece of the liturgy translated and published in English, prepared by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer in 1544 for use in all English churches at a time when England was at war with France and Scotland. He drew on Medieval litanies as well as on Luther’s litany from 1529 and a Greek Orthodox version. Litanies of this sort were commonly used during public processions from the earliest centuries of Christianity.
The language and the sentiments expressed in it may sometimes seem archaic or alien to us, but the Great Litany with its several sections is more than a catalog of our sins and supplications. It expresses our profound dependence on God for all that we are and reminds us that in the end, everything in our lives and the world lies in the providence of God.
It’s not without its humorous moments, however. The rubrics (instructions) in the Book of Common Prayer tell us that the Great Litany “may be said or sung, kneeling, standing, or in procession.” Whatever the case, when we come to the request that “… it may please thee to strengthen such as do stand, to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up those who fall,” we are often praying for ourselves.
If you didn’t get enough of it yesterday, there are a number of online versions available, including this one, which comes from St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Falmouth, MA.
Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are typically times of self-reflection and self-discipline. We are reminded on Ash Wednesday that “we are dust and to dust we will return.” In the Litany of Penitence that we say on Ash Wednesday, and in the Great Litany that we will say on the First Sunday of Lent, we confess many sins and say to God that we know we are sinful creatures.
It is easy to regard Lent as depressing or to think that it makes us dwell on our sins and shortcomings. There certainly is truth in that. But as I was reading the lessons at our early service yesterday, and as we recited the Psalm, I noticed a theme I had never noticed before. In the reading from Joel, the prophet says, “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”
In the Psalm from yesterday, the Psalmist writes that “He forgives all your sins … He redeems your life from the grave.” Most beautifully, “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.”
Lent should be a time when we reflect on our sins and strive for amendment of life, but we should not lose sight of the equally important fact–that God is a loving and merciful God. Through our clear-eyed reflection on our sins, and on who we are, we can experience that love and forgiveness more deeply.
I’ve been thinking about the sacrament of Confession a great deal. In class last week, as I lectured on Erasmus and his edition of the Greek New Testament and Latin translation that was published in 1516, I told my students about his translation of Greek word metanoia in the Gospel of Matthew. The traditional Latin translation was “Do penance” which puts in Jesus’ mouth the commandment to Christians to make their confession to a priest. Erasmus translated it more literally as “change your mind” and insisted that the sense of the Greek word was “be penitent.”
Last week, The New York Times published an article on the return of indulgences. You can read it here. It was perfectly timed, because this week in class, we turned to Martin Luther, his quest for a merciful God, and his attack on indulgences. The very first of his 95 Theses reads almost as if Erasmus might have written it, “When Jesus said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
In the Middle Ages, the Church expected that all Christians would make their confession once a year, in preparation for the annual reception of communion at Easter. Lent, which had its beginnings in the Early Church as a period of preparation for baptism, took on a deeply penitential emphasis. Preachers, especially the Franciscans, would encourage their listeners to examine themselves more deeply and systematically, to ensure that they made a full confession.
While most of the Protestant reformers believed Confession was a useful practice and sought to retain it, most laypeople resisted. It was kept in the Book of Common Prayer. The Exhortation that was to be said before the Eucharist made clear that if one was in sin, they were to make a confession before receiving communion.
When we think of Confession, most of us probably think of what we see in the movies, or what we remember of our Roman Catholic childhoods—confessional boxes, with a grate separating the priest from the confessant.
Confession is an opportunity to reflect on one’s life. It should not be seen as a potential guilt trip. Instead, preparing for confession involves taking a good hard look at oneself, without blinders or excuses and to recognize who we are and what we do. In the confession of sin during the Eucharist we ask forgiveness for “the things we have done and the things we have left undone.” Preparing for private confession allows us to think seriously about the ways in which we have not been the human being that God wants us to be and indeed the human being that we want to be.
Some of us have the the discipline to embark on this self-examination on our own, but the result may indeed be feelings of guilt, doubt, or despair. To speak with a priest about the results of one’s self-examination provides the occasion to hear again the words we know are true; that our sins are forgiven by the great mercy of God. It may be that hearing those words of absolution will take a heavy burden off the shoulders of one who has been worrying about their sins.
Charles Darwin turned 200 years old this week, and later this year we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859. Those two anniversaries are appropriate occasions to reflect on the relationship between Religion and Science and especially on the implications of Evolution for Christian faith. There have been hundreds of articles written in the past few weeks to mark Darwin’s birthday, and on Sunday at St. James, we will focus on these issues in our adult forum.
Among the more interesting reflections published on the internet is an article that is based on an interview with Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefforts Schori, who is a trained scientist. You can read it here.
The Church of England has produced a useful website that outines Darwin’s relationship with Christianity (he studied theology for a time at Cambridge), and includes a number of articles on the historical context and on contemporary Christian understandings. It is here.
Here are a couple of more articles that some might find interesting: “Five things we can learn from Creationists” and “What does Darwin mean to you?”
Today, February 2, is the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple. It is one of the most ancient commemorations in the church calendar, and has undergone significant transformation over the centuries. It honors the story in Luke 2 in which Joseph and Mary bring the infant Jesus to the temple. This was a practice in Judaism of the day when a mother would come to temple on the 40th day after birth, to offer sacrifices and be ritually purified. In the Luke story, Mary brings two turtledoves, the sacrifice specified for poor women. One of the focal points of the story is the song of Simeon, which he sings after seeing Jesus. Known as the Nunc Dimmitis, it begins “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation….”
In earlier centuries, this feast day was known as Candlemas. It was the day when the priest blessed the beeswax candles that would be used in the church in the coming year, and laypeople could bring their candles for blessing as well. Mary’s coming to the temple on the fortieth day after giving birth in keeping with Jewish observance had an a significant impact on medieval religious practice. In most of western Christianity, a similar rite “The Churching of Women” was observed on the 40th day. It remained in the prayer book until the 1979 revision. In the sixteenth century, when continental Protestants attempted to do away with it as “popish superstition” they met strong resistance from women, for the celebration had become an important rite of passage and reintegration into the community after childbirth.
Candlemas is a feast day rarely observed by contemporary Episcopalians—we don’t often even use beeswax candles any more. At St. James, most of our candles use oil rather than wax but it had cultural as well as religious significance. One of the legends in England said that a wintry Candlemas would make for a late spring, which is probably the origin of the idea of Groundhog Day.
Perhaps the most important part of the gospel story is Simeon’s song of praise, which is regularly used in the liturgy, especially in the daily office, at evensong or compline. The prayerbook version reads:
Lord, you now have set your servant free
To go in peace as you have promised
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,
Whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
A Light to enlighten the nations,
And the glory of your people Israel.
Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever had as busy a Christmas as this year was. In addition to the usual press of the holiday season, the staff of St. James bid our Interim Rector, Fr. Tom Davis good-bye on Christmas Eve, and then we had to make preparations for the arrival of our new Rector, Fr. Geoff Taylor. But it wasn’t all work. Corrie and I celebrated her birthday by seeing the Met’s performance of Massenet’s Thais on December 20, and we ended the holiday season at the Peace Center last Thursday for a performance by violinist Joshua Bell. For his encore, Bell played the Meditation from Thais. So our Christmas began and ended with that lovely and profound violin piece.
Thais is the story of an Egyptian monk from the early centuries of Christianity who takes it upon himself to attempt the conversion of Thais, the most famous and beautiful courtesan in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria. Of course he falls in love with her, and of course she converts to Christianity. In fact the Meditation is the moment in the opera when she converts. Thomas Hampson and Renee Fleming were superb in their roles, but David Chang, concertmaster of the Met Orchestra was amazing in his interpretation of the Meditation (I won’t even try to use words to describe Bell’s performance).
What I love most about the live HD Met broadcasts in movie theaters are the intermissions. The performers are often interviewed just as they come off stage and you get to watch amazing scene changes. Chang was charming in the interview. He connected his playing with his Christian faith, and humbly but forthrightly spoke of what the piece meant to him.
The gift of music was one of my greatest joys these past few weeks–the organ and choir of St. James, but also performances I was barely able to hear, before services for example. I was stopped cold more than once, in the midst of last-minute preparations, by the beautiful sounds of the violin playing of St. James’ parishioners. I hope to hear more of it in the new year!
In my sermon yesterday, I mentioned a mosaic in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna. The two mosaics to which I alluded show the Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora bringing forward the elements for communion. Here is Theodora:
Here is Justinian:
Here’s an image from an early Christian (4th century?) sarcophagus (tomb), showing them wearing Phrygian caps
The gospel for Wednesday in the second week of Advent was Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The lesson from the Hebrew Bible was taken from Isaiah 40 and included these familiar words: “but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
These lessons remind us that one of the themes in Messianic expectation in the Judaism of Jesus’ day was the image of the Sabbath rest. The idea of the Sabbath is one of the great gifts of the Hebrew people to human culture. The fact that we get weekends off, that we even have the notion of a week, is the product of Judaism. In Genesis, God’s creation ends with the creation of the Sabbath; indeed it is correct to say that the Sabbath completes or perfects creation.
The notion of the Sabbath rest permeates Biblical tradition. It wasn’t just for humans. The commandment to keep the Sabbath holy mentioned livestock, slaves and aliens. Sabbath rest extended to the land as well: every seventh year all of the land was to lie fallow, to rest and recover.
While we have retained the notion of days off on the weekend, there is very little in the contemporary weekend that has anything to do with Sabbath rest. Indeed, Advent may be the least restful season of the year. Not just because of the swirl of holiday activity. The scriptural lessons are full of warnings about staying awake and being watchful.
Still, the notion of rest is important this season and for our understanding of the Christian life. Perhaps Augustine said it best, “My heart was restless until it found its rest in you.”
Once again, the world of Anglicanism has made it into the mainstream media. Finally all of the talk about a new province for North America has moved from the drawing board into the construction phase. You can read about it in all of the usual places. Remember as you read that things move very slowly (if at all) in the Anglican Communion and it is clear that there is little interest from the Archbishop of Canterbury to expedite matters.
Given the deep divisions among those who ware trying to create this new province, one wonders whether they will be able to pull it off. To name only one matter of deep disagreement: the ordination of women.
Meanwhile, we will continue to do the work of the church.
