This Blog is Resting

I will not be posting for an indefinite period of time. I feel the Lord is calling me into a time of silence, rest, and discernment. So it would be better for me not to speak for the time being. Do enjoy archived articles. May Christ bless you.

The Holy Guardian Angels

In a sentiment I don’t at all share, I’ve heard people speak of the police: “Cops are everywhere until you need one.” The idea being that their presence is a deterrent to things we might want to do, but we’re glad to have them when things go wrong. Again, I do not share this view of the men and women who serve us with their lives on the line.

There can be a similar kind of thinking in terms of God’s presence and his help. How inconvenient that we should be aware of his presence when we wish to make sinful choices; how much we desire his presence when we are in trouble.

The teaching of the Guardian Angels gives a focus to this. St. Bernard of Clairvoix writes, “What respect, what thankfulness, what trust ought [an awareness of the guardian angels] work in you? Respect for their presence, thankfulness for their kindness, confidence in their safekeeping? Walk carefully, for Angels walk with you wherever you go – they have been charged to do so. In every lodging, in every nook, have reverence for your Angel. Dare not to do in his presence what you wouldst not dare to do in God’s."

The thought of a constant, invisible companion raises all sorts of questions, doesn’t it?

As I say, the thought gives focus to a reality we must consider. Do we really want ever to be truly alone? (I’m sure the angels’ charge includes a veiling of the eyes at appropriately private moments, just as do good household servants.) Are we prepared to accept God’s presence with us, in us, as a full-time reality and to accept both the benefits and requirements of having God’s physical as well as spiritual help ready at hand?

St. Bernard: “As often then as you perceive a heavy in temptation awaiting you, or a grievous tribulation hanging over you, call upon God who keeps you, your helper and hiding place [note: true hiding place] in times of trouble.”

Can't I go too?

No martyr of the early church was more famous than St. Lawrence, the deacon of Pope Sixtus II who, a few days after the martyrdom of the Pope was roasted on a gridiron, both under the edict of Valerian in 257. The Breviary records an ancient dialog that has been used daily in the Lateran Chapel since early times:

R. Said blessed Lawrence: Whither goest thou without thy son, O my Father? O Priest of God, why dost thou set forth without thy Deacon? It hath never been thy use to offer the Sacrifice without a Minister...Leave me not, Holy Father, for I have already distributed the treasures which thou gavest me.

V. Said blessed Sixtus, I leave thee not, O my son, neither do I forsake thee; verily the truth of Christ calleth thee to a sterner wrestling than mine.

The extraordinary courage of this young deacon is a marvel. And the tenderness of the relationship between Sixtus and Lawrence most moving. They had offered the Holy Sacrifice together many times; how could they go to their final altar apart?

We would not be wrong, I am sure, to hear in their dialogue an eagerness to be about this Kingdom business. We quickly pass over the phrase, "called to martyrdom", not appreciating that it is a privilege to die for Jesus.

I do not write of martyrs easily. In 1983, I took dinner with a number of Ugandans less than a month before they met their death. (We'll make that another post.) My visit with them, and others living in those terrible times, reminded me that every opportunity to make some sacrifice for the Kingdom - no matter how apparently minor, comes as high privilege. How sad that we see these occasions as only interruption, irritation or embarrassment.

It is most instructive that this Priest and his Deacon went to their deaths as if they were merely going to the Eucharist. Did I say merely? What if we realized what is actually being rehearsed in the Holy Mysteries? - if we saw clearly how the eating of his Body and the drinking of his Blood meant that we too are called to witness by our very lives - each of us in the way to which he calls us. A high privilege.

Peter & Paul

By now, many western Christians are familiar with the concept of an icon being a “window into heaven”. It’s becoming a rare Roman Catholic or Anglican church that does not have at least one icon. I recently walked into a local Baptist Church, one admittedly influenced by the “emergent” movement, and was greeted by a large Christ of Sinai icon - with candles burning before it! A window into the blending of traditions, at least!

It is easy to imagine Heaven along the lines of what we hope it will be, but perhaps harder to look into the images provided of it by Scripture, liturgy – and sometimes even icons, the “windows into heaven.”

I hope (in the theological sense, I Hope), that Heaven will be a place of reconciliation – a healing of relationships to a degree not possible on earth. As I enter my seventh decade, the list of persons with whom I have tried to be reconciled, or failed to try, and who are now departed grows longer.

This morning, during Liturgy, I was struck by the icon of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. What different men! Different backgrounds, different temperaments, and certainly having come to leadership in the church by way of different paths. The New Testament gives us the account of Paul upbraiding Peter (Galatians 2:11); and we might suspect there was rebuttal from the Fisherman. But later, there is Peter’s Commendation of Paul, now his “beloved brother” (II Peter 3:15). And the virtually unchallenged tradition is that the Galilean fisherman and the scholar of Tarsus were finally united in a common martyrdom at Rome.

The Venerable Bede, commenting on this relationship, said that Paul humbled himself because he remembered that he had persecuted the church; and that the reason for Peter’s marveling at the wisdom of Paul was that “it is a characteristic of the elect that they admire the virtues of others more than their own..” We need to work for reconciliation. How unwise it would be to hope that disagreements on earth will simply disappear at the death of our bodies. Yet some mending seems beyond our opportunity or power.

This beautiful icon represents Heaven as I pray it will be: where all the differences imposed on us by our human personalities and situations will be swallowed up in a Christ-empowered love. I Hope that the high-churchman Lancelot Andrewes will be reconciled with the Puritan Richard Baxter, who said of Andrewes, “I find no life in him”; that Thomas Ken, the non-juror will be kissing Archbishop Tenison who so angered him by eulogizing Queen Anne; that… I will stand before Christ embraced by N. and N. and N. – oh, this list grows.

Peter and Paul – pillars of the church. Praise to God for your embrace!

A Report on Silence

It’s been two weeks since I returned from my retreat at the Mt. Tabor Monastery. Several friends have graciously asked about my time there, and I have attempted to say something of interest. But the report is:

I was mostly alone. It was quiet.

God so arranged my aloneness, that I had an entire Amtrak coach to myself, then on arrival found that I had the entire 13-room guesthouse to myself for the entire week. Then, the discovery that the monks had recently felt led to “experiment” with moving to a more eremetical style – praying the office in their cells, gathering only for the Divine Liturgy.

Several things alleviated (if that be the word) the silence: a good conversation with the Abbot, the homilies delivered each day by one of the monks, and some visitors who came for the monastery’s 35^th Anniversary which occurred during the week. And a young doe came to see me a couple of times.

But still, plenty of silence.

Because of its location (and altitude) the monastery has a physical setting very similar to where I grew up. The air was filled with the sweet myrtle-like scent of Madrone trees which abound there (so does poison oak!). Birds, squirrels, the Whitetail doe, all were familiar friends.

This allowed me to bring up old memories, both delightful and painful, and to present them to God. Did I hear from him? Not in words, but never did I ever feel alone, even though I am often assaulted by feelings of abandonment or exclusion (those painful memories). God’s hearing was what I heard. I heard him listen. It was enough.

Thank you, dearest brothers, for your vigil of prayer that makes this a holy mountain indeed.

I’m headed off to the Northern California coast for a week’s retreat at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, a men’s order of the Byzantine Catholic Church with which my bishop has had a relationship for many years. (See Abbot Joseph Link.)

I ask your prayers that the trip (train and bus) go well, and that I be able to “quiet up” (as one of my friends says) and wait upon the Lord. I'll report in mid-June.

Liminality

No, I wasn’t certain what the word meant either, until I read it in a First Things article by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. “Liminality derives from the Latin limen which means threshold or edge) and refers in this case to people who live beyond the accepted norms of the establishment,” writes Fr. Benedict.

So, I was sitting in a fast-food restaurant pondering my reply to a recent e-mail on this subject. At issue: how Christians (and those under monastic disciplines in particular) appropriately live on this threshold. You can imagine the implications in terms of such questions as whether to wear habit or not, and how Christians should (if they should) distinguish themselves in the world, who they should hang with, etc.

Meal finished, I started to carry my tray to the “Thank You” sign over the garbage station. These days I walk with forearm canes, so carrying a tray gets interesting. Before I got far, a man rushed up, took away my tray, and said, “Let me do that. I used to be in a wheelchair.” I followed him to the “Thank You” sign to thank him.

He introduced himself. “I’m Roger. I used to be in a wheelchair, but Jesus healed me. Look, (pointing to the scar left by a tracheotomy) Jesus healed this. Look, (pulling up his shirt and pointing to an abdominal scar), Jesus healed this too. Look, (pointing to a scar on his knee – fortunately he was wearing shorts!) Jesus healed this too. I love Jesus. John three-sixteen, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son – that’s Jesus. I’m Roger, Jesus is my friend. I want to be your friend too.”

That’s liminality.