Mary in the Episcopal Church

I recently became a member of the Society of Mary, an Anglican devotional society.  The Society was founded with the following objects:

1. To love and honor Mary.
2. To spread devotion to her in reparation for past neglect and misunderstanding, and in the cause of Christian Unity.
3. To take Mary as a model in purity, personal relationships, and family life.

Members of the Society keep a simple Rule of Life, which includes devotions such as the Angelus and Anthems of Our Lady, praying for departed members of the Society, sharing in the Eucharist on principle feasts of Our Lady, and engaging in apostolic and pastoral work.

Over the last couple of years I have been increasingly drawn to greater appreciation and love for the Blessed Virgin Mary in my own devotional life.  I discovered the Society about a year ago, and it was primarily that discovery which inspired me to begin implementing some Marian devotions into my prayer life.  I pray the Angelus daily (it has been helpful that the Lutheran church behind our house rings its chimes at six o'clock every evening!) and usually end Evening Prayer with the seasonally appropriate Marian anthem.  I have only recently become a member because I did not initially realize that the Society, which was formed in the Church of England in 1931, has an American Region.  Incidentally, one of the things I noted in exploring their website was that the Society has cells and wards affiliated with both the Episcopal Church and various North American Anglican churches that have left TEC.  I'm interested to find out more, but such communion among these churches, on any level, is rare these days.  This seems to me an encouraging example, and a demonstration of the Blessed Virgin and devotion to her serving "in the cause of Christian Unity."

In keeping with the objects of the Society, I thought to publish a post about "Mary in the Episcopal Church".  I recently found a pamphlet by that name, published by Forward Movement, as I was looking for resources for a family member who is curious about what Episcopalians believe about the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Of course, stating what Episcopalians believe about anything has, unfortunately, become famously tricky in recent years (though, as I've noted in various previous posts, what Episcopalians believe can be most definitively expounded by reading The Book of Common Prayer, regardless of what idiosyncrasies or aberrations one may find in individuals and parishes).  Accordingly, attempting to explain Mary in the life of the Episcopal Church in a mere eight pages is rather ambitious, but as a brief, introductory pamphlet, I felt it was mostly satisfactory.

In the words of the introduction, the pamphlet "offers a guide to Episcopalians seeking a deeper understanding of Mary as mother, disciple, role model, and sister in Christ."  These roles of Mary provide the headings by which the text is organized.  There are also headings of The Annunciation, The Visitation, Mary and Salvation, Mary and Worship, Society of Mary (Anglican), and Prayers.  I do have two criticisms that I believe are significant: one concerning the section Mary as Mother, and one concerning a noticeable omission.

First, while affirming Mary as mother of Jesus, the pamphlet states that "for Episcopalians, 'Virgin Birth' is not necessarily a term describing a medical condition.  The Bible is the story of God's presence in human history, not a scientific manual."  It then refers to scholarly debate about the meaning of the word "virgin" as it is used in various passages in Scripture.  The text continues: "Whatever one concludes, for the authors of Matthew's and Luke's gospels, portraying Jesus' birth as unique is a way of proclaiming that in Jesus God has done something unprecedented: God has entered human life in an extraordinary way and created a new relationship with us."  While I don't technically disagree with any of the preceding assertions, I find it strange and a bit troubling that the author(s) felt it appropriate to cast doubt on the traditional understanding of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth in a pamphlet of this size and scope.  It seems to me quite outside the realm of the parameters and context that the pamphlet sets for itself.  And while it is true that "virgin" can be a fairly ambiguous term in some Scriptural passages, the same cannot be said for the gospel accounts (e.g. 'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?' Luke 1: 34).  I think it is misleading to imply that the gospel writers meant to leave this issue vague or open to various, symbolic interpretations.  And it is undeniably true that the Church, from the earliest centuries down to the present, has affirmed in its official teaching what the gospel writers make unambiguous: that Jesus did not have a human father, but was conceived in (Mary) from the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:21).

The second criticism is not unrelated to the first.  I was surprised that nowhere in the pamphlet was there reference to Mary as Theotokos (the God-bearer, or "Mother of God").  This title is important.  Indeed, it is this understanding of Mary that truly sets her apart from all other saints (and, not incidentally, helps prevent what I would consider a 'low view,' or potentially even unorthodox understanding, of the Incarnation, such as I have just criticized).  It helps us understand that though she is indeed a model as mother, disciple, and sister in Christ, Mary is also much more: she is the one through whom the eternal God chose to be born as truly human, the one through whom the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).  This Incarnation is an astounding thing which, once believed and pondered, makes it all but impossible to view the Blessed Virgin Mary as simply one among many saintly examples.  She is not divine, of course, but she is wholly unique as the true mother of our Lord.  And to acknowledge Mary as Theotokos is to confess that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly Man.  In the early Church, there were a number of competing theories that challenged this orthodox understanding of who Jesus was (e.g. that Jesus was simply a great exemplary man, or was more than human but less than God, or was a man "adopted" by God's Spirit at some point in his earthly life, or was not truly human but merely appeared to be so, etc.).  It was in response to these heresies that the great Fourth Ecumenical Council, at Chalcedon in 451 A.D., issued the most definitive confession regarding the person of Christ.  In powerful and wonderful language (an excerpt of which is contained in The Book of Common Prayer, pg. 864) the Council declared:

"Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man ... as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer (Theotokos)."

In summary, I am glad that I was able to find a pamphlet to introduce Episcopalians and curious others to the place of Mary in the Episcopal Church.  Overall, taking it for what it is, I found it to be a good and helpful publication.  I am pleased that it provides information about the Society of Mary; hopefully some interested readers of the pamphlet will be encouraged to seek out the Society, which would prove to be a helpful resource for clarifying or correcting any issues that could arise from what I consider to be the pamphlet's shortcomings.  In truth, though, those shortcomings can be adequately addressed by simply turning to the Catechism of the Episcopal Church (BCP pg. 849) wherein we find this beautifully succinct explication of the mystery we confess in the Creed:

Q.  What do we mean when we say that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and became incarnate from the Virgin Mary?

A.  We mean that by God's own act, his divine Son received our human nature from the Virgin Mary, his mother.

Peace of Christ.

           

Williams: Mary, Type of the Holy

Father in heaven, by your grace the virgin mother of your incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more blessed in keeping your word:  Grant us who honor the exaltation of her lowliness to follow the example of her devotion to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

~ Collect for the Feast of The Visitation (BCP pg. 240)

The LORD is high above all nations,
     and his glory above the heavens.
Who is like the LORD our God, who sits enthroned on high,
    but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth?
~Psalm 113:4-5

Rowan Williams, from Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin:

“What we call holy in the world – a person, a place, a set of words or pictures – is so because it is a transitional place, a borderland, where the completely foreign is brought together with the familiar.  Here is somewhere that looks as if it belongs within the world we are at home in, but in fact it leads directly into strangeness … most importantly, there is the person who stands on the frontier between promise and fulfillment, between earth and heaven, between the two Testaments: Mary.  That she can be represented in so many ways, thought about and imagined in so many forms, is an indication of how deeply she speaks to us about the hope for the world’s transfiguration through Jesus; how she stands for the making strange of what is familiar and the homeliness of what is strange.  After all, it is she who literally makes a home for the Creator of all things, the strangest reality we can conceive, in her own body and in her own house, she whom we meet again and again in the Gospels struggling with the strangeness of her son, from the finding in the Temple to the station at the cross.”

Alleluia.  The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: Come let us adore him.  Alleluia.

Wm. Temple: The Self-Assertive Christ of the Fourth Gospel

O Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.
~ Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (BCP pg. 173)

William Temple’s Readings in St. John’s Gospel is a wonderful commentary on the Fourth Gospel.  The short introduction is itself worthwhile.  I freely admit that I have a great love for this gospel.  It is a preference I share with Temple: “Let the Synoptists repeat for us as closely as they can the very words He spoke; but let St. John tune our ears to hear them.”  However, for all its beautiful imagery, spiritual comfort, and theological profundity, St. John’s Gospel has in the modern era been a book that has caused no small amount of squirming discomfort and even antipathy for some.  There are various “problems”: the long stretches of dialogue can be repetitive, Jesus often seems cryptic, the unflattering language about “the Jews” has been used as justification for anti-Semitism, etc.  Perhaps most problematic are the exclusive claims of Jesus as recorded in this gospel.  There are numerous examples, but probably the most significant is John 14:6: I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.  It’s not hard to see why such an exclusive claim would make us modern Christians uncomfortable.  The last thing we want is to be seen as narrow-minded and intolerant.  Intolerance is, of course, the one thing modern, secular society will not tolerate.  I remember several years ago seeing a priest on television say that she believed Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life for her personally, “but that doesn’t mean he is for everybody.”  More recently, none other than the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has been criticized for hedging on the question of whether Jesus is really the only way to God.  It just doesn’t sound nice! 

Be that as it may, from the perspective of Christian doctrine, these exclusive claims are undeniable.  It is not just St. John’s Gospel, but the whole of the New Testament that asserts the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the God-Man.  The Incarnation, the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is the central event in the story of humanity, the hinge of history, “the culmination of the ages” and “the fullness of time”, to borrow St. Paul’s language.  Accordingly, as St. Peter preached at Pentecost, “there is no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved.”  This does not mean, however, that Christians should be narrow-minded or arrogant; quite the contrary.  Neither should we feel obligated to dismiss all other claims to wisdom and truth, for all truth is God’s truth.  Concerning John 1:9, There was the light, the true light, which enlighteneth every man – coming into the world, Temple comments:

“From the beginning the divine light has shone.  Always it was coming into the world; always it enlightened every man alive in his reason and conscience … and this is what is fully and perfectly expressed in Christ.  So it may be truly said that the conscience of the heathen man is the voice of Christ within him – though muffled by his ignorance.  All that is noble in the non-Christian systems of thought, or conduct, or worship is the work of Christ upon them and within them.  By the Word of God – that is to say, by Jesus Christ – Isaiah, and Plato, and Zoroaster, and Buddha, and Confucius conceived and uttered such truths as they declared.  There is only one divine light; and every man in his measure is enlightened by it.”

And so we may believe that others may come to God in ways we would not immediately recognize or acknowledge as “Christian”, and yet to the extent that anyone comes to God, it is by and through Christ, the Word of God, the “one divine light.”  To claim otherwise, that Christ is just one option among many paths to God, is a clear rejection of the gospel as presented in the New Testament and the whole of the Christian tradition. 

In summary, as Temple ably states in the introduction:

“We may meet the complaint that in this Gospel the Lord is presented as self-assertive.  Certainly we must admit that if the claims which He here makes are not true they are intolerably arrogant.  If He is a very good man completely surrendered to the Spirit of God, He cannot, without offence, speak as the Johannine Christ speaks.  But if He is God come in the flesh He not only may, He must proclaim Himself as the fount of salvation.  Love, not self-concern, demands that He should call men to Himself as alone the revelation of the Father.  At the same time, it is appropriate that He should do this either when He is expressly challenged, as the religious leaders at Jerusalem challenged Him, or in conversation with His intimate disciples; and it is precisely in these circumstances that the Fourth Gospel presents Him as making these claims … If, when all is said, any still feel a trace of self-assertion in the sense which involves moral defect, it may be held that the Evangelist has imported into his record of what the Lord said some of his own devoted eagerness.  But I find no reason for recourse to such a plea.  Those who admit, and wish to proclaim, all that the Lord is here represented as saying about Himself, will feel gratitude, not resentment, that the words are recorded; those who do not admit their truth are bound to resent, or at least to regret, their presence in this profoundly sympathetic presentation of the Lord.”

Peace of Christ.   

C.S. Lewis: 'Old Books', a Bulwark Against the Nonsense of the Present

"It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away."
- C.S. Lewis, on St. Athanasius

In my classroom, I always start the hour with an appropriate quote to get students thinking about the day's topic, or to review what we learned the previous class.  One of my favorites is from C.S. Lewis.  I've forgotten the source, but he writes,

"Most of all, perhaps, we need an intimate knowledge of the past.  The man who has traveled widely is less likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times, and so is to some extent immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age." 

If ever an age could be justly accused of spewing forth a "cataract of nonsense", I think it must be our own.  Lewis, of course, has a way of expressing things with irresistible wit, but this is really 'History 101'.  In the introductory chapter of his book, The Church in History, John E. Booty writes,

"If we ignore history, we deteriorate, becoming less than fully human.  If we refuse to study the past, we abdicate from the power and authority, which we rightly possess, over the historical forces that impinge upon us, and we are in grave danger of being led like dumb oxen into the future.  There are strong tendencies within us, as individuals and as groups, to conform to the dominant intellectual, moral, and cultural trends of the present age, without thought, without criticism, and without control."

It is disciplined historical study, a consciously developed "historical sense", as Booty goes on to say, that enables us to escape the controlling forces of the present.  We should not think, however, that true historical study is escapist; on the contrary, we engage in such study so that "traveling away from ourselves into that past we gain necessary perspective on the present."

And there is no better method for gaining that perspective than by reading old books.  C.S. Lewis wrote a preface to an English translation of St. Athanasius's fourth century treatise On the Incarnation, in which he develops this idea further.  It is one of my new year's resolutions to make a more conscious effort to be always reading at least one "old book".  Lewis's preface is not long, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in becoming immune to the pervasive microphone of the press that would treat us as unthinking cattle.  Of course, reading said preface will undoubtedly lead to the reading of St. Athanasius, which is really the whole point.

"Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books.  But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old.  And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.  A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it.  It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down through the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light... The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity ("mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective.  Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books.  It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.  If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

"Every age has its own outlook.  It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.  We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.  And that means the old books.  All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook -- even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it.  Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should absolutely deny.  They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united -- united with each other and against earlier and later ages -- by a great mass of common assumptions.  We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century -- the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?" -- lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth.  None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books.  Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already.  Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill.  The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.  Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past.  People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as any mistakes as we.  But not the same mistakes.  They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us."  C.S. Lewis, Preface to On the Incarnation, by Saint Athanasius the Great of Alexandria

Happy reading, and Peace of Christ.

Verse inspired by 'O Oriens'

O Morning Star,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

A poem for Advent.  More specifically, a poem inspired by the "O Antiphon" for 21 December, O Oriens (O Rising Sun, or Morning Star).  The O Antiphons will be familiar to anyone who has heard or sung the well known Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel, which is a musical setting of the antiphons, to be sung at evening prayer in the final week before Christmas.  The antiphons have a treasured and ancient history in the liturgy of the Church, about which more can be read here. 



I sat waiting in the darkness
For the sun to rise, bringing light
And warmth to cracked and bloody hands,
Grey eyes, and a body listless.
The darkness stretched onward, this night,
The longest, and cold.  Restless bands
Of wand'rers, shuffling in the gloom,
Muffled voices and stamping feet;
We all with frosty, bated breath.

The sun that rose did not rout death;
A winter sun of light, not heat.
I heard one, though, who cried, "Make room!"
A voice that spoke of another
Dawn, this one from on high, to break
Upon us, to scatter and draw;
A God who waits within a womb,
Descends to rise from out the tomb.

N.T. Wright: Paul's Complex World, "Much Like Ours"

An excerpt from an interview with N.T. Wright, by Jonathan Merritt at Religion News Service, about Wright's new book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Though I don't particularly like the adversarial and controversialist tone struck by Merritt in the article's title, Wright has some great things to say, naturally (e.g. "depressingly shallow"; love it!)

JM: Some modern Christians have criticized Paul as “sexist” or even “anti-women.” How does your book inform conversations about gender? 

NTW: This view is depressingly shallow. Paul, like the other early Christians and like Jesus himself, lived in a complex world where, despite what some think, many women were able to live independent lives, run businesses, travel, and so on, while many others were part of traditional structures which still curtailed their options. A world much like ours, in fact! Into that, the main message was what Paul says in Galatians 3.28: in the Messiah, Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no “male and female”. We can see this working out when he refers to Junia as an “apostle”, and in the same chapter (Romans 16) mentions several other women who are in positions of leadership in the church–and where, too, he gives Phoebe the task of taking the letter to Rome, which almost certainly meant that she would read it out and explain it to the house-churches. 

At the same time, Paul was a deeply creational theologian, who believed passionately that men and women were created differently and that this God-given difference was not obliterated but had to be navigated appropriately and wisely. As with his political views, so here, he may seem to us to be saying two different things, but this only shows that we are trying to fit him into the Procrustean beds of our late-modern imagination. It’s like criticizing Shakespeare for not writing in 140-character Twitter sound bytes.

Visitation

In commemoration of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth (May 31).  I am, at least, consistent in my tardiness.  A reading from Jeremy Taylor, an appropriate verse of Scripture, and some original verse.  Though I didn't set out to do so, it ending up being a sort of non-traditional sonnet.
Peace.

From The Life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by Bishop Jeremy Taylor:

"Mary found no one so fit as her cousin Elizabeth to share the first emanations of her overjoyed heart, for she was to be the mother of the Baptist, who was sent as forerunner to prepare the way of the Lord her son.  It is not easy to imagine what collision of joys was at this blessed meeting; two mothers of two great princes, the one the greatest that was born of woman, the other his Lord.  When these who were made mothers by two miracles came together, they met with joy and mysteriousness.  The mother of our Lord went to visit the mother of his servant, and the Holy Ghost made the meeting festival ... By this God would have us know that when the blessings of God descend upon us, they should be published in the communion of the saints, so that our charity and eucharist may increase that of others, and the praises of God be sung aloud, till the sound strike at heaven and join with the alleluias which the morning stars in their orbs pay to their great creator."

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.   ~Colossians 3:16-17


Great the women who bore
The tidings in the hill country.
The highly favored one,
Her greeting at the door
Spurs the Forerunner to leap, he
Acknowledging the Son
Enthroned in princely state,
Beauteous in the womb of the morn.
The prophetess bows down,
Inspired, to relate
The revelation to be born,
And confirm her renown.
She cries, 'The mother of my Lord,'
And she, 'Magnificat,' outpoured.

  

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.
~Collect for the First Sunday in Lent


Last Sunday, we heard St. Luke's account of how Jesus was "led about by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil."  The Daily Office readings from the Letter to the Hebrews for this week have built upon this theme.  In chapter two, the writer to the Hebrews says, "Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil ... for since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted."

Saint Augustine writes,

Our pilgrim life here on earth cannot be without temptation for it is through temptation that we make progress and it is only by being tempted that we come to know ourselves.  We cannot win our crown unless we overcome, and we cannot overcome unless we enter the contest, and there is no contest unless we have an enemy and the temptations he brings. (Discourse on Psalm 60)

I think these words have particular power today, at a time when many, even within the Church, are reluctant to speak of either sin or the devil.  Given that the Church in times past has, in my opinion, sometimes overemphasized the same makes this understandable, but not justified.  For it is indeed hard to separate sin (not simply vague, impersonal corruption in which we are stained by association, but personal, willful evil which I myself commit) and the devil (not just a personified symbol of evil, but a spiritual reality, an enemy against whom we wage battle by the grace and in the power of Jesus) from the New Testament, and the Gospels in particular.  I'm reminded of H. Richard Nieburh's famous criticism that "A God without wrath brought a people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."  Incidentally, praying the Great Litany (BCP, pg. 148-155) is a good antidote for this kind of delusion.

But lest, while being "assaulted by many temptations", we start to get discouraged, we do well to bear in mind that this battle has already been won.  The good news is that Christ has already overcome the world, and He that is now within us who believe is greater than the evil one.  Augustine continues:  

When he willed to be tempted by the devil, he figuratively transferred us into himself.  We have just read in the gospel that our Lord Jesus Christ was tempted in the desert by the devil and this is exactly what happened.  In Christ you were being tempted because Christ had his human flesh from you, just as he won salvation for you from himself.  He received death from you, just as he gained life from himself for you.  From you he received reproaches and from himself for you he gained glory and honour.  In the same way he suffered the temptation for you and he won from himself the victory for you.  If we have been tempted in him, in him we conquer the devil.  Do you notice that Christ has been tempted and fail to notice that he overcame the temptation?  Recognize your own self, tempted in him and conquering also in him.  He might have avoided the devil completely but, had he not been tempted, he would have failed to give you the lesson of conquering when you are tempted.

So, in this, as in all things, we have in Christ our supreme example. But more than an example, by Christ's Incarnation, we have become joined to Him by faith. He takes our weaknesses and transfers to us His victory. "For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end" (Hebrews 3:14). It is because of this that we live in victory, even as we acknowledge in this penitential season of Lent that "our pilgrim life here on earth cannot be without temptation." As the writer to the Hebrews assures us in closing chapter four,

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.

Peace.

Musing on Literature and T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi"

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for 
Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
~ from Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot

In keeping with my resolution to read and reflect over more poetry this year, I recently returned to this perennial favorite.  Lent is fast approaching, but it is still Epiphany season, and so a fitting time to read Journey of the Magi.  (You can hear Eliot read it himself by clicking here.)

Last weekend I attended the wonderful annual symposium sponsored by the Eighth Day Institute in Wichita.  A theme that was touched on by several speakers in different ways was that of allowing the written word to speak for itself.  That is to say, whether in a poem, a short story, or a novel, good writers do not hide the meaning locked away behind a maze of words.  The words are not something to be figured out in order to arrive at a definitive solution, as in an algebraic equation.  The word itself is the message; the poet says what he wants to say in the words of the poem; the novel means what the novelist wrote (if she had wanted to say something else, she would have written something else).  Incidentally, one of the speakers observed that this approach to literature is thoroughly incarnational.  Jesus, the eternal Word, does not offer cryptic sayings to point us to the truth; rather, He is the Truth.

Such a view of literature, to my mind, elicits two quite different responses.  One might say that there is no value at all in analyzing any writing, since there is nothing more to be said.  But I think one might also say, on the contrary, that while the word simply is, it can lead one in any number of directions.  Precisely because there is no scientifically deduced correct interpretation of the true meaning of a poem, one is freed to allow the poem to speak whatever it will to each individual.  In this light, the same poem may speak quite differently to two different readers, and each may nonetheless be enriched and feel their reading to be legitimate.

Eliot's Journey of the Magi is not, in my opinion, a difficult poem to read and understand (though many of his other poems are).  And yet the final line does puzzle me.  I should be glad of another death.  I'm not sure what Eliot was thinking when he wrote that, but as I've just stated, that's not really the point.  What I do know is that the line gives me cause for reflection, because I can imagine at least three thoroughly different ways of understanding it.  Having experienced the manifestation of the Christ Child, the life of the magus has shifted irrevocably.  Even now, many years after the event, the magus ponders it, seeks to make sense of it.  He "would do it all again", despite the fact that "this Birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death."  I should be glad of another death.  Was the experience such an agony that the magus wishes it could have been otherwise, that the revelation of this discomfiting, life-altering truth had come in some gentler, less painful fashion?  But what could be gentler than a child in the arms of his mother?  Or was the experience so sweet, so incomparably beautiful, that the memory of it haunts him still, moves him with a desire to go back and make that journey again?  Oh, to experience again this "death" that was the beginning of true life.  But perhaps the magus is not looking back at all; perhaps he looks forward.  Perhaps he now eagerly awaits the death that comes to all men, for he has realized that it is only by that death that he will enter into the new dispensation, and there find himself at home.

Peace.

          

Reflection over a Christmas sermon

From a sermon by Mark Frank:

... But though he was content to be wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and those none of the handsomest, neither, may we not look for a cradle at least to lay him in?  No matter what we may look for, we are like to find no better than a manger for that purpose, and a lock of hay for his bed, and for his pillow, and for his mantle too.  A poor condition, and an humble one indeed, for him whose chariot is the clouds, whose palace is in heaven, whose throne is with the Most High.  What place can we hereafter think too mean for any of us?  Stand thou here, sit thou there, under my foot-stool -- places of exceeding honor compared to this.  What, not a room among men, not among the meanest, in some smoky cottage, or ragged cell; but among beasts?  Whither hath thy humility driven thee, O Saviour of mankind? ...

Thy poverty, O sweet Jesu, shall be my patrimony, thy weakness my strength, thy rags my riches, thy manger my kingdom; all the dainties of the world, but chaff to me in comparison of thee; and all the room in the world, no room to that, wheresoever it is, that thou vouchsafest to be.  Heaven it is wheresoever thou stayest or abidest; and I will change all the house and wealth I have for thy rags and manger.

I was struck by these words when I read them during my prayer time the other day.  I find the closing sentences particularly well crafted, eloquently expressing such a noble and loving devotion to our Lord.  Though, I suppose it would be easy enough to dismiss them as so much sentimentality, that is not how I read them (and I certainly don't doubt Frank's sincerity).  Rather, they have given me pause to consider my own devotion, such as it is.  Can I honestly say that I consider all the riches of this life as "but chaff in comparison" to Christ?

I think of myself as a fairly simple person.  I'm not ambitious.  The idea of being wealthy has never held much attraction for me (good thing, since I don't think I ever will be -- at least not by American standards, which, I grant, are obscene).  I tend to eschew extravagance.  I'm pretty easily satisfied.  Like Tolkien, I'm really a hobbit at heart.  Give me a pint of ale, some good food, and a stack of books by the fire, and I'll not ask for more.  Simple.  And yet, if I'm to be honest, I must admit that I'm pretty attached to my own little luxuries.  I may have relatively modest ideas about what constitutes "the good life", but it's a life I thoroughly enjoy.  Can I honestly say to my Lord, "I will change all the house and wealth I have for thy rags and manger"?

With Saint Brendan I ask, "Shall I abandon, O King of Mysteries, the soft comforts of home?"
And with him I pray, "Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown.  Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with you."

Peace.