Monastic Mumblings, a Friar's Journey

Resurrection as a lifestyle

Easter Week!

Finally - boy this Lent has been a difficult one for me. It came early this year, and my disciplines were interrupted due to my Dad's illness, but now that the Lent is past, my mind has turned to Resurrection, this Easter week.

So, during this Easter Week I want to invite the readers to ponder and appropriate the mystery of Resurrection in both its obvious and not so obvious forms. Such as:

What does Resurrection mean to me?

I mean really, how has Jesus' rising again changed me, or has it?

In what ways have I been and am I being overtaken by its reality?

The people of His day knew death FAR more than our overly sanitized culture today. They knew that once a person died, nothing in this world could change that cold, final fact. Then.. Jesus’ Resurrection!

I think it wasn’t so much a doctrine for the early Christians as it was the real experience that brought life and hope to a shattered community.  Resurrection changed them forever and universally.

This past Easter Sunday morning as the beams of the rising Sun streamed through the clouds of incense over the beautifully flowered Altar during Mass, I was struck by the glorious sight, and realized this is but a shadow of the Glory those we love but see no longer now behold.

How can I live a Resurrection life?

If nothing else, the Resurrection affirms that God is in control and has the last word.  And in Jesus Christ, His Son, God revealed that His first and last Word is love.

Sunday of the Resurrection

Easter Blessings! Christ our Lord is risen!

So often we hear these words, but do we see the sights? Easter is a visual event, we often forget. How did people seeing the miracle of the Resurrection for the first time react?  Never forget, they were the least powerful of their community, they were women.  Women steeped in Jewish culture and meaning, they KNEW the emblems of their faith.  What did they see when they arrived at the tomb?

As what I would consider THE pivotal event of Christianity, I would think it would be pretty clear in it's description in the Gospels, however it just isn't well defined. I suggest we begin by not taking the texts of the Gospels for granted, not assuming that we know what they say. The interesting indeterminate nature of these passages might then become less of a problem than a theological stimulus to find the meaning of the empty space we see in the tomb.

Archbishop Williams has written an essay called "Between the Cherubim: The Empty Tomb and the Empty Throne," and has suggested that imagery of the Ark of the Covenant might help us modern Christians understand early Jewish thought when confronted with the emptiness of Jesus' Tomb.

Hidden in the Holy of Holies or carried before advancing armies into battle, the Ark, in Hebrew Scriptures, marked the presence of God with an empty space — the space between the cherubim.

This is unique in the ancient world. The Ark was considered to be the throne, or the footstool containing of the tablets of the law, of an always invisible God.  This God was the only God Who must not be represented, Who cannot be possessed or contained, Who is where there appears to be nothing. 

In other words, the most sacred space where God was in the midst of the Hebrew people was empty. If you went to Jerusalem to visit God, what you came to visit wasn’t a golden idol, it was empty space--the holy absence and holy silence of the empty space between the cherubim. Because there was no gilded statue the Israelites were able to connect with the living presence of God in their lives. 

So, bringing us back to the Tomb of Christ, there, as told by Luke and John, when the Jewish women looked in, there are two angels, and John further states in 20:12 "and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet". 

So, they, who are used to the "God who dwells between the cherubim" suddenly see and know.. they KNOW Who Jesus really is, they see the imagery of the Ark, they know the empty space between the Angels in the Tomb is the evidence of the divinity of Jesus Christ -- the emptiness marking the presence of God in a way our modern minds forget.

Jesus is Risen, He is Lord and Christ!

Holy Saturday

This is a somber day a day of Sabbath rest.  There is no  Eucharist - Christ has been taken away from them and from us, His Church. We are alone and in our prayers and thoughts.  However we are compelled to connect with His small band of family and disciples, as they and we experience the shock of loss and dark despair. 

This is a darkness, an unthinkable horror that modern Americans simply do not want to face, yet clearly the Gospels teach that His followers walked through this time, and we who follow the Apostolic teaching walk this path along with them.  There is a time and season for every thing under the sun, and this is the time when our Lord lay, cold and dirty and dead.  Lifeless as His followers' hopes and dreams.

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified Body of Your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with Him the coming of the third day, and rise with Him to newness of life; Who now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Good Friday - all is lost...

Here it is. Friday of Holy Week. For the disciples it is a time of ultimate disaster. Jesus was taken by force the night before, now an illegal show trial and he is condemned to die a  public, horrible death.

What went wrong? The profound shock and despair is beyond words. Wasn't God with this man? Yet, He sends no Legions of Angels to pull Him down from the Cross. Darkness covers the land, and all is lost.

Something that struck me one morning, as we consumed the last of the Reserved Sacrament after the Vigil of the night before, I was near the cold, outer walls of masonry, and pondered how cold the walls of the Tomb must have felt to those who hurriedly laid His broken body in the dark recesses of stone.  Cold   Damp  Dark

The horror is unimaginable, the grief and sadness is over whelming, but more than that, He did it for me... I and my own sin put Him there, on that Cross, in that Tomb.

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

My burden in Thy Passion, Lord, Thou hast borne for me,
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on Thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot;
Have mercy, I implore Thee; Redeemer, spurn me not!

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

Maundy Thursday

On Ash Wednesday we started a journey that will be competed here tonight. The new journey we start tonight does not end until the Resurrection of Easter.

In ancient times this time was called the Triduum, "The Three Sacred Days," which lead us to Easter: Maundy Thursday (with it's all night Vigil of the Blessed Sacrament), Good Friday, and Holy Saturday to prepare us for the glorious celebration of the Resurrection.

Tonight as we are leaving Lent, and enter the Triduum, we will see the theme of love, our Savior's love for us. We will follow Him as He expressed that love in the washing of the disciples' feet, in giving Himself in bread and wine, in His dying upon the cross.

We will confess our sins, but unlike Ash Wednesday, the focus is on absolution. Forgiveness comes now "in the name and by the command of our Lord". In fact tonight we read of the new commandment, to "Love one another." On this, the very night of His betrayal, Jesus gave His disciples a new commandment: to love one another as He had loved them.

We say our prayers The Altar is made ready. The time of the Lord's Supper arrives, and our Lord is revealed in bread and wine as once He "revealed Himself to His disciples."  Jesus, fulfilling the promise of the Paschal Lamb, gives us the Eucharist, as He, like the Lamb, will be killed and eaten by His own people. As much as we would like we cannot linger at the Table, for His betrayal is upon us.

Before we know it, the dramatic scene of His betrayal is played out before our eyes. The symbol of Christ in our midst, the Altar, is stripped bare.  The Gospel banners are removed from the Nave, the last ornaments removed from the Sanctuary, and the Reserved Sacrament removed from the Tabernacle.  Christ is stripped of His power and glory. He is taken from us, we are destitute and despairing, Good Friday is inescapable. The powers of darkness are at work upon Him.

We leave this place in silence; this night there is no benediction, no blessings, only despair.  Like the disciples on that dark night long ago, we scatter in the darkness - at least we know that it is tonight that our Salvation is wrought.

Almighty Father, Whose dear Son, on the night before He suffered, instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, Who in these Holy Mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and Who now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Tuesday in Holy Week

O God, by the passion of Your blessed Son You made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of Your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lent is ending, Holy Week is upon us, the Church seasons are turning, Redemption is right around the corner.

We approach the end of Lent with the knowledge that we often have not kept our Lenten disciplines as well as we would have liked. Perhaps one of the values in keeping them is not in keeping them perfectly, but there is value in failing at them...that it's at that point when we've fallen flat on our faces, when we're lying there bruised and breathing in the dirt, that we find ourselves in a place where we can meet the Christ Who fell under the weight of His cross; Who knows what it is like to fall.

Julian of Norwich tells us that "..He allows some of us to fall harder and more seriously than we have ever done before, as we imagine. And then we suppose that we are not entirely wise, and that all we have begun is nothing. But this is not so. For it is necessary for us to fall, and it is necessary for us to see it."

If we did not fall, we would not know how feeble and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know so fully the marvelous love of our Maker…. We shall see in truth that we never lost any of His love, nor were we ever of less worth in His sight. And by the test of this failure we shall have a noble and marvelous knowing of love in God…

This week, the week that forever changed our world, we walk with Jesus from the highs of Palm Sunday through the shadows of Maundy Thursday, the shock and pain of Good Friday, to the heartbreaking despair of Holy Saturday. But we yet have a great hope; as the Light breaks on Easter Sunday, we will meet Him again, alive, One who knows our falleness, yet still calls us to Him. So we also will know that "things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new", and that all things are being brought to their perfection by Him through whom all things were made, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Come with us, walk with Him, this blessed, Holy Week.

Patrick of Ireland 17 March 461 A. D.

Today we remember the man who many only think of once a year, with cute  shamrocks, leprechauns and green beer, but I think he was so much more than  that!

Patrick was born some where around 390 in south western Britain, possibly  between the Severn and the Clyde rivers.  We know that his Grandfather was  a priest, and his family were citizens of the Roman Empire, which in those  days was very important.  As a young man, he says that he cared little for  God or His ways. But then, when he was around 16, he was kidnapped by Irish  pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland.  This was a horrible and brutal  experience, one that I can only imagine. It is particularly hard to  understand how he went from a civilized Roman Province, to a wild  barbarian land, with no laws or protections.  We simply don't really have  anything to compare our lives today with what happened to him, but in his  despair, as often we humans do, he turned to God for help.  And just as  often, God hears us in our weakness, and Patrick escaped after about six  years. He made his way to a port, and some how persuaded some sailors to  take him back to the British coast, where he made his way home to his  family.

Patrick returned to his family a changed man, and began reading the Bible  and started preparing for the Priesthood.  The Spirit moved in his heart,  and he could not forget the people he was enslaved by. Patrick chose to NOT  take the way of anger, hatred and revenge on his captors, and by forgiving  those who had so cruelly sinned against him, Patrick changed the history of  the world. He was eventually ordained a Priest by St. Germanus, the Bishop of  Auxerre, under whom he had studied for some years.

Shortly after 433 or so, Patrick was ordained a Bishop and made his  vocation to be missionary to the Irish people.

Patrick began preaching the Gospel all over Ireland, and started the  conversion of the Irish people. He was many times in danger, among people  who were pretty much savages, and often times not only not welcoming, but  down right dangerous. Nonetheless, Patrick and those who followed him began  building churches, and preached throughout the country.  They often  converted Kings and their families, helping entire kingdoms to see the  Light of Christ.

That is how Patrick changed the world, because a soon the Roman Empire fell  in the West, and learning and knowledge were snuffed out. That is all but  in Ireland, where the newly illiterate Monks carefully recorded and  transmitted what information they could throughout the dark ages. If not for  the Irish Monks, the Western world would have lost a great deal of its  knowledge and literary heritage.

After about 40 years of preaching, teaching, and building Patrick wrote of  his love for God in in his life Confession. Then, after years of living in  poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died on March 17, 461.

He died where he had built his first Church, the town of Saul.

Patrick was a humble, pious, gentle man, whose love and total devotion to  and trust in God is an inspiration to me, and I am glad that our Parish  should have such an example  as our Patron.  Patrick did not fear anything,  not even his own death, so complete was his trust in God, and of the  importance of his mission.

So, why the Shamrock?   The Celtic people were much closer to nature than  their Roman counterparts back in the Empire, so Patrick used a simple  shamrock to explain how the Trinity can be Three and One. Ever since, we  associate the shamrock with him and the Irish people.

Almighty God, Who in Your providence chose Your servant Patrick to be the Apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of You: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever. Amen.

Palm Sunday

Today is  the triumph of Palm Sunday, we see Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey's colt, fulfilling ancient prophecy, we see the palms waving, and the crowd yelling Hosannas to the Son of David:

"Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!"

In the tradition of our parish, we read the entire Passion on Palm Sunday.  Parts are distributed to the congregation, and we all have the part of the crowd. So, before the morning is over, we journey from the emotional high of the crowds shouting praise, to the horror of the same crowd shouting "Crucify Him"! 

It is amazing how we humans can turn on someone when they don't meet our expectations.  How when they do not fulfill what we want them to do, we become angry and scream out our frustrations at them.  Every time I have to say those words: "Crucify Him!", they send a chill up my spine. 

I know....had I been there, how very, very easy it would have been to go along with the crowd, and turn on the One Who was the King.

So readers, how  have each one of us turned on Him this very week?

the Cross and Holy Week

Lent is ending, Holy Week is approaching.  As we turn our minds and hearts to the Passion, I want to offer this meditation on the Cross I got from Beliefnet, it is very profound.

Two thousand years ago, outside the city-gates of Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified as a common criminal by means of crucifixion. This is the historical fact.

Now, the truth of faith: He died for me, and for you. He died for all people. God became a man and lived a relatively short life. That life was ended by means of a cruel arrest and a horrible sentence of torture and death. Our hearts sink heavy with the realization that he died because of our sinfulness. We could not save ourselves. We needed a Savior-a Divine, sinless Savior.

Look with the eyes of faith, and behold this gentle and willing Lamb stretched out in agony on the wood of the cross. Here is a mystery played out so pitifully and yet so beautifully. The mystery of love is emblazoned on the suffering Christ as he hangs there in unmentionable agony. Love, not nails, holds him fast to the rugged cross.

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
(John 15:13)

"Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels?"
(Matthew 26:53-Jesus' rebuke to Peter as he was arrested)

The cross demands a response. No one can pass it by without making a decision either to cling to it or to ignore it. The cross stands as an unshakable anchor in history. The Church is built upon the foundation of the glorious cross. It is her banner of victory and her hope of life eternal. Hell trembles before the majesty of its truth. The world looks upon it with contempt. However, the Christian knows its value.

We know that it contains everything needed in this life and is the gateway to the life to come. If we desire to be made whole we must drive it into our hearts afresh at each moment. The Christian who has forgotten the cross is the saddest of all creatures. The cross is the crowning glory of our faith. Without it in our lives we are the poorest of souls. Therefore, we must hold it fast and treasure it beyond anything else.

In the weakness of the cross the strength of God is enfleshed. Those who railed against Jesus to come off of the cross saw before them what appeared to be a weak, helpless man. However, they mocked the strength of God who stayed on the cross, working out our salvation. Look upon the cross and there you will see a powerful Savior mounted on a throne, not a frail man thrown into death at the hands of another.

"No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own."
(John 10:18)

The sight of the instrument of our Lord's death must have been a bloody and frightening sight. However, His pain has become our healing. His shed blood has become for us a cleansing river. His death has opened the way for us to enjoy eternal life in the joys of heaven. Why, then, should we not fall down before His cross in worship? We must. We must, in the sight of such awesome love, give ourselves totally to Christ. God forbid that we should walk by the cross and not have our lives forever changed as we glimpse the boundless love of the sinless Christ who became sin for us (II Corinthians 5:21).

Therefore, with our whole hearts, we must be reconciled to God by love of the Lord's cross. We must offer ourselves, too, as sacrificial offerings to that love which is supreme, perfect, and infinite. The cross must shine in our hearts and in our lives so that others may see in us the love of Christ. We must die to self and to the world and live in the glory of Christ's cross of victory.

Forever may our voices and our hearts swell with the anthem, "Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, for by your holy cross you have redeemed the world  (Saint Francis of Assisi)!"

Dad's health

I am back in Tulsa, and Dad is stable in the ICU.  He is on a really exotic medicine that maintains his blood pressure. For the most part, he is pretty lucid, but he had his moments of not understanding what is happening, and what day it is. 

I can't express how wonderful it is to know that not only my Parish family, my biological family, but my blogging community as well.  I do believe it is a community, and I do seek your continued prayers.