Lenten Reading: Tuesday after the Second Sunday of Lent

First Fruits, The Canon of St. Andrew, Chapter 13 (51-54)

It's been almost two weeks now since we started to read, study, and pray The Canon, and tonight I spent some time with Chapter 13, learning to discern and appreciate the difference between the Biblical dynamis (power) and energeia (energy), welcoming such insights into my Christian way of thinking.

The previous chapters and the evenings' readings have at times been provocative, unsettling, moments of learning and reflection. For me, Matthewes-Green's "considerations" at the end of each chapter have been times for self-examination, often a review of my some seventy-years of living. Chapter 4 has asked me to confess that from a deeply personal point of view "I alone have sinned against Thee." Inasmuch as I prefer to live in what might called "the comparative mode" of thinking, St. Andrew tells me quite bluntly that I'm in no position to compare my life with those of others. I simply don't know--have no way of knowing!--the depth of others' sinnings. But surely I do know my own; and when I don't engage in comparisons, I find my own worrisome enough, deeply worrisome to say with conviction that "I alone have sinned again Thee"--without equivocation.

Chapter 5 gave me a much better understanding of the New Testament my nous, as the Greek has it, that is, "the perceptive powers of my soul" (20). I became intrigued enough to explore what nous may mean to me as a Christian that, after a little investigation, I discovered this helpful commentary:

The English word “mind” translates the Greek term nous. The etymology of nous can be traced back to the root meaning “to sniff” which suggests a “way of acquiring knowledge” through the sense of smell. In early Greek literature (Homer), nous referred not to an intellectual organ (brain) but to a function which was defined as the ability to realize fully “the true nature or essence of a thing as against its surface appearance.” It was the ability to perceive a camouflaged enemy soldier hiding among the rocks. “In Greek philosophy almost from the beginning it becomes the main function of the mind to discover the ‘real’ world or the ‘real’ character of the world as a whole, in contrast to other erroneous beliefs of most human beings.”

That's helpful. Understanding that my nous, when working well, is something of a "sniffer," I imagine what it must be like, if I were a bloodhound, not to have a sense of smell. As a bloodhound with a nose that doesn't work well, I'd really be "out of my element." So it is with Andy when my nous, my sniffer, my nose for God, is not working well. When I prayed to the Lord with St. Andrew, I told the Lord that, like Andrew, my lusts of passion have darkened the beauty of my soul and turned our whole mind (my nous) entirely into dust. In saying that to God and to myself, I found I was simply admitting that frequently in my life I've lived without much or any awareness of the Divine, without any sense of God; it's as though my eyes have been closed, my hearing impaired, my tasting buds numbed, my sense of touching the Divine hampered, and my ability to sniff out the presence of God wiped out. I'm that bloodhound who can't sniff what's in the air. That's been and still is a large truth about myself that I need to confront and not evade. I need God's mercy in order to live again with feeling for His presence. I need God to make me aware of God.


As I have slowly prayed and labored over the Canon's chapters, I have also become aware of how little I know well the Scriptures. How St. Andrew's knowing of God's Word catches me up short. I'm embarassed to admit that I have almost forgotten the mention of Lamech and Enoch. For St. Andrew, they are part of his vivid memory; for me, such figures are but a dim notion of the past. Surely I need to live more and more in the Scriptures.


These are but a few of the musings in prayer that I find myself entering as I pray along with St. Andrew. My book is now considerably underlined, my notes in the margins urge me go back and re-read. I find myself soaking up a way of praying that is not only new to me, but somehow the "Work of God," as St. Benedict calls our daily prayers; that is, in this way of praying God is working on me, in me, inside me--probing me with His Spirit, His concern that I find out who I am, both apart from Him and with Him.


These past two weeks with The Canon, with St. Andrew, with St. Mary of Egypt, and with the Mother of Our Lord, the Theotokos, have been what I did not expect: dark and enlightening and (in the words of St. Andrew) times and moments of compunction and compassion. I don't remember praying this way before, and I'm not sure if I'm actually ready for it now. It's sort of a spiritual experiment, at times uncomfortable, at times revealing, at times perplexing, at times comforting. Perhaps by the end of Lent, I'll know myself and God better. I hope so.