In Our Prayers

Last night at Evening Prayer, Leslie Farris let us know that she will be in Lexington for neck surgery on Monday, March 3. Please be sure to include her in your daily prayers and intercessions. And from Mt. Tabor Monastery, Sister Judy writes:

Dear Oblates,

Oblate Marie Miller had surgery several weeks ago and is in rehabilitation. Oblate Pat Bentrup had surgery on both her knees , the second one was done yesterday. She also is in rehab. Please pray for both of them. I will have thyroid surgery on Wed. , March 12. Please tuck me into your prayer list also. It is snowy and icy today 28 degrees. The scraper has not gone down yet so the sisters are weighing their options on getting to work.

Peace to everyone. Judy

Let's all be sure to remember Leslie, Marie, Pat, and Sr. Sister in our prayers, asking God to protect, bless, and have mercy upon each one. Perhaps you might pause now and offer this prayer:

O Lord, look down from heaven, behold, visit, and relieve your servants--especially Leslie, Marie, Pat, and Sr. Judy--for whom we offer our supplications; look upon them with the eyes of your mercy; give them comfort and sure confidence in you; defend them from the danger of the enemy, and keep them in perpetual peace and safety; through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.

During the days ahead, intercede often for those who have asked for our prayers.

Dick Staub's Culture Watch

A few months ago I read Dick Staub's The Culturally Savvy Christian: A Manifesto for Deepening Faith and Enriching Popular Culture in a Age of Christianity-Lite. As Martin Marty says, "Dick Staub is an imaginative and realiable guide through the maze of popular culture. He has a rather worked-out world view, which helps him make judgments, but listen patiently to other voices. Then he interprets, especially in ways that young people--a generation often overlooked by leaders in communities of faith--to find meaning, direction, and vocation." Well, I'm not so young, and yet I found The Culturally Savvy Christian to be bracingly fresh--as is his daily commentary available at Culture Watch. You'll find it interesting, provocative, informative. I've added to our list of place to visit.

We're Meeting Thursday, February 28, at First Presbyterian Church

Although the ice storm kept us from meeting last Thursay, we'll see each other tomorrow evening in the Parlor Room at First Presbyterian Church, 7:00 p.m. During our last meeting, we discussed Chapter 4, "The Psalms as Psychological Tools" (38-48) in Cynthia Bourgeault's Chanting the Psalms; tomorrow evening we'll take a strong look at Chapter 5, "The Psalms as Soul Music" (49-58). This is an especially exciting chapter in which Bourgeault contends that "the real power of the psalms lies in their uncanny ability to awaken the unitive imagination." Be sure to come and explore that provocative possibility!

By way of additional announcements, here are several more notices:

1. By visiting Journey with Jesus, you'll find Daniel B. Clendenin's commentary on this coming Sunday's lectionary readings notably insightful. Highly recommended! (And aptly so in light of our reading St. Andrew of Crete's The Canon)



2. If you've been singing the psalms with one or more of the psalms tones made available several weeks ago, good for you! Tomorrow evening we'll take a small step forward and learn how to sing a psalm with a "double tone." Singing a psalm with a double tone will help you "sing joyfully to the Lord" (Ps. 33.1) and "sing to the Lord a new song" (Ps. 33.3) as "you sing and make music" (Ps. 57.7) to the Lord.

3. Last Wednesday's Taize service at The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour was profoundly beautiful, deeply contemplative in spirit. The parish provides an evening meal at 6:00, and the service begins 6:30-ish. All are welcome every Lenten Wednesday for food and worship together.

4. On Thursday evening, beginning at 7:00, we'll spend an hour in discussion and study and then come together in Evening Prayer at 8:00.

5. Finally, this, posted by Susan Doubet, OSB, on February 4 at Light through Stained-Glass Windows (a site which I've added to our list of interesting and helpful blogs):

Here's a lovely excerpt from Thomas Moore that might be something to consider for the Lenten season. Surely beats giving up candy...it might not make us thinner, but it will make us more whole and holy!

Silence is not the absence of sound. That would be to imagine it negatively. Silence is a toning down of inner and outer static, noise that occupies not only the ears but also the attention. Silence allows many sounds to reach awareness that otherwise would go unheard--the sounds of birds, water, wind, trees, frogs, insects, and chipmunks, as well as conscience, daydreams, intuitions, inhibitions, and wishes. One cultivates silence not by forcing the ears not to hear, but by turning up the volume on the music of the world and the soul.

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.

Getting Ready for Next Sunday, February 24, The Third Sunday in Lent, 2008

Every Monday, Daniel B. Clendenin publishes a commentary on the next Sunday's lectionary readings at The Journey with Jesus Foundation. I like to read his commentaries early in the week so that I may prepare myself for the Church's proclamation on the upcoming Lord's Day. If I stay on the ball, I'll do my best to make sure you too get a weekly Monday reminder to preview the readings and take a look at his rather remarkable weekly essays.

Image source: Christ and the Samaritan Woman, Mario Sironi, 1947. Christus Rex.

Lenten Reading: Sunday after Ash Wednesday

First Fruits, The Canon of St. Andrew, Chapter 3 (11-15)

For the first time, we see that St. Andrew speaks to a Christian saint in his prayers when he says, "Holy Mother Mary, pray to God for us." Now I suspect that most of us are perhaps a tad uncomfortable with such a petition. In her Introduction (xxiv-xxvi), Frederica Matthewes-Green tells us how an Orthdox Christian understands such a prayer. It will be a good idea if all of us read that part of the Introduction, "The Scandal of the Saints," again carefully to make sure we understand the Orthodox tradition well; that is, we don't want to read too much into an Orthdox Christian's speaking to a saint, nor we want to under-value the importance of what she or he is doing when speaking to a saint. After reflecting on her explanation about Andrew's speaking to St. Mary of Egypt, how do you respond and evaluate her clarification? Do you ever speak to a saint who is living now with Christ? If so, might you tell us about such a prayer?

This morning I was attempting to learn how you as readers in ouor group might post comments. To do so, I created a new email address (benjamin.mattews27@gmail.com) and tried to post a comment. To put it succinctly, I got confused. So right now I can't help any of you post comments without getting some clairifcation as to the difficulties you and I are experiencing. As an alternative to posting comments, let's each one of us keep a journal of our responses and then when we meet again on February 21, we can share our responses with one another and have a pretty good discussion. I hope that works for all of us.

In the event, however, that one or more of you can provide assistance with our posting comments, do post a comment yourself and tell us how it is done. Thanks!

Lenten Reading: Saturday after Ash Wednesday
First Fruits, The Canon of St. Andrew, Chapter 2 (6-11)

At our Thursday meeting, Mason reminded us that Eastern-tradtion Christians repeat over and again that the real goal of our life in Christ is to be healed--to be found because we've lost our way. And that, as Frederica Matthewes-Green in her Introduction points out, "is a really long process" (xv).

While reading, praying, and reflecting on Chapter 2 in The Canon, I was struck how St. Andrew tells his Maker that he is wounded, lost as an outcast, a man who has fallen among thieves, and beaten. When he prays, St. Andrew asks for help and mercy. He wants the Savior to come and make him healthy before he gets worse.

Speaking personally and telling you more than you may know about me, in my own life I'm often lost and without a good sense of direction. Whole years have gone by while I lost my bearings. For a good part of my mid-life my headlights were on dim. Today I still drive down wrong streets. I have "fallings-out" with people, with friends, sometimes with strangers--yes, even with June. So this prayer hits home and urges me to examine my own spiritual confusion and illness, my own state of dis-repair. I find that praying The Canon is something like undergoing a spiritual examination, an MRI of my own heart and mental conditioning, making sure I know and get an accurate medical record of my interior life. After time spent in The Canon this morning, I'm aware that I need healing. I need moment-by-moment help and healing--someone to give me a sense of direction.

Lenten Reading: Friday after Ash Wednesday
First Fruits, The Canon of St. Andrew, Chapter 1 (2-5)

Last evening's meeting was exceptionally helpful for our prayerful entrance into Lent, and all of us--such a large group!--appreciated seeing so many of our friends again. Thank you so much, Stephen, for leading us in Evening Prayer.

Inasmuch as we've all begun to read Frederica Matthewes-Green's First Fruits of Prayer, we can also begin to share our reflections and thoughts as we move from chapter to chapter.

The commentary pages to Chapter 1 introduce us to at least three new words: canon, troparion, and irmos. While they are briefly defined in the Introduction, here are definitions of these three words that may prove additionally useful:

• Canon: The hymn typically found in Orthros of the Byzantine Rite
  
• Troparion (also tropar; plural troparia) is a type of hymn in Byzantine music, in the Orthodox Church and other Eastern Christian churches. It is a short hymn of one stanza, or one of a series of stanzas; this may carry the further connotation of a hymn interpolated between psalm verses.


• The irmos is the initial verse of each individual ode in a canon, sung by the choir; from the Greek verb "to tie" or "to link."

Although Chapter 1 of the Canon is not very long, it well deserves several contemplative readings, perhaps to be read as your lectio divina for a Lenten day. On page 4, we are given opportunities to consider several questions. Consider choosing one and sharing your responses and reflections. (If you experience any difficulty posting a response, email me, and I'll reply with help.)

Lenten Reading: Ash Wednesday
First Fruits, Introduction (ix-xl) and The Canon, Chapter 1 (2-5)

We now have copies of First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew (hereafter FF), and we'll make them available at the Ash Wednesday service at St. Thomas Lutheran Church and at our Thursday evening meeting at First Presbyterian Church. Once you get your copy of FF and start to read it, you'll find it on the cutting-edge of interesting and provocative Christian thinking, especially for us in the Western Church who have little acquaintance with the spiritual heart of Eastern Orthodox Christians. As soon as possible, read the Introduction (ix-xl) and move on directly to The Canon, Chapter 1 (2-5). Then in a day or so, go to the Appendix and "The Life of St. Mary of Egypt."

My suggestion is that you don't try to capture or understand everything too quickly. You'll find the Eastern way of the thinking about the Faith different enough that you'll need to slowly soak it up. Think of yourself as a brand new dry sponge who is slowly and frequently being dipped into fresh bubbling water. As you enter into the new spiritual territory of the Eastern Orthodox, remember that Frederica Matthews-Green is a wonderful guide, well-respected throughout the Christian world for her insights, love for the Church, and ability to communicate across the traditions. After you read a bit, do a bit of reflecting and share your thoughts by posting a comment or so. When you see someone else's comments, comment on a comment.

Be a sponge, dip, then squeeze (post a comment!) so that all of us--and that includes anyone reading this blog--can dip and squeeze again and again, getting wetter and wetter in all the Orthodox water! It'll be a great way to pilgrimage with an Orthodox friend toward Holy Week and Easter.

Lenten Carbon Fasting

Yesterday evening, while listening to a BBC radio broadcast after Evening Prayer, I heard a report on the efforts of two Anglican bishops who are asking Christians to consider and adopt some form of "carbon fasting" as a Lenten discipline. You may be interested in their call and find out more about carbon fasting by visiting

Lent fast to cut carbon emissions
A Carbon Fast: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repent!*
The Carbon Fast
Church advocates carbon fast for Lent

Image: http://www.blueventures.org/images/Best%20of%20All/smaller/mattmeasures.jpg

February 6: Ash Wednesday

On Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we enter Lent. If you need help in determining what you can do to give shape to your Lenten discipline this year, visit Connecting Worship and Daily Living in Lent or Spirit Home, where you can find suggestions.

Our Daily Office community has decided to read and discuss Frederica Mathewes-Green's First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey through the Ancient Great Canon. Here's what she says about her book:

Researching this book immersed me in the Scriptures as no other Christian prayer-text has. I was in awe of the profundity of St. Andrew of Crete's meditation on the biblical text, and the resonances he uncovered in it from one end to the other. It's further astounding that he wrote this around 720 A.D., when there were no study helps available like today's concordances, indexes, and marginal references. Through frequent daily worship, he really had consumed the Bible, and assimilated it. Yet the Canon does not come off as a dry, theological tour-de-force. It breathes with his yearning to be wholly transformed by the light of Jesus Christ, and his courageous desire to root out whatever in him resists that light. St. Andrew's knowledge of the Scriptures, his unflinching examination of himself, and above all his radiant love for Jesus Christ make this a perfect book for study during Lent.

I've ordered ten copies; they should arrive before Ash Wednesday, and I'll bring them to St. Thomas Lutheran Church to give out before or after the Ash Wednesday service. See the January 29th posting for more information!

I'll also have copies to give out on Thursday, when our Daily Office community meets again this

week.

We will be discussing Frederica Mathewes-Green's book on this blog. If you'd like to enter comments and reflections, please do so.

Yesterday was the Feast of the Transfiguration when Jesus in glory appears with Moses and Elijah to a small group of his disciples. Preparing for this day, I was reminded that all of us will be with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, when reading one of the books that Sr. Judy has recommended to our group. This is a good passage for some lectio divina; it's from Chapter 2, "Why Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants?"

One day we will gather at the eschatological banquet, surrounded not only by God's chosen from every nation but also by his chosen from every branch of Christianity.

Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits for Everyday People (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos P, 2007), 30.

Image: http://www.latinmass.bravepages.com/images/all_saints_day.jpg

February 2: The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord.

On this day many Christians--either in their Daily Offices or within the liturgy of Holy Communion--are remembering an important event in the life of Our Lord Jesus, his presentation and the purification of his mother Mary, as prescribed by the Torah, in the temple. You can read the story in Luke 2:22-40, one of Daily Office readings assigned for this day. My Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible provides this commentary on the Scripture reading:

In modern society the elderly are rarely held in high esteem. They are shunted off to senior citizens' homes where they are cared for by professional staff rather than their own families. We seem to be saying their usefulness is past, and the increasing tolerance of euthanasia underscores that belief. This is not God's attitude. Simeon and Anna are the senior citizens of Luke's version of Jesus' birth, and they know and understandmore than anyone else. Of all the people that Jerusalem's streets were teeming with the day that Jesus was named--the rich, the powerful, the young, the holy--only Simeon and Anna are given insight into who is being carried into the Temple courts in his parents' arms. In fact, they know more than Mary or Joseph, who are astonished at what Simeon says about Jesus. It is clear that God has placed great value on Anna and Simeon and that he does not think he is wasting the Holy Spirit on two seniors who have passed the prime of their lives.

The story of the presentation of Jesus and the purification of Mary is full of good news, so good in fact that many Christians, using the church's "Night Prayer" or "Compline," sing or say the Song of Simeon (often referred to as the Nunc Dimittus, its Latin name) each evening before they go to bed. If you wish to celebrate this day with other Christiains, visit the following:

Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord
Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ
The Presentation of Our Lord: Candlemas
The Presentation (Meeting) of Our Lord in the Temple

After reading the Gospel story in Luke, perhaps you'd like to share your thoughts. Please do so.

Source of images: www.excerptsofinri.com/jesus_of_nazareth_ii.html

At our meeting last evening we learned how to sing the psalms using Psalm tone A, one of eight psalm tones published in Reading the Psalms with Luther (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007). By way of an introduction to"Singing the Psalms," this little book provides the following prefatory comments:

The psalms are appointed for singing. Each psalm verse in divided into two part, with an asterisk (*) indicating the point of division. Most of the text of each half verse [versicle] is sung to the reciting a reciting tone. At the point of the verticle line (1), the final two or three syllables are sung to the notes provided. Ordinarily there is one syllable of the text for each note. When there are only two syllables, the first syllable is sung to two notes.

Any psalm can be sung to any tone. It is best, however, that the tone, which can range from cheerful and bright to somber and austere, be appropriate to the text.

Before singing Evening Prayer, we practiced singing several psalms to Tone A, and things worked out quite well. Mason helped greatly by giving us the reciting tone at the beginning of every three or four verses (something we observed Sr. Judy doing at our last monastery retreat).

Importantly, we reminded one another of next week's pancake supper at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, the Ash Wednesday service at St. Thomas Lutheran Church, and the Taize services thereafter on Lenten Wednesday evenings (see the previous posting!).

For those who wanted one, Stephen made available copies of Songs & Prayers from Taize, and Andy announced that he will bring ten copies of Frederica Mathewes-Green's First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey through the Ancient Great Canon, our Lenten study book, to our next meeting.

Next week Stephen, using the Book of Common Prayer, will lead us in Evening Prayer. We hope to see everyone at First Presbyterian Church, 7:00 p.m., Thurday, February 7, as we continue to practice singing the psalms, both as individuals in our Daily Offices and as a community in our meetings.