Charles Stuart, King and Martyr

Today the Church of England and Anglo-Catholics everywhere keep the Feast of the Blessed Martyr, Charles Stuart.

As an anointed Monarch, Charles thought himself well within his rights in his expectation that his subjects, common and noble alike, would give him loving obedience in his acts of government. Sadly, Charles was much disappointed in his people. They rebelled against his legitimate government, deposed him, proclaimed a republic, tried him for treason, and in an act of savage ingratitude struck off his head.

The republic did not last and due to God's mercy the monarchy was restored. Apparently the English prefer a Monarch, whatever his shortcomings, to pious upstarts, no matter how effective, or corrupt they may be. Stuarts, or Stuart surrogates occupy the Throne to this very day.

Eventually recognized as a martyr--not unlike his predecessor, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, in another context--Charles has enjoyed the high esteem of the Anglo-Catholic Party from the time of his tragic death right up to the present. Unfortunately, Roman Catholics have been a bit more reticent to promote Mary's Cause in Rome.

The currently accepted collect for the Feast reads:

King of kings and Lord of lords, whose faithful servant Charles prayed for those who persecuted him and died in the living hope of your eternal kingdom: grant us by your grace so to follow his example that we may love and bless our enemies, through the intercession of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

It is completely reasonable to hold that the cult of such Royal Martyrs is a bit silly. Always very difficult to say if such deaths are caused by the single hearted adherence to the Faith of Christ, or are the result of much more murky political expediencies. The sure lesson that we should learn from our martyrs is that loyalty, generosity, and courage are worth living for, even if one doesn't quite achieve them in this life. The second lesson, just as valuable really, is that it just cannot be God's will that the state, or any one, strike the heads off of the inconvenient. There has to be a better way. Injustice will be discovered, even if it may result in the cult of new martyrs.

Let us pray that Charles, and Mary, and Nicholas, and all the martyrs will interceed for us in this life, and welcome us into the Feast of Heaven.

Cantuar Reviews Worship in the Tablet

A very interesting book review in, The Tablet. Rowan Williams, the ABC, writes a very interesting review of a history of liturgy, Worship, by Keith Pecklers. I was most interested by the following paragraph:

"Full and active liturgical participation" is understood quite firmly in terms of conscious and intentional public sharing, and there is quite a high expectation that good liturgy is liturgy that delivers a clear sense of collective well-being. This is, as always, an essential corrective to mechanical attitudes to worship, to an impersonalism that simply fails to suggest that divine activity might ever be around in worship. It needs, though, its own balance in order to avoid that pervasive contemporary temptation, worship as entertainment or displaced activism or rally.

Fr. Pecklers and the ABC make an important point here. Liturgy must be more than the recitation of words and the performance of action. On the otherhand, Liturgy should not be conceived solely as a means to lift our mood.

Another apprehension of the Universal Hope

2 Peter 1:19

We possess the prophetic message as something altogether reliable. Keep your attention closely fixed on it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Psalm 130 v.:3, 6

If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt,
Lord, who would survive?
But with you is found forgiveness:
for this we revere you.

Let the watchman count on daybreak
And Israel on the Lord.

The message we have received, the reliable and prophetic word, is that of forgiveness—the completely prodigal repeal of all our littleness by the Lord who has loved us, and loved us before we ever thought to love him. WE find forgiveness in the Lord, and so there is a reason we rejoice in him. God alone is our clear light; our surety, our safety and our hope.

How can we ever assume that this love is just for us, who ever we may be, and not also for them, all the not-we of the world. If we have God's reliable and trustworthy word, how can we continue to be afraid of the dark, or of our neighbor?

Check out this story from the NCR

Writer's Desk: January 25, 2005

On first face this appears to be a very interesting project that is respectful of our democracy, maintains a tradition of opposition, and in a very real, but perhaps unintentional way speaks to the heart of the Catholic Imagination.

Mr. Sinker refuses to be marginalized by the recent elections. No one should accept marginalization. His project of writing a daily email post to the president is a brilliant, eloquent, and poignant act of participative Democracy and exhibits a deep belief in the worth of individual existence/experience.

I mention the Catholic Imagination because I believe that his project is firmly rooted in the Mystery of the Incarnation, which among other terribly important things also teaches us that there is no room in God's Universe for marginalization. All are welcome to the Feast of Heaven. All are welcome to join the conversation. In Jesus' Incarnation, God reveals the universal opportunity for communication, communion, reconcilliation. In light of this, it stands to reason that any and all efforts at marginalization should be resisited.

The Little chapter from Compline tonight (1 Peter 5:8-9) admonishes the faithful to:

Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling around the world like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him steadfast in your faith.

Mr. Sinker's project seems a very steadfast, quiet, even contemplative form of resistence. But also respectful of the realities. Mr. Sinker's committment to communication, to the telling of the truth of his existence, may not be well recieved at the White House. For you and me it may reveal a form of grace, a small cooperation with the Spirit; something that might bring us closer to an answer to Jesus' prayer that all be one.

Ezekiel 37: 12, 14

The Little Chapter from Morning Prayer speaks a bit to my ongoing struggle with the hope for universal salvation. The whole passage speaks to the question, but two lines really go there for me:

Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel . . . thus you shall know that I am the Lord. I have promised and I shall do it, says the Lord.

I am particularly grateful for that last bit, "I have promised and I shall do it, says the Lord."

A word from Compline

As you know the Church has no Saturday nights. The First Vespers of Sunday take the place of what ought to be Saturday night. The little chapter for that Compline includes the Shema, the quintessential kernal of the Hebrew Scriptures:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

I think that it might be a bit unfair to put this important passage for use so late at night. Compline is meant to be said right before going to sleep. I found it difficult for my drowsey head to even begin to engage the message. It is just too big for that late at night/early in the morning.

God is Love, and the giver of all gifts. Only God can give us this love, of our heart, soul, might. God, who is mighty, be mighty in your gifts to us!

Time, Like an ever-rolling stream. . .

This short item from the Sunday Times suggests that change does happen in the Roman Church. It might be slow, it might be secret, it might have to happen in Scotland, but it happens.

Faith News
Compiled by Luke Coppen

A former priest of the Episcopal Church is preparing to become the first married Roman Catholic priest to be ordained in Scotland. The Rev James Bell will be ordained at a ceremony in Inverness on March 2. Married former Anglican priests have been ordained as Catholic priests in England and taken up posts in Scotland, but this will be the first time such a ceremony has taken place north of the border. The Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen, the Right Rev Peter Moran, said: “James Bell’s experience and personal qualities will be of great value in our diocese. Although a married priest is an unfamiliar idea for Catholics in this country, I am confident that we will all welcome James in his new role and Lesley as his wife.”

A Thought on Romans and 1 Peter

Today is the feast of St. Fabian, a pope and St. Sebastian, both martyrs. Perhaps a good coincidence for an inauguration!

Romans 14:17-18:

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval.

From the Little Chapter in Morning Prayer, these two verses seem rather surprisingly apt as an invitation to meditation on the events of this morning. Mr. Bush's real service cannot be to party, or tribe, or nation, but must be to the persons of the sisters and brothers of Jesus.

What is required of Mr. Bush is required of each of us as well in an equal measure.

Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

This passage from 1 Peter 1:22-23, taken from Vespers this evening may provide good advise as we look to our futures.

A note on I Thessalonians 5:9-10

Compline is often my favorite of the daily offices. The Short Chapter for Monday is tantalizing:

God has destined us for acquiring salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us, that all of us, whether awake or asleep, together might live with him.

So what is this salvation? Is it for every body, or just the in crowd that Paul writes to. Does Paul describe the destiny that God intends for all people, is it possible that God intends more than Paul apprehended? Is his vision patient of a more universal application? Is it possible taht all are saved. How could anyone stand the thought that redemption is for the few rather than all.

On the other hand, my favorite antiphon in the entire Roman pslater occurs in the same office:

O Lord, Our God, unwearied is your love for us.

If we are really allowed to believe the text of the antiphon, then we must be able to hope that the redemption we celebrate in all Christian Liturgy must apply to all of god's children. Perhaps we must begin to posit a redemption beyond our parochial understanding of what redemption might entail. I feel confident in the hope that this means that redemption is destined for everyone, not merely offered to everyone.

On the argument from Intelligibility

Another interesting passage from, The Family Tree, by Sheri S. Tepper:

"Isn't your world merely a story told by Ghoti to amuse himself?"
This was said in a purposefully nasty way, as though to provoke Izzy. Though Sahir was sometimes hospitable, at other times he seemed to relish being unpleasant to Prince Izakar, for some reason I did not understand.
Izzy refused to take offense. "The bishops would not use that phraseology, though in essence you are correct. Personally, however, I've never accepted the doctrine. If a God is all imagining, as Ghoti is said to be, then why should he wish to imagine a place in which beauty and squalor are so inextricably mixed? If I were inventing a world for my pleasure, I would cover the trash bins and fence off the midden. In fact, I would probably make both trash bins and middens unnecessary. On the other hand, if the world is real, then one understands the necessity for squalor. One understands that though Ghoti, or some other god, may have created it, it is not an arbitrary fabrication but is susceptible to those inexorable natural laws which demand an up for every down."
Prince Sahir said idly, "What natural laws? Wouldn't the creator manufacture those as well?"
"I prefer to think of them as intrinsic to time and space," said Izzy in his most serious voice. "In this universe, one and one always make two. Not two and a half. Not three. But two. In this universe, things fall... ah, down. Not up. Not sideways."
"You mean this world?" I asked, confused by all this talk of universes.
"Of course," said Izzy hastily. "That's what I mean. This is the nature of the stuff of which the . . . world is made."
I persisted, attempting to understand. "But if the deity had made the world of other stuff, then other things might happen."
"Possibly, but they would be consistent other things. As, for example, things would buoyantly fall up, and one and one would always, synergistically, make two and three-quarters. However a world is made, or whatever it is made of, each world must be consistent to its own laws. This, to my mind, is the main difficulty with Bubblism. The world is supposedly created only in the mind of Ghoti, where, presumably, anything may be imagined, but in fact, anything is not; only some things are, those which are consistent. One and one, do, in fact, always make two."
"Ghoti may have made up the laws first, as children make up the rules to games they play," I argued. "Allowing exceptions for himself, of course."
"Possible, but trifling if true. I prefer to think the laws are a consequence of materiality, which may itself be a consequence of the nature of space and time. An immaterial universe ... ah, world . . . might have no laws. This one does, however, which leads me back to the point I made at first. This is not a story. Because it is not a story, it is unlikely to contain only honorable persons, and it is therefore entirely possible we will encounter at least a few unpleasant ones who will attempt to do away with us for any reason or for no reason other than a customary dislike of creatures other than themselves."

I have always had a great respect for the argument from intelligibility. I am terribly pleased to see it so elegantly expressed, here. I fell under the sway of this famous agrument while reading Bernard Lonergan, who uses it to great effect in his theological epistemology. I'm sure his arguments rest on Aristotle, Aquinas, Scotus, Suarez and all those other guys, but still a very compelling and vigorous line of reasoning. Lonergan asserts that an intelligible universe begs the question of the existence of God.
Maybe this god is not just any god, but a god who is the very ground of intelligibility, dependability, trustworthyness; a god of compassion, mercy, love? The Father of Our Lord, Jesus Christ?
Perhaps, like St. Anselm, I may have leapt too far, too soon in the argument. Perhaps not.
I was especially struck by Izzy's line, "This is not a story." No, this is real life. We can hope, trust that God is good. But, we live in a real world of light and darkness, of consequence. It is our responsibility to discern the consequences of our thoughts and the deeds and mis-deeds those thoughts make possible.

On the apprehension of the miraculous

The antiphon on the Invitatory today reminds us of the context of the world we inhabit:

Come, let us worship God who holds the world and its wonders in his creating hand.

Sheri S. Tepper, in her excellent book, The Family Tree, offers an interesting spin to our current apprehension of the miraculous.

"Consider, Prince Izakar: in the universe of all things that could happen, there are some events with vanishingly small probability of happening. Still, occasionally, things do happen which have a very small probability, and these things are called miracles. Some of them are quite nice, like instantaneous cures for incurable diseases or escapes from certain death. Some are quite nasty, like rains of frogs."

"Obviously, since the probabilities are so limited, the supply of natural miracles is always small. Magic is a system for tapping into the miraculous, that is, of changing the probability that certain things will occur, of bending certain natural forces in order to influence probability itself."

"As time goes on, however, people learn that things they thought were impossible are, in fact, merely improbable and they learn to make improbable things happen through technology, until the time comes when no one believes in magic anymore because all the improbable things are being done by machines."

The Roman Ritual (1964) provided an order for the blessing of a Telegraph Office which included this prayer:

God, who ride on the wings of the wind, and who alone work wonders; just as you have empowered this metal to carry messages to-and-fro more quickly than a lightning flash; so also grant that we, inspired by these new inventions and aided by your bounteous grace, may in a similar way come more swiftly and easily to you; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

God created and sustains the entirety of the universe we live in. Our abilities to apprehend that creation and to make use of its forces is part of the miracle of creation, not an argument for a purely accidental universe. We should not allow our love-affair with technology to alienate us from the universe, the Lord of Creation, or our neighbors.

A short line from Vigils

The reading from Sirach tonight includes several images of God's surpassing power. Though invisable, his actions are clearly seen. His plans come to fruition. This can be the foundation of our hope and the root of our joy. St. Francis knew himself to be the Troubadour of the Great King--each of us can be the messenger of God:

His rebuke marks out the path for the lightning, and speeds the arrows of his judgment to their goal. . . .For him each messenger succeeds, and at his bidding accomplishes his will.

A thought from Morning Prayer

The Little Chapter from Ephesians stuck with me this morning:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

I guess the issue of bitterness, passion, anger is what struck me. We need to put that aside in our interactions with others and ourselves, if we are to begin to approach what it is that God desires for us.

Dom Gregory Dix

…the puritan theory is that worship is a purely mental activity, to be exercised by a strictly psychological 'attention' to a subjective emotional or spiritual experience.

Shape of the Liturgy, p. 312

(1945/70)