Monthly Archives: August 2010

It was a simple melody in a major key and it reminded me of rolling green hills, the smell of earth, grass, growing things, the moment taken to smell a rose.  The words as well were simple and direct, but carried a more serious plea, for they asked God’s help in giving us a conscience quick to feel.

I was also reminded of the Quaker song, written by Elder Joseph Brackett Jr. in 1848:

‘Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
‘Til by turning, turning we come round right.

It is this simplicity I find in Hymn 499, sung to “St. Petersburg” with simple dignity as the note reads at the top of the page.  And the words, like those above, call for a turning: Let the fierce fires which burn and try, Our inmost spirits purify: Consume the ill; purge out the shame; O god, be with us in the flame; A newborn people may we rise, More pure, more true, more nobly wise.

It’s simple stuff, but unpopular today, this talk of sin.  Such talk lowers self-esteem, doesn’t it?  Such talk might make me love myself less?  How can I be assertive, empowered, a true modern woman?  Yet I find it is the admission of wrong turns that places me back on the right path.  It is confession of sin and absolution that produces assertiveness, empowerment. When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.  To grow and change in the right way means to bow and to bend, to come down where we ought to be.

I find in the Mass that I have left the furious and frenetic world behind and entered a simpler and truer reality.  I pass through the narthex into the nave, walking toward the sanctuary, the tabernacle, the throne of God.  The journey is more than my feet padding on the red-carpeted aisle and more than taking a seat in the shiny oak pew, more than kneeling on the padded kneelers.  It is a journey of preparation, both in time and in eternity, with songs sung, prayers petitioned, consciences cleared of the detritus of the week.  I travel through the liturgy, both a simple participant and simple recipient in glory itself, receiving the lessons and sermon into my mind and heart.  With my fellow worshipers I sing Holy Holy Holy, Lord God Almighty and we offer ourselves to God.  Soon, the priest, in the name of Christ, pronounces absolution of our sins.  Now we are ready.  We are ready to enter the Canon of the Mass, the holiest part of the Sacred Liturgy, and we pray Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus… , Lord God of Hosts…..  The bread and wine are consecrated and we join one another to unite today with the past and future, with the saints and angels, with the living and the dead, to become one with God in the Eucharist.

And what is most fascinating to me as a sacramental Christian, is that God cleanses and feeds me, then turns me around once again to go back outside to the furious and frenetic world that he has, after all, created but has indeed made some wrong turns.  But I have been changed.  I am a new creature, reborn, and re-sent, re-turned.  I am far more simple.  I have been touched by God.

There have been numerous books published recently on happiness and how to find it.  We are told we have the right to its pursuit.  How does one pursue it?  And when found, how is it retained?

I believe happiness is being close to God.  Not just any God but  the one true God, the God of Abraham, the God of Peter and Paul and the Apostles, the God of you and me.

And to retain happiness, I must give it away, share it, for God is love.  I must knock down the wall between God and me, the wall created when I sin, when I disobey His law, His will for me.

And what is His will?  I search, seeing clues all around me… Scriptures, the Sacraments of the Church, Prayer, other Christians through whom He speaks.  How do I spend the time given to me?  Do I love enough?  Do I obey His law?

“Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself,” Christ said to the rich young man.  He says to follow the Ten Commandments: worship the one Lord God, do not worship images, do not swear, keep Sunday holy, honor your parents, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not covet.

And if I don’t keep these commandments, I will not be happy, I will have separated myself from God.  I was meditating on this separation as I knelt in church this morning.  I knew that as I journeyed into and through the sacred liturgy, I would be washed clean of my sins, and I would once again draw near and be united with God.  I knew I would know happiness.

Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians this morning spoke of the the “sufficiency” of God, that He is enough for each of us.  God teaches us His will, how to love, what is wrong and what is right.  But we must desire to be taught, and we must learn from Him in Scripture, prayer, and liturgy.  If we do this, He will meet us, it will be enough, sufficient, and we will be happy.

Anglican Christians, like Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians, are sacramental Christians.  That is, we acknowledge that we are made of matter and spirit, and that God, being our creator, meets us through both matter and spirit.  So we adorn our churches with sensory beauty: flaming candles, stained glass, sculptures, incense.  We incorporate the dance of liturgy and the sounds of harmony and song, hymns solemnly reverent or joyfully triumphant, the organ tender or thundering.  We sing with the choirs of angels and kneel with the communion of saints.  Past, present, and future weave into this tapestry of happy holiness, or perhaps holy happiness, and we taste Heaven.  We see, hear, smell, touch, taste.

We are pulled out of ourselves and into God and His delirious love, as we receive the Eucharist.  And I know, as I look to my week ahead, that I shall have other chances to meet Him, and the choice will be mine, to go to Him or not, to be happy or not.  Much will pull me away, many things will distract me, but He will be there, waiting.

Saint Peter’s Anglican Church, 6013 Lawton Ave., Oakland; Sunday Mass, 8 and 10, Wednesday Mass, 11; www.saintpetersoakland.com

The doctine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven is what Anglicans call a matter of “pious opinion” or “pious belief.”  It is the belief that Mary’s body was raised to Heaven, that she did not die.  Christians believe that we are resurrected, but that we will be given new bodies at the Second Coming and the Last Judgment.

I believe that the Assumption, that is the “assuming into Heaven” or the “falling asleep,” was entirely possible and find it interesting to note that no shrine or church or location in the world claims to possess her relics.

Either way, whether she died a natural death or was bodily raised to Heaven, she has been a miraculous blessing to mankind, having said yes to God in Nazareth all those years ago, having assented to the Father’s will.  In this submission, in this assent, she bore within her body God himself.  It is something I am slowly learning as I age, this assent, this submission, and the resulting glory.

Raised a Presbyterian, I was taught to fear devotion to Mary, that it was superstition.  But, as our good Anglo-Catholic preacher said today, we venerate her, do her honor, as the most important of all saints, as theTheotokos, the God-Bearer. We venerate other saints as well, those who submitted and assented to God’s will in their lives.  But perhaps because of my childhood training, my prayers to Our Lady are not as spontaneous as I would wish, and I confess I have never had the patience to recite a rosary, although I have often tried.  Even so, praying a Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, the announcement Gabriel made to the young girl in Nazareth, reminds me of Mary’s love, guidance, and even power and influence.

I have had the great blessing of visiting many churches, abbeys, and cathedrals in Western Europe and most have a Lady Chapel (as do many churches in the U.S. as well).  I enjoy lighting a candle and saying my Gabriel prayer and talking to her, asking for her guidance and blessing.  I have visited Lourdes in the foothills of the French Pyrenees and the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in Paris where Mary appeared to young Bernadette Soubirous and Catherine Labouré.  I’ve seen Bernadette’s incorrupt body in Nevers and Catherine’s in Paris.   The shrines are packed with pilgrims of every race and color, age and condition, thousands quietly praying, singing, receiving the Eucharist.

I love the feminine aspect Mary gives our faith.  In the long tradition of her veneration in the Church, her influence has been a positive one on Western culture.  For, as our preacher explained this morning, this veneration of the Virgin led to the ideal of chivalry, to the recognition of women’s roles in Church and society, to the ideals of motherhood, family, and the Christian home.  Mary offers a model for women, and today a most welcome one.

It was a red-and-white church this morning, with the broad swathes of red carpet and brick, and the white tented tabernacle, the white linen on the altar.  We sang happy joyous hymns with many alleluias and saints rising in crescendo into the pitched eaves and the stained glass along the aisles.  The organ sounded and we sang and I glanced at the lovely Madonna and Child to the left of the pulpit, with her soft blue robes, thankful.

I have been writing about Mary Magdalene in my novel-in-progress.  I must not forget the other Mary, the Blessed Virgin, our own dear Mother.  Her Lourdes medal rests under my Magdalene medal, close to my heart, and I pray for her guidance, love, and wisdom.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

We’ve had a coolish summer here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Even in the eastern valleys where dry August temperatures often hit 105 degrees, fog enshrouds the mornings and the afternoon sun struggles through the air’s chill.  The nights are cold.  The natural world is unpredictable and perhaps this is why we often chat about the weather.  It is always news.

As creatures of the natural world, however, we long for God, for we belong to God.  We long for something more, something we cannot see, but know is there, this God in whom, as Saint Paul said, we live and move and have our being.  We long for our Creator.

This week offered many times to meet God, for there were two weekday Masses, not just the one at mid-week.  Friday was the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, a day in which we celebrate the amazing Gospel account telling how Christ took Peter and John and James up a mountain to pray.  “And as he prayed,” writes Luke, “the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.  And behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory…there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him.” (Luke 9:28+).

I had the great blessing of attending the Transfiguration Mass.  The tabernacle was draped in white, the color for feasts of Our Lord and saints not martyred, and the high altar shone bright, beckoning.  I considered what happened on that mountain two thousand years ago, how the bodily features of Christ were transfigured in this moment of glory with God the Father.  How Elijah and Moses appeared with Him, telling Him of his coming death.  It was the union of earth and heaven and his face changed, his clothing was “glistering,” or glittering brightly.   He was transfigured.

This, I thought, is what will happen to each of us one day, and for some of us today, here and now, and in days to come in this earthly life.  But in order to meet God we must prepare ourselves.  We must confess and repent, and be washed clean.  We must meet Christ in the Mass.  Then God will come to us and bring us to Him, for that moment or, upon our death, for eternity.

As I partook of the Body and Blood of Christ I knew there were two parts to such union.  I must prepare and God must come to me.  When we meet, as in this Eucharistic moment in time, I am transfigured.  In that moment I am far more than an earthly creature.  In that moment I fly with the angels.

Moses understood the holy fear of God, the un-namable Yahweh, when he approached the burning bush.  Just so, the power and glory of Almighty God requires such preparation in worship.  We gather and sing His praises.  We decorate our sanctuaries to make them sacred spaces.  We raise the altar and we tent the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies.  We light candles and we bow and kneel.  In these ways we honor God. In these ways we prepare ourselves to meet Him.

But most of all, we clean out our hearts.  God takes all of our wrong-turnings since the last cleaning out and forgives them, absolves us of all guilt.  Now we are ready for the burning bush.  Now we are ready to be transfigured.

Today’s Sunday Scriptures spoke of being visited by God, and being able to see Him when He comes.  But, as our good preacher reminded us, if we do not look, we will not see.  We will not know transfiguration.

http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/

My cat killed a bird.

The image of the lovely gray quail hanging from Laddie’s jaws, as the cat bounded to the back door to lay the offering inside, shall haunt me for a time.  My sweet and loving cat did this?

That’s what cats do, I told myself.  Horrified, I reached his strong tabby body in time and forced a release, then cradled the bleeding creature, carrying it to some sod near our back fence, far away from my cruel cat.  The quail died quickly, and a profound grief hit me.  What a horrible world, I thought, where we eat each other.

Indeed, this was another reminder of the brutality of the natural world, a brutality often hidden by its beauty, by man’s need to create order and life out of chaos and death.  Man is a different creature in that regard, having this desire in his heart, the desire of the Creator.

I know we are a fallen world, but it still powerfully affects me when I see such an example, although, to be sure, many examples filled the media this last week and year, and many more will stun us next week and in the coming year.

The incident of the bird occurred a few hours after returning from worshiping God in His church and considering the wonderful parable of the Prodigal Son.  It is a season of parables, Trinity Season, a long green growing season in the Church Year when we hear the teachings of Christ and try and be what God wants us to become.  Each year, on the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, Anglicans around the world listen to this particular Epistle and Gospel.  The Epistle, Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth (I Corinthians 10.1+) warns us against breaking God’s law, that is, of ordering our lives and our world according to our fallen way and not His perfect way of love.

Saint Paul promises that “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”  So we remain fallen, and we face our sins – pride, envy, sloth, gluttony, covetousness…  We know the list.  And, as our good preacher explained this morning, God doesn’t remove the temptation, but helps us to endure it, to bear it without succumbing.  When this happens, we are infused with His grace and the fallen has been redeemed.

After Saint Paul’s admonitions, we listened to the Gospel, the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11+), the well known story of the young man who leaves home, spends his inheritance, and returns begging for any small place in his father’s household.  Not only does the father forgive, he celebrates the son’s homecoming.  He throws a party.  The story holds many levels of truths, and I have been blessed through the years to hear dozens of sermons preached on various aspects and insights.  But this morning I was particularly struck by its relation to the Epistle, and to the ensuing Mass.  We are the prodigals, I thought, here and now, confessing our sins and being forgiven in this liturgy by God Himself.  Here and now, we are being celebrated by God Himself as we celebrate Him.  Each week, each Mass, we appear at Our Father’s house.  We sit at His feet. We are home.  If we repent, we know he will forgive.  So we list our falling-aways of the week and promise to try and change.  We repent.  And each week, Our Father sends His Son into our hearts and minds and bodies to teach us to love one another better.  Just so, each week He celebrates His creation along with His creation.

I am like my cat, hungry for what passes by, instinctually tempted by every fad and easy turn.  We are part of this world, but we have been given the chance to be redeemed.  We are invited to the celebration, the greatest celebration on earth, in His house, and I am so very thankful.

http://www.saintpetersoakland.com/