Yearly Archives: 2009

What The Church Intends

While I read a lot of writers from all periods of the Church’s history my focus tends to be on the West in the first thousand years. Thus, there’s lots of great stuff that I [haven’t gotten/won’t get to] that I only  encounter through citations from others. This especially holds true for Post-Reformation Roman Catholic authors. Aside from the Carmelite Mystics and a bit of Ignatius, I’m ignorant of these folks. Therefore it was with interest that I read an enlightening selection on the intention of the Church from Fr. Hunwicke:

The Church’s standard teaching is graphically expressed by Bellarmine: “There is no need to intend to do what the Roman Church does; but what the true Church does, whichever it is, or what Christ instituted, or what Christians do: for they amount to the same. You ask: What if someone intends to do what some particular or false church does, which he thinks the true one, like that of Geneva, and intends not to do what the Roman church does? I answer: even that is sufficient. For the one who intends to do what the church of Geneva does, intends to do what the universal church does. For he intends to do what such a church does, because he thinks it to be a member of the true universal church: although he is wrong in his discernment of the true church. For the mistake of the minister does not take away the efficacy of the sacrament: only a defectus intentionis does that.” Cardinal Franzelin gives an extreme case: a daft priest who didn’t want to confer grace when he baptised but actually believed that by baptising he would consign someone to the Devil – there was a seventeenth century rumour about this in Marseilles. Non tamen, he writes, sacramenti virtutem et efficaciam impediret. He qotes Aquinas in support. In nineteenth century, the Holy Office declared that Methodist missionaries in Oceania who explicitly denied in the course of the Baptism service itself that Baptism regenerates, did not thereby invalidate the Sacrament.

. . .
And this does really matter because an enthusiasm for deeming true sacraments to be invalid is likely to lead to irreverence or even sacrilege.

Good stuff…

Monthly Psalms Cycle on Festivals

I’m a big fan of the monthly psalm cycle in the BCP. Those would be the headings that mention a day and “morning” or “evening” in the BCP Psalms. I  see it as a nice expansion of the point Benedict makes in RB 18.24-5 (paraphrasing here): If our holy Fathers could say all the psalms every day, at least we lazy monks can do it every week. By extension if the monks can do it every week, we distracted laity can certainly manage it once a month…

But what to do when we hit major festivals? Read the Psalms in course as usual or read something special—like switching to the psalms identified in the Daily Office lectionary? This question was brought to my mind again yesterday when I prayed the Morning Office for the Conception of the BVM from the breviary. It seemed rather ironic on the feast of a conception to read Ps 38 with the following lines:

For my loins are filled with a sore disease, *
and there is no whole part in my body.

Now, I’m the first to argue that we just need to let the cycles take their courses and to see what passages the Holy Spirit brings together through no deliberate will of our own—but, c’mon…

I’ve been reconsidering the answer suggested by the Order of the Holy Cross’s A Monastic Diurnal which uses a set festal psalter arrangement for first class feasts which it defines (pre-’79 remember) as the Feasts of Our Lord in sections 1 through 3 and a few major saints (though not all apostles). Their scheme looks like this:

First Vespers: Pss 96, 97, 98, 99, 148 [largely the YHWH MLK psalms]

Matins: Pss 24, 29, 72, 93, 100

Second Vespers: Pss 110, 111, 112, 113, 150

This has the additional bonus of giving a set number of 5 psalms for these offices, nicely matching up with the traditional number of psalm antiphons so all of them can be appreciated (when utilized).

What do you think?

A Bit on Sin

This post is connect to the slowly emerging theology thing that I’m up to…

One of the deeply formative parts of growing up Lutheran was the weekly use of the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness out of the Lutheran Book of Worship. Most every Sunday of my theologically aware life I heard 1 John used as a call to confession: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, but if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The reflection caused by this verse on human sin, our recognition of it and our practices of deception are at the center of my theological anthropology. One of the enduring marks and capacities of human sin is our astounding ability to deceive ourselves.

We commit some of our greatest sins under the steadfast conviction that we are right and that we do the will of God.

We can conceive of the most ingenious ways to absolve ourselves of wrong. One of the most chilling books I read in seminary was The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide which looks at how doctors—some of whom were personally kind to the inmates intheir death camps—were psychologically able to do what they did in the name of medicine.

Based on this text, the works of John Cassian, the sayings of the  Desert Fathers and my own life experience, I’ve come to the conviction that the intellectual mind is not and cannot be relied upon as an objective judge of motives.  Given the time and the desire, we can justify almost anything to ourselves.

We need checks and balances, and that means a live community that is not enmeshed in our own reasoning processes. Even written guides are not entirely sufficient. Only real people will do—hence the Tradition’s insistence on a confessor and a spiritual director, people who—while they might be as enmeshed in their own deception as we are (though we hope not)—are not enmeshed in ours.

A preponderance of people, of course, is no guarantee that self-deception is not going on. Organizations don’t transcend human nature, they concentrate it. Organizations can be both much better than the people involved or much worse (or anywhere in between) due to this concentrating power. Organizations can perpetuate systems and logics of self-deception in the same way that individuals can. We’re all familiar with how this works through history’s familiar refrain: “I was just following orders.”

Two Scriptural Notes on the MP Readings

  • The first reading, Amos 5:1-17 has one of my favorite bits of prophetic poetry in it, one that gets used for an opening sentence at evening prayer. Yet the context is important, especially understanding exactly what’s being said. Here’s the bit in full:

For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name

It’s important to catch the significance of the places mentioned at the beginning: Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba. These are all names we’ve heard before, of course, but they have a special significance. We often have this idea—because it’s pressed quite hard by the Deuteronomistic tradition—that the Jerusalem Temple was the only worship site where the Israelites ever worshiped. That’s not accurate, especially given the seperation of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms after Solomon. Jerusalem was in the South—Northerners didn’t go there so much… In any case, these three places were all major religious centers discussed in the OT histories.

Bethel was the site of Jacob’s famous ladder and his reception of the name Israel. The Ark of the Covenant was kept there before its move to Shiloh and Jeroboam after Israel and Judah split made the shrine at Bethel the theological counterpart of the Temple at Jerusalem (complete with golden calves).

Gilgal was the site of a major shrine mentioned repeatedly in Joshua through 1 Saumel. This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan with a miraculous rolling back of the water, twelve stones were set up as witnesses, where sacrifices were brought, and where Saul was anointed king.

Beersheba is also one of the great early centers of Israelite religion. It is mentioned several times in Genesis as a worship site in the time of the patriarchs. Other references make it clear that major religious activity happened there—but none of them are as explicit about it as the two above.

The point that Amos (who was operating in the Northern Kingdom or else one suspects Jerusalem may well have made the list…) is making here is that seeking the places of sanctuary and great sacrificial worship are not enough—one must seek the Lord. Sacrifice and adherence to the ritual laws is not enough and is incomplete without also adhering to the social laws that mandate justice for the oppressed and care for widows, orphans, and sojourners.  I don’t think Amos is being “anti-liturgical” here as some would like to make it, rather, he’s once again calling Israel to observance of the whole Law with all its demands, not just the easier and more publicly performable parts.

  • The Daily Office lectionary has, well, its issues… In particular, it tends to jump around when we get near to significant feasts and one wonders what gets missed. Indeed even in its continuous reading it seems not to be so continuous. I remember a complaint on the Ship of Fools a while back that it specifically skipped the condemnations of sexual immorality from 2 Peter; this was produced as proof of TEC’s screwing around with the Scriptures. Let me explain that today by way of noting the second reading from Jude 1. Yes, the Daily Office lectionary does leave out a fairly large bit of 2 Peter 2—but that’s because 2 Peter 2:1-22 comes directly from Jude 1:4-16. I’m guessing the compilers decided it didn’t make sense to read the exact same passage within a few days of each other… And yes, this is one of those on-going conversations in Scripture that bls is talking about.

Now Where Did That Go…?

I’ve got two book review type items to post. One is the next stage in the blog’s inevitable evolution into the Martin Thornton FanBlog on his Rock and the River. The other is a new book by Luke Timothy Johnson that I’m still mulling over a bit; on one hand it confirms a lot of what I think about how we read and interpret the New Testament (big surprise there…), but even more so revolutionizes how I read.

At the moment I can’t find either of them.

This is a sign that the large pile of books and assorted papers known as my office needs to be reorganized in a major way. *sigh* More later after I’m able to dig out…

Read This

I’m really slammed today. More breviary changes to come but work and life intrude.

However, you do need to go and read the piece that Dean Knisley put up. We who are liturgically obsessed, I believe, must always have circumstances like this in mind when we sit down and start fiddling with our prayer books. We miss the point entirely if the realities of life and liturgy get disconnected.

As I always say of Eucharistic liturgies—would I want this to be used at a funeral, or alternatively, at the last Eucharist of a person’s life? Because we’re more in danger of the latter than we think…

New Online Breviary: Beta Test Version

Christopher has said on occasion that it’s one thing to advocate for liturgical renewal; it’s another entirely to actually do something about it.

In the spirit of actually doing something, I’m introducing for trial use a new online resource for praying the Daily Office. Named St Bede’s Breviary, it is firmly rooted in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, especially as read through catholic tradition. I’ll say more about this in the coming days but here are a few notes:

  • It differs from other online prayer options specifically in terms of options. You may select from Rite I or II, use one of (currently) three liturgical kalendars, and vary the amount of material and additions as your time and inclinations allow.
  • The other difference from other sites is that it is an integrated full-text office meaning that everything is on one page. No clicking between various windows.
  • M has confirmed that it is crackberry accessible. (No word on other telephony devices…)
  • It is still in the beta testing phase which means that there are glitches. Some I’m aware of and am working as time allows; others will only appear in the course of regular use. So—it’s not perfect.
  • It’s also not static. Meaning, not only can bugs be fixed (unlike in paper breviaries) I’m also open to introducing new options and such as long as they remain in line with the fundamental mandate of the project—a breviary rooted in the ’79 BCP read in continuity with catholic tradition.

Here’s a key point: While I’ve used the word “I” a couple of times, I’m going to carefully qualify it. While I’ve done the PHP coding and worked up the current state of the MySQL tables, this has, from its inception a while back, been a community effort.  In particular bls and Fr. Chris did a tremendous amount of work in terms of both content and technical conceptualization. bls in particular was the mastermind behind the drupal-based version that ran for a while on a host provided by Fr. Chris. Unfortunately my host doesn’t offer drupal support on Windows servers concerning which I’m greatly annoyed… In short, this wouldn’t be possible without them. (And bls, I want to revisit some of your original design ideas too—I’ll shoot you a note…)

Christopher, Brian M, Scott, Mother M, Paul Goings, and others offered support and suggestions, sometimes only in the form of answering seemingly random questions about office minutae.

I’d like to keep it that way too. If you use this, please let me know what can or should be done to make it better or more user friendly.

So, without further ado: St Bede’s Breviary.

Holistic Theology/Spirituality

Martin Thorton speaks of the English tradition as a balance of affective and speculative elements.  I wonder if it’s worth going a step further and adding in the kinetic dimension. In reductionistic terms, then, it’d be theology and spirituality that balances and integrates heart, head, and body. The pay-off is that we recognize the bodily dimensions—kneeling, fasting/feasting, crossings, etc. as just as much a part of our theology and spirituality as what we think and feel.

Random Saturday Morning Bible Thought

I’d love to do—not a true commentary per se—but a close reading that puts 1 Corinthians into conversation with Ephesians.

1 Corinthians is the preeminent Pauline book on the practicalities of church life: what to do about conflicts and factions in parishes, especially those exacerbated by different personalities and different ways of being spiritual.

Ephesians is the preeminent Pauline book (and, yes, it is most certainly Pauline whether Paul penned it in its entirety or not) on the theology and mystical nature of the church: who it connects into the mystery of Christ, how individuals are joined in it, the ultimate nature and purpose of the church.

Hmmm. Now thinking that, I wonder how a joint reading of Colossians and Galatians would look…