Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace. For the divinest prophets lived according to Christ Jesus. On this account also they were persecuted, being inspired by His grace to fully convince the unbelieving that there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence, and who in all things pleased Him that sent Him.
If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—” whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master… — Chapter 8 and 9a
From Christian NewsWire: Pope Shenouda III’s New Book, Have You Seen the One I Love, Portrays the Soul’s Quest for Jesus Christ
On May 20, 2008, Have You Seen the One I Love, an exegetical book on the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, will be released for sale to the general public. Pope Shenouda draws upon his many years of contemplation as a monk in the ancient desert of Scetis, Egypt to develop his commentary on the human soul as found in the Song of Songs. The book is a translation and transcription of a lecture series given by Pope Shenouda in the 1970s. In contrast to many modern authors who seek to paint the Song of Songs as a book of sensuality and physical intimacy, Pope Shenouda captures the true spiritual essence of the Song of Songs, drawing upon the wisdom and writings of the early Church fathers. Pope Shenouda explains that the Song of Songs is a meditation of the human soul while she searches for her Beloved, mirroring the spiritual love of Jesus Christ for His Church. It is only with an understanding of our spirituality that we may embark on our voyage leading to our Lord.
Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria is the 117th Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark the Evangelist of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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Since therefore I have, in the persons before mentioned, beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love, I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed. Do all then, imitating the same divine conduct, pay respect to one another, and let no one look upon his neighbour after the flesh, but continually love each other in Jesus Christ. Let nothing exist among you that may divide you; but be united with your bishop, and those that preside over you, as a type and evidence of your immortality.
As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do anything without the bishop and presbyters. Neither endeavour that anything appear reasonable and proper to yourselves apart; but being come together into the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent. Therefore run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one. — Chapter Six and Seven.
A friend sent me a link to a site called Birth Verse. You put in your birth date and are given a biblical verse where the chapter and verse are the month and day of your birth.
I ended up with the following from Proverbs (NIV):
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
and he who wins souls is wise.
Unfortunately the RSV isn’t quite as happy as the NIV:
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
but lawlessness takes away lives.
Thankfully the Douay-Rheims backs up the NIV:
The fruit of the just man is a tree of life:
and he that gaineth souls, is wise.
Yesterday I picked up a link from the Young Fogey which led me to a lengthy article at Rod Dreher’s site.
Mr. Dreher writes:
“The Crisis of Our Age” proclaimed [Pitirim] Sorokin’s view that the West was in a terminal crisis, but that its resolution, however shocking and traumatic, would not mean the End, as is often thought, but only the transition to a new and very different phase of that civilization. “Crisis” is a summation of Sorokin’s cyclical theory of social development. He believed that civilizations cycle through three basic states, based on the dominant view of the nature of truth within that civilization…
The article is one in a series of many I have been reading lately that choose to see the future, the mid-term future, as a period of marked change in the social order. This change will be brought about by a collapse of the current order brought about by global or regional traumas, or economic factors that evidence the inability of government and markets to maintain the status quo.
There are all sorts of reasons for this, and I ascribe much of the problem, the impending breakdowns, to the breakdown in core societal components – family, reproduction (having children), and community. These components were the building blocks for the outward successes of the last hundred or so years. We enjoyed the outward successes all the while distancing ourselves from those core components, hating God, home, and country because they got in the way – they required hard work and commitment to something outside ourselves. We replaced something we saw as the drudgery–cum–slavery of our parents and grandparents lives with an idealism (all must be made equal and free – in the sense of the world) that takes little work beyond a few donations and some sloganeering now and then.
Toward the end of the article Mr. Dreher notes
We will know that the transition is well underway, Sorokin says, when the most creative minds turn from engagement with the fields of endeavor that serve sensate ends, and are instead attracted to ideational/idealistic pursuits. We will know the transition is well underway when we see among us new St. Pauls, new St. Augustines — and new St. Benedicts.
Then he quotes from Alasdair MacIntyre’s final lines in “After Virtue”:
A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead . . . was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. . . . This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another —” doubtless quite different —” St. Benedict.
Interestingly I was reading an entry from one of the people I follow on Twitter, Brad Abare and came across his wife’s blog – Jamaica Abare. She writes in Monastic Movements:
I’m not sure why the book Punk Monk resonated so deeply with me, perhaps because it chronicles what God is doing in England which appeals to my perception that the British are a little ahead of the game intellectually. I’m somewhat familiar with the ethos of the new monastic movements that my generation is embracing, but this quote in Punk Monk somehow gives some intellectual girth to what my hear draws me to.
It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who prophesied:
The restoration of the church will surely come from a sort of
new monasticism, which has only in common with the old
an uncompromising attitude of life according to the
Sermon on the Mount in the following of Christ. I believe it
is now to call people together to do thisIf the monastic movements of the past were driven by a need to provide an alternative to the compromise in the Church, then how much does our own predicament in the modern church parallel a need for an alternative…
This desire for an alternative is not born out of rebellion against the modern church, but rather a recognition that an organic gathering of people, not simply around weekly services, but around community meals, prayer, and acts of justice and mercy provide greater opportunity to see and be Christ to our hurting neighborhoods and world.
So I wonder, Is the monastic way of life, communally simple and Christocentric, the way forward? Is that the way by which civilization will be maintained and by which the building blocks of the “new world order” will emerge? Is it happening to you, where you live, among your associates? If so, in what manner?
Over the next few weeks I will attempt to explore Bishop Hodur’s take on this subject as spelled out in his epic The Apocalypse of the XXth Century.
Now it becomes you also not to treat your bishop too familiarly on account of his youth, but to yield him all reverence, having respect to the power of God the Father, as I have known even holy presbyters do, not judging rashly, from the manifest youthful appearance [of their bishop], but as being themselves prudent in God, submitting to him, or rather not to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, the bishop of us all. It is therefore fitting that you should, after no hypocritical fashion, obey [your bishop], in honour of Him who has willed us [so to do], since he that does not so deceives not [by such conduct] the bishop that is visible, but seeks to mock Him that is invisible. And all such conduct has reference not to man, but to God, who knows all secrets.
It is fitting, then, not only to be called Christians, but to be so in reality: as some indeed give one the title of bishop, but do all things without him. Now such persons seem to me to be not possessed of a good conscience, seeing they are not stedfastly gathered together according to the commandment.
Seeing, then, all things have an end, these two things are simultaneously set before us—” death and life; and every one shall go unto his own place. For as there are two kinds of coins, the one of God, the other of the world, and each of these has its special character stamped upon it, [so is it also here.] The unbelieving are of this world; but the believing have, in love, the character of God the Father by Jesus Christ, by whom, if we are not in readiness to die into His passion, His life is not in us. — Chapter Three through Five.
Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the [Church] blessed in the grace of God the Father, in Jesus Christ our Saviour, in whom I salute the Church which is at Magnesia, near the Mæander, and wish it abundance of happiness in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ.
Having been informed of your godly love, so well-ordered, I rejoiced greatly, and determined to commune with you in the faith of Jesus Christ. For as one who has been thought worthy of the most honorable of all names, in those bonds which I bear about, I commend the Churches, in which I pray for a union both of the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ, the constant source of our life, and of faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred, but especially of Jesus and the Father, in whom, if we endure all the assaults of the prince of this world, and escape them, we shall enjoy God.
Since, then, I have had the privilege of seeing you, through Damas your most worthy bishop, and through your worthy presbyters Bassus and Apollonius, and through my fellow-servant the deacon Sotio, whose friendship may I ever enjoy, inasmuch as he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ, [I now write to you]. — Greeting through Chapter 2
We pause today to honor…
Growing up, that is what Memorial Day was all about. Those lessons, learned as a child, are engraved, engraved and part of me. They are lessons time and tide cannot touch. They are truths that surpass the nowness of today. They tell us that history builds upon a continuity of national spirit. That continuity is more valuable than the whims of politicians and the exaggerated ideas of those who wish to hijack the national treasure. At core we are to be about honor.
My father, grandfather, and most of my uncles were veterans. Those few who did not serve in the armed forces served at home. They made the steel that built the ships, planes, and tanks. They protected the home front as police officers. After their time of service they remained loyal to the ideals they fought to protect and maintain. Lessons engraved. Honor.
I saw it after my father died. The flag draped coffin, honor guard, rife salute, taps. I was only four. I saw it each year as my grandfather attended to the veterans graves, including his son’s, at St. Stanislaus cemetery in Buffalo, New York. Those men from the Adam Plewacki Post, #799 of the American Legion, walked the rows of headstones, placing flags for the fallen. I saw it as I served at Funeral Masses and assisted the priest at the cemetery. God, family, country. Lessons engraved. Honor.
Near my father’s grave was the grave of an uncle of one of my classmates. He was killed in action over Europe. Army Air Corps. On the front of his monument there was a small picture. I always stopped to pray there after visiting my father, to honor him. Honor.
Memorial Day will always be about honor. More than honor it is a fitting reminder of what we are as a country. We must pause and remember, not just the service or sacrifice of our father, uncles, brothers, grandparents, and friends, but their eyes, ears, and voices. We must take their vision, the words that they fought for, and the pledges that they took, and we must recapture them. We need their vision, the words they honored, and faithfulness to the pledges they took.
As they did, let us place the Lord God in front of all we do, first and foremost, and render Him due homage. Let us honor God and God’s way above all. Loyalty to His way protects us from the temptation to strike first, to retaliate, to exchange wrong for wrong, to sell truth for sloganeering.
Then our families. The family as core to our communal way of life. Families in communities who maintain self sufficiency, community responsibility, neighborliness, hard work, and charity. Families who sustain community for the common good, because we must live side-by-side without prejudice or scorn. People living in freedom and sharing the gifts of freedom with each other. People who will acclaim: ‘I am free – my neighbor deserves the same respect.’ People who believe that they really must be their brother’s keeper when he is in need.
Finally our nation. Not nation over all, but nation for the sake of good order and the protection of just laws. Not laws over people, and intrusive government, but a shared ideal of what a nation can do by garnering the collective will and strength of its people, only when necessary, and always vigilant against exploitation. Not a nation of invaders, but a nation wary to fight, wary to venture abroad, wary of might over right, the stick over the words.
We pause today to honor the fallen, and to honor their honor. We pause to reflect and then to turn again, to take up their honor and to be steadfast in our allegiance to God, to our families, and to our country. We pause, and with our engraved memory renewed, we take up the fight for our Country. Their ideals, our ideals, bound by honor.
O Judge of the nations, we remember before You with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant that we may not rest until all the people in this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — BCP (1979), Thanksgiving for Heroic Service
Having learned these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ; and that of this David sung of old, saying, And bread strengthens man’s heart, to make his face to shine with oil, strengthen your heart, by partaking thereof as spiritual, and make the face of your soul to shine. And so having it unveiled with a pure conscience, may you reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord, and proceed from glory to glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord:—” To whom be honour, and might, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen. — Catechetical Lecture 22.
Therefore Solomon also, hinting at this grace, says in Ecclesiastes, Come hither, eat your bread with joy (that is, the spiritual bread; Come hither, he calls with the call to salvation and blessing), and drink your wine with a merry heart (that is, the spiritual wine); and let oil be poured out upon your head (you see he alludes even to the mystic Chrism); and let your garments be always white, for the Lord is well pleased with your works; for before you came to Baptism, your works were vanity of vanities. But now, having put off your old garments, and put on those which are spiritually white, you must be continually robed in white: of course we mean not this, that you are always to wear white raiment; but you must be clad in the garments that are truly white and shining and spiritual, that you may say with the blessed Esaias, My soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with a garment of salvation, and put a robe of gladness around me. — Catechetical Lecture 22.