st. john of damascus

john of damascus would probably have a much harder time these days than he did in the seventh and eighth centuries. in the seventh and eighth centuries the struggle between christians and muslims was hardly off the ground. he is famous for his hymns, but even more famous for his defense of icons.

what i find so fascinating about his defense of icons is that he was able to write his treatises, usually called on the holy images, because he had the protection of his muslim friends. he had been born in damascus, his father had worked for the caliph, and he had as well before he retired to the desert of palestine. he, as did many of his contemporaries, thought of the muslims as another christian heresy.

ironically, it is usually thought that the orthodox aversion to icons at this time was because the muslims looked upon the holy images as a violation of the second commandment.

had he remained closer to the centers of power and orthodoxy during the iconoclastic controversy, john would probably been severely punished; almost certainly his treatises would not have been published. but working at the fringes of imperial power, he was protected by the caliph and produced the work that led to his often being called "the last of the fathers."

a great week of saints

st. cedd, st. alfred the great, st. frumentius, st. neot and sts. simon and thaddeus all have come up this week. oddly enough, there are quite a lot of connexions between them.

cedd of course is the brother of my patron, chad, but he was also one of the most southern-traveling of the northumbrians, and worked in the territory of which alfred was king. (if alfred had not won at edington, you might be reading this in a language which, even if after 1066 and all that sounded much the same, would be called danish.) alfred was the patron of neot of glastonbury, a scholar and monk who was very influential on alfred. at a time when most kings were pretty bloody even if they were christian (think of my patronymic ancester, cadwaladr, who was a "christian" but who allied himself again and again with the pagan penda in wars against the christian kings of northumbria), alfred truly was a kinder and gentler sort of ruler.

neot shares his feast day with ss. simon and jude, who amongst other things were missionaries to persia. jude is also known as thaddeus, and in persia is called addai, the composer of the liturgy of sts. addai and mari, also used by the church in abbysinia, whose founder was st. frumentius.

the old testament reading for today's feast of simon and jude from isaiah (28:9-16) seems appropriate to all of these saints: "precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; . . . i lay in zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste."

and of course with all of them the collect for today is appropriate:

"O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone; Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

commemoration of st. frideswide

with the feast of luke the evangelist and iconographer and the new martyrs of russia available for consideration, why should i choose to mention the somewhat obscure 8th century mercian abbess frideswide? i chose to write about her because the history of the modern western church seems to be described by the history of her foundation. i can probably do no better than to quote her story from fr. beverly c. hughson o.h.c.'s athletes of god, pp. 335-336:

"this saint was a mercian abbess, the daughter of a prince who lived at oxford early in the eighth century. the old story is that algar, a neighboring prince, sought her hand in marriage. fearing lest her father would compel her to accept his addresses, she fled from oxford with two nuns in a boat, rowed by an angel in the likeness of a young man clothed in white, and took refuge in a wood near abingdon. many stories similar to this are told of this holy virgin. there is no question, however that she founded a convent at oxford and for many years devoted herself to the service of the poor and outcast. her convent was in later times given to the augustinian canons, and it was acquired by cardinal wolsey for his cardinal college, which afterwards became christ church. the chapel of this college, which was built in the twelfth century, is now the cathedral church of the oxford diocese. the bones of the saint were cast out of their tomb [see photo above] in the chapel in the reign of edward vi, and those of the wife of peter martyr, the reformer, enshrined in their stead. under queen mary the bones of the intruding lady were removed, and the relics of st. frideswide restored. when elizabeth came to the throne, she ordered the former to be returned to the shrine without disturbing those of the saint. so now it is said that they both rest in the same shrine, and those who go to venerate the relics of the saint have opportunity of contemplating the remains of her strange bedfellow."

monasticism in its early days was often an attempt to escape from the growing worldly politics in which the church was becoming engaged. frideswide's refusal of a political marriage and the privileges it would provide were well understood and appreciated in the early british church. consider the legend of the seven desert fathers who brought monastic christianity to wales and cornwall, and the popularity of the visit of st. anthony to st. paul as the bottom image on standing crosses.

but monasticism, too, came to be a source of power, rather than of seeking one thing: to know god. st. frideswide's abbey became an augustinian house. then the royally established episcopacy took over, and cardinal woolsey made it into a "college." at first colleges were legitimate institutions for christian learning, one may hope. but the despotic rule of henry, which the reformers thought they could turn to their advantage, made cardinal college a royal establishment instead, although cleverly named not king's (that would happen at the even more protestant cambridge) but christ college.

now even the bones of the monastic foundress were removed, and those of a foreign-born scholar replaced them. with the elizabethan settlement, all the bones were thrown in together, a somewhat macabre pre-curser of the claims of the history channel, for example, which claims that truth is to be found simply by considering everyone's "opinions." it is sad to consider that the pharisees have prevailed in so much of the modern church.

st. thais

i admit right up front that one of the reasons i decided to post on the commemoration of st. thais is to have a link to joshua bell's playing of the interlude in massenet's opera. but the real life of the penitent saint and the story as told by the romantic massenet are slightly different. paphnutius was not so distracted by her physical beauty as to be driven mad. rather he was given a vision of a throne awaiting some saint in heaven. he assumed it would be for s. anthony, but he was told instead that it awaited s. thais, the penitent, who reposed only fifteen days after entering the desert monastery.

praying the scriptures

a letter from a friend arrived yesterday with a very useful problem. ryan knight is a campus minister at a large state school. he is thinking of introducing praying the scripture to his students, but they are already having trouble understanding praying the psalms. so i thought about this as i walked out to the county's highest ridge, with a view of the kings river.

i had recently sent him one very practical book on the subject, which i did not yet know he had not read. oh well. but i thought, another book is probably not going to be much help anyway.

and it dawned on me that praying scripture is really very simple:
think about someone you love very much.
imagine that person in serious trouble.
think of yourself praying for that person.
think how you would want the holy one to listen to your prayer.
read scripture listening that way.

we are the ones whom god loves very much.
we are in serious trouble, and not for our sins only, but for the sin of the world.
the holy one speaks to us in scripture.
our listening is praying the scripture.

the next problem ryan came up with is that many of his students are still in denial that they are in serious trouble. but that is why so much of the scripture is stories. they catch us up in ways we aren't expecting. but that's perhaps the subject of another post.

eucharist & christology

the past few days i am thinking about the eucharist (ian t. ramsey, ed. london: s.c.m. press, 1972), particularly about the anglican eucharist in ecumenical perspective (edward p. echlin, s.j. new york: the seabury press, 1968), because i am starting a mission and the eucharistic rite we use is an ecumenical version of an anglican usage.

my thinking has led to several observations.

in times of great change in our understanding of epistemology and ontology, such as occured at the time of the reformation and is occuring now, in what we often call the post-modern era, the church is forced to rethink its understanding of the euchrarist in a very fundamental way if she is going to be able to make that understanding "understanded of the people." this seems obvious, but what may not be so obvious is how comprehensive eucharistic theology is. our understanding of the eucharist is interwoven with our understanding of the world.

as those understandings change, we look for authorities to support our new understandings. archbishop cramner looked to the continental reformers, especially martin bucer and peter martyr. the archbishops of york and canterbury in these days look to a "commission" drawn from the various academic "disciplines." the editors of "the liturgy of st. tikhon" looked to the russian church, which is seen, perhaps wrongly, as having preserved the tradition without the controversies of the reformation.

but seldom is eucharistic theology discussed in clearly christological terms. (welcome exceptions are the essays by j.l. houlder and h.e.w. turner in thinking about the euchraist.) it seems that much of the argument that accompanied the reformation and counter-reformation, as both the "catholic" and "protestant" parties of the western church tried to adjust their understanding of the eucharistic events to the new science, might have been helped by thinking of the bread and wine in terms of the definition chalcedon: the statements that are made about jesus christ as both man and god apply also to the bread and wine.

the "moment" of consecreation is not much discussed in the archbishops' book, but it has remained a point of contention for many who have written about the eucharistic event. father echlin, with fine jesuitical understanding, insists that oblation, anamnasis, and epiclesis are all necessary for the consecration. if we extrapolate from this to the acts of our lord, on maundy thursday, good friday, and either, in the johannine tradition, easter evening, or, in the lucan tradition, pentecost, then we have a parallel suggestion of events, actions, that are necessary for our salvation. then, of course, it may well be suggested that our salvation is the prelude and requirement for our sanctification.

so, i am led to another observation. one of the matters of contention during the reformation, brought up again in england during the oxford movement days, but now not getting much ink, was how the eucharist is a sacrifice, and if it is, is there an immolation. one of the reasons i am partial to the english rite is that it includes a self-oblation. it makes very clear that not only the bread and wine which are the body and blood of christ are made holy (which is the basic meaning of sacrifice), but the body of christ as the church gathered is made holy. our old selves are immolated, as we are sent out in the power of the spirit to be christ's body in the world.

the feast of the exaltation of the holy cross

today is one of my favourite holidays. when i first read the collect last night during the first vespers, i was at first a little disappointed. the old western collect is patterned after traditional jewish blessings: we thank god for giving us this celebration, and pray we may receive the benefits of it. but as i thought more about it, it seemed a wise way to approach such a complicated feast, with its look back to a wide range of old testament prophecies, and forward to a wide range of their fulfillments. in a way this feast is a recapitulation of all the old testament, not only a reminder that we're halfway to pasch, but also that we're halfway to the readings of the paschal vigil.

i found two of the posts at the blog, full of grace and truth to be particularly rich for this day. the first is for the day itself, and the second recognizes moses in the feast.