rogation days: taking the prayers of the earth to heaven

the 'meaning' of the days before the ascension, the rogation days, pretty much depends upon how we understand the ascension.  the more thoroughly we ponder and understand the wonder of our lord's taking the human body he received from the blessed virgin, taking our very nature as the human one, into heaven, the richer the rogation days become.

one tradition expressed on rogation days is prayer for crops, for agriculture, for 'the garden.'  in many places there are processions around the fields, and prayers for rain in due season, and general fecundity.

but they are also days to ponder prayer in general.  so on these rogation days, as i weed my garden, overgrown with strange things that appeared while i was out of town, and plant new seeds to replace those washed away in the recent deluge, i am also considering prayer, using fr. lev gillet's wonderful little book, in thy presence (crestwood, new york:  st. vladimir's seminary press, 1977).  i would love to put the whole thing in this post, but i will be content to one short chapter:
'first thing in the morning, lord . . . .
'lord love, may my first word this morning go out to thee, blessing thy name!
'as this day begins, i believe, i feel, that thy immense goodness is falling on all that exists.  the spring of love continues to pour forth even when we seem to see nothing but evil and suffering around us.  whether it be visibly, whether it be secretly, thou art never weary of helping and of loving.  today, again, thou wilt b fighting for us.
'we await from thee the graces needed for this day.  with our earthly bread, give us thy heavenly good, the pure wheat of thy limitless love, the true sustance of our life.  with trust, we place in thy hands our practical difficulties, our sorrows, our fears born of little faith.
'we have no other succour, we have no other hope than thy love.  may it guide our steps today, a column of light going forward into the heart of apparent darkness!
'lord,  a sense of life that is given, of sacrifice, inspires everything which, each day, comes to us from thee.  redeeming love wished to suffer for us, to die for us.  make me share this desire to give the live i have received.
'lord, may the purifying action of redeeming love wash from my soul the multitude of my sins.  unite around thy love, in thy love, those who know thee, those who seek thee without kowing thee, and those for whom thou seekest.  we want to be thine.  take us.'  (p. 31)

the holy ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sin, and the resurrection of the body: st. venantius

venantius is one of my favourite kinds of saints.  his legend starts, "venantius is said to have been a martyr at camerino during the third century, but nothing whatsoever is know for certain about him."  yet he remains on the calendar, being called to mind every year, with a proper hymn for both matins and vespers, even if neither has yet made it to youtube, and this collect:

"o god, who has consecrated this day with the triumph of thy blessed martyr venantius:  mercifully hear the prayers of thy people; and grant that we who venerate his righteousness, may imitate the constance of his faith in thee."

now, you might wonder--i hope you wonder--why such as venantius would be one of my favourites.  first, i don't need to know anything about him to enjoy the benefits of his life.  he is one of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before without whom i might not be at all.  in that sense, he resembles, for instance, my welsh ancestors who sometime left wales and went to michigan--i imagine much like one of the sons let off from the mines in how green was my valley, or one of the englishmen in my mother's family who, probably to pay off debts, left for georgia.  the opportunities i have today are the result of the consance of the faith of venantius and of them.

but also he is one of my favourites because of s. john's image of the prayers of the saints around the throne, rising like golden bowls of incense, longing for their number to be complete.  venantius is one of their number.  and, he prays for me.  by that i don' mean so much that he intercedes for me but that he with the others who have finished the race pray as it were in my place all of those times when i am lax or sleepy or forgetful or just lazy.

but perhaps most importantly, venantius and the others in his great cloud--do we get the idea of saints in clouds from the book of hebrews--are truly witnesses.  if the son is the witness to the father, and the holy ghost is the witness to the son, it is the church in her fullness who is the witness to the holy ghost.  the sequence of the creed, which i borrowed as a title for this little essay, is i think very important. the resurrection of the body is only possible because of the forgivenessof sins (love does indeed win), and the forgiveness of sins only happens within the communion of saints, which is the product of the holy catholic church, which is filled with the holy ghost.

i don't need to know much about venantius to rejoice in his triumph, but i can rest in the assurance that his triumph ultimately benefits us all.  thanks be to god.

islam and harvard and princeton and boston

i am deep in the heart of texas for a few weeks, visiting friends and enjoying the hospitality of the booher library at the epscopal theological seminary of the southwest.  sunday after "making my communion" as episcopalians sometimes say at all saints church, rite one in an historic building,  i went with friends to st. michael's, which is properly on a hill appropriate to it's patronage, and where there were lots of bells and whistles and howard galley's "star trek prayer," as it's fondly called, which i thought had found a happy rest.

there was also a guest preacher, the rev. jeffrey samuel, of the diocese of peshawar, in pakistan, who has been working on a diploma in theological studies at the seminary.  although english is not fr. jeffrey's first language, he was very eloquent.  one of the things he discussed was "the islamic concept about jesus."  there are, he said, two concepts.  the first concept held by many muslim people is that "they don't believe that he died on a cross.  why--because prophets were innocent people. this insulting death is against their prestige."  the second concept, "accepted by the ahmadi sect of the muslims [is that] . . . jesus [was]brought to the point of death on the cross, but he did not die on the cross.  jesus was just unconscious on the cross due to his suffering and persection.  people thought that jesus was dead, but he was not.  so they took jesus from the cross and after a few days jesus was healed and jesus went to kashmit.  and he lived 120 years in kashmit and then he died a natural death."

this, i thought, sounds familiar. over the past several months i have read several books claiming to be "christology," written by professors at universities as harvard and princeton and boston, which have suggested the same or very similar ideas.  these books were published by respectable publishing houses, and someof them are used as text books in respectable seminaries.  indeed the lesson from acts was described in the service leaflet as "written by the (unknown) author of luke-acts sometime between 90 and 110 ad.  . . . it is 'late second generation' and begins to reflecton the history of the jesus movement and how far it has come since the days when the church was founded . . . "  l. michael white.  from jesus to christianity (harpersanfrancisco:  2004), p. 252.

fr. jeffrey concluded:  "we all are called to be witnesses about jesus.  we, you and me, have to proclaim the good news not only to the christians, but also among the non-christians and save their souls for christ.  we are working very hard in pakistan to keep our faith and give testimony to non-christians.  we need your prayers and support.  thank you."

it does not seem that we are working very hard in this counry.  we need prayers and support, too.