friday in bright week: the life-giving spring

one of the many wonderful things about living in eureka springs is, of course, the springs.  so i am particularly pleased that on friday in bright week the icon of the theotokos as the "life-giving spring" is celebrated.
my more or less "official" icon of the mother of god, as a monk, more or less, in the british tradition, more or less, is our lady of glastonbury, surrounded by celtic saints:

that icon has its own little shrine, where i also commemorate the seasons and feasts.

but the icon of the life-giving spring is in my beautiful corner.  here is the story of this icon, as described by st. isaac of syria skete.
"it shows how god is merciful and compassionate towards all men.  once a soldier named leo assisted a blind man who had lost his way.  while looking for water for him, he heard a voice from an unseen person say, 'emperor leo, take water and give it to the thirsty man; then dake some of the slime by it and put it in his eyes.'  to the soldier leo's surprise, a nearby spring gushed out before him.  when he did as the voice commanded him, the blind man received his sight.  this soldier later became the christian east roman or byzantine emperor leo i (457-473).

"when leo became the emperor, he erected a church in honor of the mother of god as this life-giving spring near the 'golden gates' in constantinople, where the spring had come up.  later the church was destroyed by the turks, but in 1835 a new church was built at the same site and consecratd by the ecumenical patriarch constantine.  this spring still flows for the salvation and healing of all who come there to visit mary's son."

the troparion for the feast (third tone):  "as a life-giving fount, thou didst conceive the dew that is transcendent in essence, o virgin maid.  and thou didst pour forth for us the immortal nectar.  and as  ever-flowing streams from thy fountain, thou broughtest forth the water that springeth up unto life everlasting; wherein, taking delight, we all cry out:  rejoice, o life-bearing fount."

and the kontkion (eighth tone):  "from thine un failing fount, o maiden full of grace, thou dost reward me by pouring forth of the unending streams of thy grace that passeth human understanding.  and sinc thou didst bear the word incomprehensibly, i entreat thee to refresh me with thy grace divine, that i may cry to thee:  rejoice, o water of salvation."

and here is a link to a greek hymn for the feast.

thursday in bright week: s. mary magdalene and easter eggs

thursday in bright week is the day the church takes special notice of s. mary magdalene.  in the gregorian lectionary of the west, today's gospel is from john (20:11-18).  although the orthodox gospel for today is from the third chapter of john, it is nevertheless the traditional day for easter eggs, which are first attributed to mary magdalene's missionary trip to rome, much before peter and paul. 

i have long been fascinated by mary magdalene;  in fact i made a small contribution to the writing of the icon above, by robert lentz, which is not in grace cathedral (episcopal), san francisco.  i had some knowledge of the importance of the role of mary magdalene, at least in the eastern church, when that icon was installed, around 1990, but i did not begin to understand how widespread her importance was.  so i was excited when a friend who worked for bear publishing gave me a preview copy of starbird's the woman with the alabaster jar  .  i was however, horrified when i read the book and found her history so hokey.  more horrified was i when i found so many people accepting her mis-history as it was presented in the da vinci code.    there is so much more that is available about mary magdalene than seems to be known by the princeton pharisees (by whom i mean the self-appointed "scholars," not all of whom are at princeton, who claim to know far more about scripture than the church.  hereafter i shall refer to them simply as pp"s.)

consider, for instance, the contrast so often drawn between s. gregory's description of s. mary m. as a reformed prostitute and the supposed supreme role of mary in what is called "the gospel of mary magdalene."  again and again i have heard or read the pp's telling  us that the connection between the woman from who was a known sinner--the woman with the alabaster jar who starbird claims to be not only mary madgalene but mrs. jesus of nazareth--is not assumed because the first naming of mary magdalene comes in the eighth chapter of luke right after the woman with the jar is described by simon, the host, as "a sinner."  but then the pp's never seem to tell us that indeed the document they call "the gospel according to mary magdalene" is not really a gospel at all, nor is the mary of the document identified as mary magdalene.

it is therefore, i think, interesting to look at some of the things s. gregory wrote about s. mary magdalene which are included in the readings for this day in the benedictine lectionary:

"mary magdalene, (if we may be permitted to identify her as) the woman of the city who was a sinner, through love of the truth, washed away by her tears the befoulment of her sin; and thereby the word of the truth was fulfilled which he spake:  her sins, which are many, are forgiven:  for she loved much.  . . .
"in connection with this matter, we ought to ponder on this, namely, the great store of love which was in that woman's heart.  for she, when even his disciples were gone away, could not tear  herself from the grave of the lord.  she south him whom she had not found there, and as she sought, she wept.  and the fire of love in her heart yearned after him, who (as she believed) had been taken away.  and so it came to pass that she, who had lingered to seek him, was the only one who then saw him.  for . . . the voice of the truth himself hath said:  he that endureth to the end shall be saved."  (as found in the anglican breviary (mount sinai, long island, new york:  the frank gavin liturgical foundation, inc., a. d. mcmlv), pp. c333-34)

now, i want to cut the pp's some slack.  they are victims, not of the catholic church, or of orthodoxy, but of the sort of confusion that inhabits so much of this post-human era. i was struck by this on easter sunday night, watching "jesus christ superstar" on turner classic movies.  it seemed to me to capture the essence of both the popularity and frustration of  the "historical jesus project."   mary magdalene is the first one in the movie to sing  "i don't know how to love him", but it is really judas iscariot who captures the real problem, who sings " i don't know how to love him,"  and then < "only want to know."  we fail to understand what real love is, or what real knowledge is.  it struck me that really all of the questions raised by the "historical jesus project" are pretty well contained in the movie.  in a time when love means sex and sex means, mostly, rape, then it is easy to understand how we cannot understand how mary can be said to love jesus without having sex with him.  we only want to know.  we're gnostics of the most materialistic sort.  (and i want to add a disclaimer here about one of the princeton scholars, elaine pagels, whose work has consistently exhibited an intellectual and emotional honesty despite her ignorance of the real traditions of the church.)

so i was very happpy to find that this link" to "love is come again" is illustrated by mary speaking to peter.  but i am also reminded that in the gospel according to john the most important question jesus will ask peter is not "do you know me?" or "do you think i am who they say i am? but "do you love me?"

we are all hard-hearted egyptians

i have been reading the second book of moses, the book of exodus as the days approach pascha.  this morning was chilling.  i read chapter seven, which tells of the first sign, the turning of the waters of the nile into blood.  i of course am reminded of the first sign of our lord, who turned the water of cana into wine.  i know where this is headed, and am amazed every time by the parallels of the exodus with john's gospel.  next friday, as the firstborn of the king of egypt is killed, we will read in the gospel according to john of the killing of the firstborn of god by the sons of aaron.  chilling stuff.  then on sunday i will read the fifteenth chapter, the song of miriam, and it will be part of the mass as well.

the psalms of the morning were 79, 80, and 81.  psalm 81 pretty much tells the story of all of us, the egyptians, the first israel, and the second israel, the church, as well:

Psalm 81. Exultate Deo.


SING we merrily unto God our strength; * make a cheerful noise unto the God of Jacob.

Take the psalm, bring hither the tabret, * the merry harp with the lute.

Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, * even in the time appointed, and upon our solemn feast-day.

For this was made a statute for Israel, * and a law of the God of Jacob.

This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, * when he came out of the land of Egypt, and had heard a strange language.

I eased his shoulder from the burden, * and his hands were delivered from making the pots.

Thou calledst upon me in troubles, and I delivered thee; * and heard thee what time as the storm fell upon thee.

I proved thee also * at the waters of strife.

Hear, O my people; and I will assure thee, O Israel, * if thou wilt hearken unto me,

There shall no strange god be in thee, * neither shalt thou worship any other god.

I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: * open thy mouth wide, and I shall fill it.

But my people would not hear my voice; * and Israel would not obey me;

So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, * and let them follow their own imaginations.

O that my people would have hearkened unto me! * for if Israel had walked in my ways,

I should soon have put down their enemies, * and turned my hand against their adversaries.

The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him; * but their time should have endured for ever.

I would have fed them also with the finest wheatflour; * and with honey out of the stony rock would I have satisfied thee.

i only wish i did not have such a large selection of children we are killing now, putting their blood in our gas tanks, selling their "governments" and them weapons, glutting our bellies and our cars with grain while they starve.  this nigerian child came on the first row of pictures of such children on google:
 

 
 
lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep thy law.

crones, wise old men, and calvin klein padded bikinis for infants

as many of you know, i am intrigued by the character of merlin.  in one of his many insightful essays, r. j. stewart, who seems merlin as a prefigurement of christ in many ways, reminds us that to think of merlin only as a wise old man is to miss the real importance of what his story has to tell us.  before merlink became the wise elder, he was a bright youth and a mad prophet.  (there are limits of course to merlin-christ parallels.  before moses was, jesus says, i am; but he was crucified as the beginning of his career as a mad prophet.)

but in most times and most places, it is expected that life will be a sort of on-going initiation, with each phase of our lives contributing it's own gift.  (for women, the phases are often described as maiden, mother, and crone.)  we often say of some one that he or see is "just going through a phase," but we seldom recognize the importance, indeed, the necessity of those phases.  and because sexuality is such a power in our lives, the phases are often described sexually.  often i am reminded of their necessity when some friend or another "comes out" as a lesbian or a homosexual.  my half-uncle frank told me wisely many years ago that when this happens, one must first relive one's teen-aged years.  painful, and foolish looking, but true.  also, it is important to remember that the wisest of us can be caught up in yearnings to skip the earlier phases, or to return to them.  the story of merlin and nenue is perhaps part of that temptation.

we seem to live in a time when the sexual part of the phases is the only one we really value.  if you doubt this, go to the grocery store and read the magazines in the check-out lane.  watch cable news as the story of something important to the lives of thousands of people, such as the earthquake in japan recently, has a footer about some movie star who has a new boy friend.

another part of our time's discontinuance with history is that we seem to value not only the sexual part of the phases of life, but only the mature first phase, the time when one is still a maiden or a bright youth, but has reached puberty and is in the full grasp of sexual desire.  as many writers have noted over the years, although because it is lent and it is the book i am reading right now, st. john climacus' book of the ladder, i tend to think about he has to say about the ability of appetite for good to open sexual appetite which opens us to other appetites.  advertisers well understand this, and make a lot of money from keeping us thinking we are still 19.  and, they put those sexually seductive magazines in grocery stores.

this leads us to all sorts of traps.  as moore and gillette noted in the king within, we tend to elect boy kings as presidents.  and it seems that we have far more boy bishops now than we ever had in the middle ages.   and we think that sexuality has benefits, that being proud of our desires is like having an american express gold card.

so we hear of people claiming that homosexuals have the right to be preists, or bishops.  one of the arguments is that they have always been  ordained "gay" people, so we should continue the practice.  but there is an important difference between our attitudes and the way we live and that of say, sixteenth century britain, and how they lived.  william laud was a bishop, and a man who had a fondness for men.  indeed it is reported that he had a particular fondness for the duke of buckingham, james (vith and ist)' "favourite."  but no one claimed that laud had a right to be bishop because of his sexual appetites.  it was not then the defining part of one's life.  sometimes i wish it might have been more important:  charles was sexually about as pure as any english monarch known, but it didn't save him his head.

now, laud was not a perfect bishop.  i and many others find his goals for the british church to be correct and congruent with truth.  but laud never became a wise old man.  he remained a mad prophet, and that would cost him his effectiveness, and perhaps also his head, although of course the puritans were taking heads like wild men of borneo are accused of doing.

it therefore seems to me, given the general flavour, shall we say, of contemporary society--or "the economy"--that we should not be the least bit surprised when the lords advertisorial not only want grandma to have her wrinkles removed but baby girls to have fake breasts. 

of course, there is an easy solution, although not a popular one.  don't buy it.  what is "it?"  well, most nearly everything.  it's very rare for me to buy anything i really need.  perhaps you're a better"consumer."  and recognize that desires do not necessarily need to be immediately or even eventually satisfied.  of course there is not a lot of support for such an attitude.  am i foolish to think that the church might consider it?

the visitation, f. d. maurice, and dammed justice

can anything good come out of gallilee?  well, mary, the mother of our lord, did, even though the church from early centuries found pious legends to put her in jerusalem.  last year i was wondering whether there were any cradle anglicans in anglican seminaries.  i am reminded by j. f. d. maurice that it is often the converts who make the most important contributions to the big church.

maurice was born into a unitarian family, although not a confident one, it seems:  he was baptised by his unitarian father in the name of the trinity; two of his sisters became baptists.  but he eventually was himself ordained in the anglican church, and although he is probably most widely remembered for his role in christian socialism, his teaching covering many areas have become influential in the decades since his death.  while marx would claim religion to be the "opiate of the people," maurice suggested that "we have been dosing our people with religion when what they want is not this but the living god." 

the controversies which caught up maurice seem to recur:  he was dismissed from his post at king's college for positions similar to what is today getting rob bell in trouble.  but the beginning of maurice's thought was always the creation of mankind in the image of god, and our restoration to the same in what the collect for his feast calls "the perfect obedience of our saviour jesus christ."  it is the recognition of the image of god in all people which requires our reponse to all people with "a passion for justice and truth."

in the celtic orthodox calendar, the visitation of the blessed virgin also occurs on 1 april.  it seems good to remember the fierce call to justice that mary sings as she visits elizabeth:

"my soul doth magnify the lord, *
    and my spirit hath rejoiced in god my savior.
for he hath regarded *
    the lowliness of his handmaiden.
for behold from henceforth *
    all generations shall call me blessed.
for he that is mighty hath magnified me, *
    and holy is his name.
and his mercy is on them that fear him *
    throughout all generations.
he hath showed strength with his arm; *
    he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
he hath put down the mighty from their seat, *
    and hath exalted the humble and meek.
he hath filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he hath sent empty away.
he remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant israel, *
    as he promised to our forefathers,
    abraham and his seed for ever."  (the holy gospel according to st. luke, 1: 46-55)

these are fearsome words, even though we often make them into   conforting-sounding songs .   but then the fear of god is the beginning of wisdom.  i am convinced that there is much more to christianity than  social justice.  but we must start there.  otherwise when we seek the kingdom of heaven, we are like the arkansas traveler, who when he asked for directions from the old geezer on the porch, was told, "you just can't get there from here."

here is the collect for frederick denison maurice from the american book of lesser feasts and fasts:

almighty god, you restored our human nature to heavenly glory through the perfect obedience of our saviour jesus christ:  keep alive in your church, we pray, a passion for justice and truth; that, like your servant frederick denison maurice, we may work and pray for the triumph of the kingdom of your christ, who lives and reigns with  you and the holy spirit, one god, now and for ever.  amen.

amen!