In the midst of an academy weekend, I settle in for the evening amidst books, music and some new furniture that rounds out the reading room of my living room: more shelves to give some space to breathe and a foot companion to last years armstool. Funny story about the armchair is that I picked it up last year's retreat to Guadalupe Abbey in Lafayette. Only about a month later did I realize that the chair, lamp and other rearrangements gave me a space that replicated my situation in the abbey guest quarters.
Tonight I am looking into the life of St. Malachy of Ireland. In addition to some interesting prophesies that I knew about previously, as it turns out he was an almost exact contemporary of St. Bernard and brought Cistercian practice to Ireland. I picked it up yesterday in Reed's library while looking for a book on Francis Xavier for my second homily assignment. I couldn't resist it and now I am really glad I followed through on the urge. The difference of perspective of Cluniac and Cistercian monks was the subject of my reflection paper this week, which was the primary purpose of my visit to Reed last night. i needed the space and time set aside to produce it. I am finding that I work really well there.
Tonight though, is not production but quiet reflection. Other matters on the table before final lights out are Prayer Book evolution as I now have copies of the 1662 English standard and the 1928 American to go along with my Oxford Guide to the subject.
So many fascinating nooks and crannies within this faith that in principle can be so simple (if not easy). In the midst of all this complexity is a hunger for the sacred and for mystery. My historical studies this term with the academy have stirred up a consciousness of this cloud of witnesses. As our chaplain reminded me this evening, it is this cloud with whom we pray the office even when we are alone.
May the blessings of peace be with you this night.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
A new milestone
So my birthday just passed. Two years ago I spend my birthday evening in the "Introduction to Benedictine Practice" class prior to joining my community. Last year I was in a mini-retreat at Guadalupe Trappist Abbey from the day before to the day after my birthday. This year I spent it at the Academy. In addition to turning in a pile of written work, I delivered my first sermon and survived.
Just for fun, here is the text:
Sometimes once you notice something you start seeing it everywhere. That’s how I feel about this evening’s Psalm over the past couple weeks. As I started thinking about preaching for the first time, I remembered my church growing up. We used the final verse of this Psalm as a responsive prayer in preparation for the Sunday sermon. I had considered using it here even before I knew that we would already be praying it together. I wasn’t even sure which psalm that verse came from. It cropped up again about a week ago in my Benedictine small group. That week’s leader had chosen it as our opening prayer and we reveled in its expansive language. I was pleased both to run into the verse that I had in mind and to see the beauty of its original context. And so as I begin, I feel blessed that this scripture from my early formation has shown up to greet me in a new phase of formation.
Tonight, we are honoring the life and work of Richard Hooker: an Anglican apologist born in the decade following the printing of the first Book of Common Prayer. He would devote an entire volume of his primary work, “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” to defending the Prayer book and its style of worship against the claims of the Puritans. As is generally the case with great works, this undertaking has roots earlier in our scholar’s life. Richard Hooker was Master of Temple Church in London from 1585 to 1591. The unusual title for his position as rector comes from the church’s origin as the English headquarters for the Knights Templar. Needless to say, the Knights hit an extremely bad run of luck and their space became the spiritual home to others. In Hooker’s time, it was primarily home to lawyers, judges and future hopefuls in that field. It was also home to those of a more reform and even puritanically minded Christianity. Hooker’s traditionally oriented Mastership was balanced by a Puritan named Walter Travers, who was nominally Hooker’s assistant, but was in reality a bit of an opponent and theologian in his own right. He held the title of Reader of the Temple. While the Master was in charge, it was the Reader who generally set the theological teaching and tone. Naturally they didn’t see eye to eye. From what I could find it does not seem that Hooker had a particularly great effect on his flock’s opinions at the time, though Travers was eventually censured for annoying the Archbishop one too many times.
It is not surprising then, when away from London in a less demanding post that he should take up the question once again. Five volumes of “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” were published in his lifetime and three more after his untimely death from a winter chill. However, the compelling thing to me is that he was not trying to defeat either the Catholic position or that of the Puritans. In some ways, he was really playing for a draw. He began by demonstrating the very small kernel of doctrine necessary for salvation. He showed that not even the creeds are based on the scriptures alone but by our reason applied to them. They represent a developing tradition of inquiry upon the revelation of Christ’s life and teachings. Some even point to this argument as the origin of our “Anglican Three-Legged Stool” of Scripture, Tradition and Reason. What his line of reasoning did show is how Christians are connected on the most fundamental level and that much of the rest can come or go without anyone risking their salvation. All he wanted to demonstrate was that the Church of England was a suitable vehicle for the mystery of Christ. Indeed one of his complaints against the Puritans was that they were pushing too hard on the mystery and trying to sharpen edges that were meant to be a bit blurry. There is a beautiful line from his Laws which speaks to this: “Oh, that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how.”
This tendency to avoid the sharp edges and hard extremes is an important characteristic of Anglicanism. It is driven not by a sense of avoidance, at least not on our good days, but rather by seeking unity. One of my favorite snippets of prayer from our liturgy is the beginning of Form III of the Prayers of the People: “Father, we pray for your Holy Catholic Church; that we all may be one”. I feel that Richard Hooker was praying that prayer too, the one we take from today’s gospel reading.
Today we hear Jesus’ prayer for us. He reaches beyond and through all the pages of history that we’ve been studying these past several weeks and reaches right into this gathering. The one we gather around prays this his disciples and all those in the great chain of followers that they initiate can hold things together that we might know the unity that he has experienced with God. We might be a little rough around the edges, a bit more fractured that perhaps one might wish, but if we believe with Richard Hooker that all we need is our connection to Christ to be Christian, than we can celebrate that connection and our Lord’s prayer reaching our ears this evening.
All of our struggles with understanding are perhaps the bulk of the Christian story we have been reading, but they are not the thread binding the book together. That honor goes to this unifying love Jesus prayed for us. And with this love might just come a sense of the wisdom that Paul points to in our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians. It might be hiding out between the lines of this contentious story. Paul assures us that it is there, behind the competing claims of this world that will pass away. Where there is now a façade of struggle and argument, we might one day find wisdom holding us up like the Strength of the Lord, the Redeeming Rock, of our Psalm.
In spring for the past couple years I have attended a conference on the Emerging Church hosted by Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. The first year the backdrop behind the speakers was a great tree representing the Christian tradition with its roots in Judaism and its branches spreading out into the various denominations that we know today. This symbol was a reminder for us that what can look fractured might indeed be the development of a living unity when looked at from a different angle. Jesus is the seed that brought forth this flourishing tree: one holy tree that we may be one in him as he was one with God. I offer up Richard Hooker this night as a careful and loving gardener that tended to our branch just as it was emerging from the limb that had carried it that far. Amen.
Feast of Richard Hooker
Psalm 19
1 Cor 6-10, 13-16
John 17:18-23
Background reading on Richard Hooker
Lee W. Gibbs, Richard Hooker: Prophet of Anglicanism or English magisterial reformer? (Evanston, IL: Anglican Theological Review 84:4, 2002).
Robert K. Faulkner, Richard Hooker and the Politics of a Christian England (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1981).
“Richard Hooker,” http://www.parishes.oxford.anglican.org/draytonbeauchamp/richard_hooker.htm, downloaded on 10/29/2010.
Just for fun, here is the text:
Sometimes once you notice something you start seeing it everywhere. That’s how I feel about this evening’s Psalm over the past couple weeks. As I started thinking about preaching for the first time, I remembered my church growing up. We used the final verse of this Psalm as a responsive prayer in preparation for the Sunday sermon. I had considered using it here even before I knew that we would already be praying it together. I wasn’t even sure which psalm that verse came from. It cropped up again about a week ago in my Benedictine small group. That week’s leader had chosen it as our opening prayer and we reveled in its expansive language. I was pleased both to run into the verse that I had in mind and to see the beauty of its original context. And so as I begin, I feel blessed that this scripture from my early formation has shown up to greet me in a new phase of formation.
Tonight, we are honoring the life and work of Richard Hooker: an Anglican apologist born in the decade following the printing of the first Book of Common Prayer. He would devote an entire volume of his primary work, “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” to defending the Prayer book and its style of worship against the claims of the Puritans. As is generally the case with great works, this undertaking has roots earlier in our scholar’s life. Richard Hooker was Master of Temple Church in London from 1585 to 1591. The unusual title for his position as rector comes from the church’s origin as the English headquarters for the Knights Templar. Needless to say, the Knights hit an extremely bad run of luck and their space became the spiritual home to others. In Hooker’s time, it was primarily home to lawyers, judges and future hopefuls in that field. It was also home to those of a more reform and even puritanically minded Christianity. Hooker’s traditionally oriented Mastership was balanced by a Puritan named Walter Travers, who was nominally Hooker’s assistant, but was in reality a bit of an opponent and theologian in his own right. He held the title of Reader of the Temple. While the Master was in charge, it was the Reader who generally set the theological teaching and tone. Naturally they didn’t see eye to eye. From what I could find it does not seem that Hooker had a particularly great effect on his flock’s opinions at the time, though Travers was eventually censured for annoying the Archbishop one too many times.
It is not surprising then, when away from London in a less demanding post that he should take up the question once again. Five volumes of “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity” were published in his lifetime and three more after his untimely death from a winter chill. However, the compelling thing to me is that he was not trying to defeat either the Catholic position or that of the Puritans. In some ways, he was really playing for a draw. He began by demonstrating the very small kernel of doctrine necessary for salvation. He showed that not even the creeds are based on the scriptures alone but by our reason applied to them. They represent a developing tradition of inquiry upon the revelation of Christ’s life and teachings. Some even point to this argument as the origin of our “Anglican Three-Legged Stool” of Scripture, Tradition and Reason. What his line of reasoning did show is how Christians are connected on the most fundamental level and that much of the rest can come or go without anyone risking their salvation. All he wanted to demonstrate was that the Church of England was a suitable vehicle for the mystery of Christ. Indeed one of his complaints against the Puritans was that they were pushing too hard on the mystery and trying to sharpen edges that were meant to be a bit blurry. There is a beautiful line from his Laws which speaks to this: “Oh, that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how.”
This tendency to avoid the sharp edges and hard extremes is an important characteristic of Anglicanism. It is driven not by a sense of avoidance, at least not on our good days, but rather by seeking unity. One of my favorite snippets of prayer from our liturgy is the beginning of Form III of the Prayers of the People: “Father, we pray for your Holy Catholic Church; that we all may be one”. I feel that Richard Hooker was praying that prayer too, the one we take from today’s gospel reading.
Today we hear Jesus’ prayer for us. He reaches beyond and through all the pages of history that we’ve been studying these past several weeks and reaches right into this gathering. The one we gather around prays this his disciples and all those in the great chain of followers that they initiate can hold things together that we might know the unity that he has experienced with God. We might be a little rough around the edges, a bit more fractured that perhaps one might wish, but if we believe with Richard Hooker that all we need is our connection to Christ to be Christian, than we can celebrate that connection and our Lord’s prayer reaching our ears this evening.
All of our struggles with understanding are perhaps the bulk of the Christian story we have been reading, but they are not the thread binding the book together. That honor goes to this unifying love Jesus prayed for us. And with this love might just come a sense of the wisdom that Paul points to in our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians. It might be hiding out between the lines of this contentious story. Paul assures us that it is there, behind the competing claims of this world that will pass away. Where there is now a façade of struggle and argument, we might one day find wisdom holding us up like the Strength of the Lord, the Redeeming Rock, of our Psalm.
In spring for the past couple years I have attended a conference on the Emerging Church hosted by Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. The first year the backdrop behind the speakers was a great tree representing the Christian tradition with its roots in Judaism and its branches spreading out into the various denominations that we know today. This symbol was a reminder for us that what can look fractured might indeed be the development of a living unity when looked at from a different angle. Jesus is the seed that brought forth this flourishing tree: one holy tree that we may be one in him as he was one with God. I offer up Richard Hooker this night as a careful and loving gardener that tended to our branch just as it was emerging from the limb that had carried it that far. Amen.
Feast of Richard Hooker
Psalm 19
1 Cor 6-10, 13-16
John 17:18-23
Background reading on Richard Hooker
Lee W. Gibbs, Richard Hooker: Prophet of Anglicanism or English magisterial reformer? (Evanston, IL: Anglican Theological Review 84:4, 2002).
Robert K. Faulkner, Richard Hooker and the Politics of a Christian England (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1981).
“Richard Hooker,” http://www.parishes.oxford.anglican.org/draytonbeauchamp/richard_hooker.htm, downloaded on 10/29/2010.
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