the anglican digest - spring 2016

7/24/2019 The Anglican Digest - Spring 2016

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SPRING A.D. 2016

VOL. 58 NO. 1

Te Church of St. Michael & St. GeorgeSt. Louis, Missouri

Member of the Parish Partner Plan


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SPRING A.D. 2016

VOL. 58 NO. 1

Te Church of St. Michael & St. GeorgeSt. Louis, Missouri

Member of the Parish Partner Plan


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For fify-eight years, Te Anglican Digest (AD) has been theleading quarterly publication serving the Anglican Communion.From its inception, ADs mission has been to reflect the wordsand work o the aithul throughout the Anglican Communion.At a time when print editions are becoming an endangeredspecies, AD remains a amiliar presence in the homes andoffices o many Episcopalians.

Founded in 1958 by the Rev. Howard Lane Foland (1908-1989),our heritage is Prayer Book Catholic, and is open to the needsand accomplishments o all expressions o Anglicanism: Anglo-Catholic, Broad, and Evangelical. Tus, AD does not cater toany one niche or segment o the Church, but finds its enduringethos in serving the Church, including her clergy and lay leaders,those theologically educated and babes in Christ. Each issue,thereore, is unique.

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F E

Te theme o this issue o Te Anglican Digestis the problem oevil and suffering that is, reconciling the existence o evil, pain,and suffering with the existence o a good, loving, and benevo-lent God. In addition to a number o new authors, we have cho-sen to re-publish two articles rom past issues o the Digest. We

hope that the words offered here will inspire, strengthen, and aidour readers as we observe Lent and Holy Week, and look orwardto Easter.

With this issue, we will begin recognizing the members o ourParish Partner Plan by printing photographs o their churcheson our covers. Although it will take us quite some time to get

through all o them, we see it as a way to thank the members othese parishes or their support o AD over the years, as wellas give our readers a concrete notion o their connection withpeople across the country and around the world.

Te cover photographs or this issue are o Te Church oSt. Michael and St. George, in St. Louis, Missouri; you can see

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7 W E C W G

12 S E R

16 M H

18 A W E W

21 D E G37 M S A I M M H

42 H F

45 G I P W P L

50 P, S, D

55 A L B

Tere cannot be a God o love, men say, because ithere was, and he looked upon the world, his heartwould break. Te Church points to the cross andsays, It did break. Its God who made the world,

men say. Its he who should bear the load. TeChurch points to the cross and says, He did bear it.

William emple98th Archbishop o Canterbury (1942-1944)


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To whom elsecould we go?

R. K SA D

think Jesus disciples werequite right when they said,this teaching is difficult,

who can accept it? What

teaching are the disciples re-erring to? Well, theyre re-erring to Jesus teaching justhere: Tose who eat my fleshand drink my blood abide inme, and I in them. Just as theliving Father sent me, and Ilive because o the Father, sowhoever eats me will live be-cause o me. Tis is the breadthat came down rom heaven,not like that which your an-cestors ate, and they died. Butthe one who eats this breadwill live orever.

Not long ago, our parish hadan instructed liturgy servicewhere we learned that our lit-urgy is essentially about hear-ing, learning, but ultimate-ly giving ourselves over to

concrete act o Jesus Christscoming amongst us in the

flesh. And one o the thingswe discussed was how exactlythis notion o in the flesh hasbeen understood and encap-sulated in our teaching aboutthe Eucharist and the Scrip-tures over the course o Isra-els and the Churchs history.

Tis week, Simon Peters an-swer to Jesus question tothose disciples who stop ol-lowing on account o thistough teaching set a slightlydifferent emphasis or us: Je-

sus says, I know there aresome among you who do notbelieve, and or this reason noone can come to me unlessit is granted by the Father.Tis apparently causes somewho had been ollowing Je-

sus to stop doing so. And soJesus turns to Simon Peterand says, do you also wishto leave? And Simon Peterreplies, Lord, to whom canwe go? You have the words oeternal lie. We have come to

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believe and know that you arethe Holy One o God.

Jesus Christ, in ull human-ity, has come amongst thesepeople so that they mightfind eternal lie in him. Buto course or those disciplesollowing as or the Israel-ites in the desert these arewords that come rom fleshand blood, rom a man, who,yes, has done some amazingthings, supposedly, as withMoses, by the power o God.But how can words eed thewandering, starving, thirsting

Israelites? How can a loa anda ew fish eed five thousand?How can Joseph and Marysson give eternal lie to thosewho ollow him? How can aman o flesh give lie to othersalready born into the world?

And perhaps because o a lacko logical coherence, or o de-sire not to appear a little men-tally off, or or political or fi-nancial reasons, or maybe justout o laziness or indifference,

or maybe even out o ear omaltreatment, some ollowers

take off. Te words, I knowthere are some amongst youwho dont believe and not allo you will come to me, seemto be the release or theseolks, mitigating a potentiallymounting tension that camewith ollowing Jesus; haltingthe need to ace into the po-tential demands placed ontheir lives, or at the least, thequestions it raised about howthey were living. Who knowswhy.

But Simon Peters answer toJesus query, do you also wishto leave? is the most critical:Lord, to whom else couldwe go? You have the wordso eternal lie. We have cometo believe and know that you

are the Holy One o God.Why is this the most criticalquestion? Because it pressesus to examine a key question:what is the difference betweenthose like Peter, who will be-come a part o the Church,


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and those who all away? Tedifference is this: despite their

ailures, despite their broken-ness, despite their intellectu-al capacities or lack thereo,despite their lack o transor-mation, those who ollow donot look to themselves, to theirown success or transformationor conquests to determine ithey should continue to ol-low. Rather like Peter, thosewho ask, to whom else couldwe go, simply continued toollow afer Jesus.And this pattern o aithul-

ness is ound throughout theScriptures: despite Jobs hor-rific dark night o the soul,despite Sarah and Abrahamsbarrenness, despite Petersterrified denial o Jesus threetimes, despite Pauls thorn,

despite Matthias lack opreparation when added tothe eleven, despite the Ethio-pians lack o ormal catechet-ical training, despite Jonahsrage at those who didnt right-ly believe in God, they each

simply continued to seek andollow God.

If they have been saved, yousee, it is not by their success inollowing. Rather, it is a mat-ter o grace received all theway down, as they follow. Forwhere else could they go? TeIsraelites sometimes, like theNations, called upon personalgods and erected high placesto them, but the gods couldnot save them. We call uponscience, and while it providesbrilliant unctional means bywhich to help heal our bodies

and sometimes our minds, itdoes not make us, or give uspurpose, or grant us eternal,transfigured lie.

Why is it that those ew ol-lowed? What about them

turned them into ollowerswho persevere to the end?o be honest, I havent theaintest clue. I think its rath-er arrogant and unscripturalto assume one could derivea system that would mark

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or create true ollowers, orensure that only the aithul

were a part o my church, sothat no one could be con-taminated by the unaithul.I raise these things because Ithink we as the Church spendtoo much time thinking abouthow we can get people to ol-low God. We end up trying tosystematize a means o get-ting people to ollow, or cre-ate special programs, or con-stantly change our worship ormusic in order to attract peo-ple, rather than trusting thatGod works in and through

the particularities o peopleslives such that our own waysdont have to be constantlychanging to bring people in.A wise riend o mine said itwell: grace can neither be an-ticipated or prepared or

When it happens, it can onlybe received as a gif.

I think the better question bywhich to guide our aith andteaching is precisely SimonPeters own: to whom else

could we go? Why? Becauseit drives at a more undamen-

tal question: who is this Jesuswho claims to be one withGod, creator and preservero all things? Tat is, i I be-lieve the very lie, death, andresurrection o Jesus Christhas concretely changed theworld in overcoming sin anddeath, that he is one with Godthe creator and preserver oall things; and i I believe thatthis concrete event o his lie,death, and resurrection hasrevealed the love o God orme in particular; then all my

particular proclivities, strug-gles, desires, and relation-ships well, to whom elsecan I look to understand howto engage these things with aheart opened and set ree bygrace rom the bondage o

ear and anxiety, the esteringo sin?

As a child, I was intense,driven, obsessive, ocusedon examining and practic-ing religions Buddhism,


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Hinduism, Judaism andsocio-political ideologies

Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Com-munism, Nazism, militarism cutting and pasting togeth-er social structures that couldcreate flourishing human so-cieties. I was withdrawn, be-cause o course this was aninternal work awaiting per-ection in order that it couldbe made maniest. As I grewup, I had to begin to grapplewith the demands o an exter-nal world. Just back in con-tact with a childhood riend,equally gifed, someone with

whom I thought I might beable to share the antastic cre-ative delights Id conjured, heended his lie.

When someone you knowends his own lie, there is noth-

ing rational, nothing coherentabout it. Sure, science canexplain how he died: depres-sion, biochemical imbalanc-es, neurological malunction,loss o hope, physical pain,exhaustion, carbon monox-

ide poisoning the system, aclosed garage. Science can do

its best to explain why, too.But or me, my riend takinghis own lie made me ask: iwe all suffer, i I cannot cre-ate a flourishing community,i so many o these idealizedefforts lead to things like Naziwar camps and the suicide omy riend, what is the point olie, o time, o a whole histo-ry o these things? I, no mat-ter what ideology, or religionI ollow, my mere inclina-tion to action is allible, thenwhy bother with this lie? o

whom should I go to ask thequestion o lies value andmeaning?

With a mind still reeling, I en-tered the Church. I have beenollowing Jesus since. Let me

say this in case anyone hereimagines ollowing will pro-vide a cure or a crutch or allthat ails: while ollowing, Ihave experienced several darknights o the soul that wouldrival Jobs own. o ollow Je-


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sus is not to find a cure orstruggle or even or suffer-

ing. Believing this to be trueis, I think, one o the reasonspeople sometimes give up.Why do I still struggle, theyask? Where is my cure, whereis my treatment? Why is mylie, my world, my relation-ship, still so dark and stormy?Why is the Church shrinkingand why are there so manyignorant, cruel, evil jerks init? Where is my husband, mywie, my money, my sanity,my companionship, my re-lie? o whom should I go to

answer this? Or should I stopasking and leave this church,this relationship, even thislie? But where would I go:or neither death, nor lie,nor angels, nor rulers, northings present, nor things to

come, nor powers, nor height,nor depth, nor anything elsein all creation, not even myown attempts to shape it, willbe able to separate us rom thelove o God in Christ Jesusour Lord. For our Lord Jesus

Christ suffered death and wascrucified or us under Pontius

Pilate, he descended even intoHell or there is no placeGod will not seek out his lost,broken-hearted, shattered lit-tle sheep, wandering thirstyand hungry, bleating some-times sofly out o anguish,sometimes brashly out o ar-rogance masking ear. Whoelse can shepherd the sheep?Only wolves.

Following, especially withothers in the Church, is actu-ally a concrete place in time

(because it is made up o ex-tended relationships), wherewe give and receive encour-agement and support, wherein Christ, we gain the mo-ments o strength in order tobear others burdens, where

we receive a provision o dai-ly bread, giving the nourish-ment we need or a particularday. Tis is the place wherelove is given and received be-cause it is here we encounterthe ruit o Christs victory


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or us in the Church: wherethe risen Lord comes among

us and indwells, not in someabstract way, but through oth-ers, according to the particu-larities o our own experienc-es. Te gif o God in the fleshand blood o Christ, throughthe Holy Spirit, is not con-fined by the limitations o ourimagination, or our science,or even our derivation o hislaws to our own purposes.Rather, day-by-day, God givesus our daily bread becausehe can. Because he alone hasmade all things and nourishes

all things with the ood need-ed or their very particularand unique purposes. Canyou trust this? Tat is or youto decide. But there is onlyone way to know the one whomakes this claim: ollow him.

Follow him. Follow him.

Strive to Enterthat Rest,

on Ps 95[94][Originally at Covenant on October24, 2014] R. M S.C. ON H S

St. Benedicts liturgical schemeor the Daily Office had a pro-ound impact on the ever-developing pattern o prayerthroughout the WesternChurch. While the claim thatAnglican liturgy is Benedic-tine is historically dubious

(since Cranmers primary in-fluence was the Sarum rite othe Western office, which inturn reflected Benedictine,Roman, Gallican, and a wholehost o other influences), it istrue that Cranmers vision o

a nation-as-monastery hasa certain Benedictine ring toit. In particular, the combina-tion o Mass, Office, and pri-vate devotion which MartinTornton has so eloquentlydescribed in his classic works


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English Spirituality (a truegem) and Pastoral Teology

(all priests and seminarianswho have not read: attend!) may be integrated into the lieo any Christian o any state, asa pattern o lie and means ograce.

Cranmers liturgical revisionwas at the same time incred-ibly radical yet completelyrecognizable to the traditionthat preceded him (somethingmuch more difficult to say orthe Holy Communion servicerom 1552 until the Scottish

BCP). He pared the Officedown to almost nothing be-yond Scripture (save or theGloria Patri, e Deum, Creed,Preces, and Collects). And yetits structure, the centrality oPsalmody, the scriptural and

traditional canticles, all be-speak the monastic and ca-thedral offices o which it is adirect descendent. Many agreeit may be Cranmers most bril-liant piece o revision: the rad-icalism is directly proportional

to the need he sought to fill namely, an office which didnt

require hours o preparation,which could ulfill the spiritualneeds o clergy and laity alike,and which placed the Scrip-tures at the intersection o cor-porate and private prayer.

One o the things Cranmerwisely retained is somethingwe find in Chapter 9 o the TeRule of St. Benedict. Tere, St.Benedict directed how Vig-ils or the Night Office are tobe said (in constructing Mat-tins/Morning Prayer, Cran-

mer drew rom this office,along with Lauds and Prime).Whether in winter or in sum-mer, the Benedictine office be-gins in the same way: a three-old repetition o Lord, openthou our lips/And our mouth

shall shew orth thy praise,ollowed by Psalm 95, whichAnglicans the world over reerto under its Latin title, Venite(whether it is said with theItalian or Anglicana pronun-ciation is another matter). Al-


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though Lord, open thou ourlips is only recited once in

Cranmers Mattins, Psalm 95is retained.

One o the losses most lamen-table in the American PrayerBook tradition, in addition tothe disappearance o the Kyriein the Office, was when they

took up the scissors o Tom-as Jefferson and excised verses7b-11 rom Psalm 95:

oday if ye will hear hisvoice, harden not yourhearts

as in the provocation,

and as in the day of tempta- tion in the wilderness;When your fathers tempted

me,proved me, and saw my

works.Forty years long was I

grieved with this genera-

tion, and said,It is a people that do err in

their hearts,for they have not known my

ways.Unto whom I sware in my

wrath,

that they should not enterinto my rest.

From the very first AmericanPrayer Book in 1789, the revis-ers replaced these verses withthe ollowing ones rom Psalm96, verses 9 and 13:

O worship the Lord in thebeauty of holiness;

let the whole earth stand inawe of him.

For he cometh, for hecometh to judge the earth,

and with righteousness tojudge the world

and the peoples with his

truth.Wonderully, however, the1979 BCP restored the end overse 7 in the Rite II service(Oh, that today you wouldhearken to his voice!) andalso provided the ull psalm

in Coverdales translation onpage 146 or optional use.

But why are these last verses othe Veniteso critical?

Te epistle to the Hebrewspresents an exegetical sermon


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God (3:12). Te sermon is re-lentless and direct: Tereore,

while the promise o enteringhis rest remains, let us ear lestany o you be judged to haveailed to reach it (4:1).

Tus, St. Benedicts instruc-tion that this Psalm be reciteddaily reflects a tradition that

clearly predated him. Tis tra-dition believed that one o theresults o the unity o the vinecalled Israel with the ecclesi-al Body o Christ (into whichevery catechumen is graf-ed/baptized) is that there aretemptations common to both.Tis is reflected in the demandmade by the Divine Office thatthe Christian begin each daywith a prayerul meditationon the proound similitudebetween Israels rebellion andthat which lurks deep in every

heart.

We must strive to enter(4:11) the Sabbath rest [thatremains] or the people oGod (4:9) by true repentance(3:13-18), by seeking afer the

on Psalm 95, in chapters threeand our. Te first chapter

opens with a luminous de-scription o the coming o Je-sus Christ (In these last dayshe has spoken to us by a Son,whom he appointed as the heiro all things, through whomalso he created the world).Ten, beginning at verse 5,it weaves together a host odirect Old estament quota-tions, which the author readsallegorically to buttress the ar-gument. Tereore, chapter2 begins, we must pay clos-er attention to what we have

heard, lest we drif away romit. Jesus is an apostle, a greathigh priest (3:1) and, interest-ingly, the builder o a house(3:3). We are his house, thesermon explains, i we holdast our confidence (3:6). Te

warning rom the Holy Spirit(3:7) at the end o Psalm 95 isquoted in its entirety in orderthat we might take carelestthere be in any o you an eviland unbelieving heart, leadingyou to all away rom the living


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divine gif o Faith (3:19-4:4),and by means o the Word o

God (4:12), whom we encoun-ter in sacred Scripture and theSacraments. Our confidenceand hope rests only on Jesus,or He can deal gently with theignorant and wayward, sincehe himsel is beset with weak-ness (5:2). o pray Psalm 95in earnest is to find ourselvesunited to the eternal victimwho offers himsel as our greathigh priest. Only there do wefind lie. And we find this liewhen, by grace, we chooseholiness. I only today, when

you hear his voice, harden notyour hearts.

The Meaning ofHiroshima

[reprinted from the ransfiguration1982 issue of AD]

G J, NBC

ince 1945, the Feast o

the ransfiguration on6 August has also beenrecalled as the anniversaryo dropping the first atomicbomb.

Dare we ask, Why did Godpermit it?

I believe that we can and mustpose the question. Job did,though in different circum-stanced. As Charles Williamshas said, the Lord requiresthat His people shall demand

an explanation rom Him.

In the decades since I was amember o the first Americanparty to enter Hiroshima aferthe bomb, I have had time toreflect on the answer to that

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tical people. We scan the fig-ures on rising crime while ig-

noring its victims. We tote upvictories by body counts. Andour military told me that theatomic bomb just gives a big-ger bang or the buck. At thesame time, I have heard paci-fists dwell on the enormity owar as i it were the only sinworth mentioning. We lustafer grandiose causes, or-getting that God pretty muchdeclines to quantiy sin, butrather seeks the humble andcontrite heart.

Having said that, I believe wecan say that God permittedHiroshima in order to showus what we are really like,and to humble us or our re-pentance. He told us plainlyin Psalm 81:12, I gave them

up to their own hearts lust:and they walked in their owncounsels.Well, is not that what it meansto be a man? No. It is ourcondemnation. It is what it

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question. My conclusion isthat, to understand Hiroshi-

ma, we have to take God andHis word with utmost seri-ousness.

It was 3 September 1945, ew-er than 30 days afer the bomb a sultry, drizzly, miserableday, just right or exploringhell. I was an NBC corre-spondent, and I teamed witha non-competitor, Stan rout-man o Acme (now UPI)Photos. Tat is how I happento be the solitary figure inmany o the earliest pictures

o Hiroshima. My atigue a-ter a flight halway aroundthe world, the mucky air, thestench o 100,000 rubble-bur-ied bodies, benumbed me. Itwas mans doing but whatwas God up to?

I think we first have to dis-pense with numbers. Tere isa subtle perversity in Ameri-cans that leads us to glory inthe very dimensions o ourwickedness. We are a statis-


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means to be separated rom God. Read on: Oh, that my peoplehad hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I

should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my handagainst their adversaries. Te truth is that there is more powerin aith, ear o God, repentance, and prayer than in all the nu-clear weapons put together. Tat is the message o Hiroshima.

A WORD AT THE END OF WORDS R. D. K N. SD U

At the Maundy Tursday liturgy, we stand at the end o the world,looking toward the turning point o history; on Good Friday, we ar-rive at that place. Tis day, this hour, is the pivot o the universe,the still point around which everything is turned upside-down: our

Judge is judged in our place; our prophet, priest, and King is lifedup rom the earth, and he is drawing the whole world to himsel; theGod who spoke the word o creation speaks one decisive word to sin,death, and the devil: No.

o be rank, its a word that leaves me without many words o myown. In theory, I could pontificate all day about Jesus work on theCross or us and the significance o the Atonement its one o my

specialties as a theologian, so youd think I might have a lot to say.However, one thing Ive learned in all my thinking, reading, andwriting is this: the Word that God speaks today is the end o all ourwords. Tis is a time or silence and stillness, not or speech.

Each year, as I prepare to preach on Good Friday, Im very muchreminded o Burnt Norton, the first o .S. Eliots Four Quartets, inwhich he writes,


Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q


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At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement fromnor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,Tere would be no dance, and there is only the dance.I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.Te inner freedom from the practical desire,

Te release from action and suffering, release from the innerAnd the outer compulsion, yet surroundedBy a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,Elevation without motion, concentrationWithout elimination, both a new worldAnd the old made explicit, understoodIn the completion of its partial ecstasy,Te resolution of its partial horror.Yet the enchainment of past and futureWoven in the weakness of the changing body,Protects mankind from heaven and damnationWhich flesh cannot endure.

Perhaps what Eliot is gesturing towards here is none other than theGood News on this Good Friday and yes, there is good news, be-cause we know how the story ends. Tis end o the world is also thebeginning o a new creation. Tis stillness reveals the source o all

things in the mystery o the riune God. And the No that echoestoday in the desolate silence o our bare churches divides what hasbeen rom what will be. It wasnt Gods first word to humanity, and itisnt his last either. In the meantime, we wait, but not as those withouthope. oday, God says No to everything that separates us rom him,but only because God also says Yes to everything that reconciles usto him.


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And yet.

And yet, as we walk to the oot o the cross and kneel at this the endo all our speech, we find that were not alone there. Near the end othe Johannine Passion narrative, we hear what seems to be an oddinterruption to the flow o the story: Meanwhile, standing near thecross o Jesus were his mother, and his mothers sister, Mary the wieo Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and thedisciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother,Woman, here is your son. Ten he said to the disciple, Here is your

mother. And rom that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Far rom being an insignificant detail, this is an ineluctably crucialpart o the work o atonement. Even as Jesus dies, the Church is born.Te aith that we find at the oot o the Cross brings us together,where Christ gives us to each other as mothers and sons and brothersand sisters. On a God-orsaken hill outside the city gates, in a placewhere it might seem that all hope is gone, we are given a amily thatwe didnt know we had and never expected to find.

Matthias Grunewald painted this scene in his altarpiece or the chap-el at the monastery o St. Anthony at Isenheim. Its a painting thatsbeen pivotal or my own aith, as it was or Karl Barth. In the cen-ter, o course, we see Christ on the cross; below him, we see Maryand John the beloved disciple and, in a move o artistic license, wesee John the Baptist as well. Mary looks on in shock and adorationwhile the beloved disciple embraces her. Meanwhile, John the Baptiststands to one side and points to the one who reigns rom the tree, asi to say: He must increase, and I must decrease.

In the end, at the end o all our words, what we are and what we do asthe Church is none other than this. We adore him and look to him,even as we hold on to each other in our grie.


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Death is theenemy of god

A R. R. E L. S

s I looked at the Gospelpassage or today thetenth chapter o the

Gospel According to St. Luke a theme emerged. I youremember, that passage beganby saying, Afer these things,the Lord appointed 70 othersalso, and sent them two by twobeore His ace into every city

and place where He Himselwas about to go. And He saidto them, Te harvest is trulygreat, but the laborers are ew.Pray, thereore, the Lord o theharvest to send out laborersinto His harvest. I think, inorder to get the ull depth othat passage, we need to no-tice that it said 70 others, be-cause the ninth chapter reersto the sending out o the 12,and then the sending out othe 70; the ninth chapter be-

gins, Ten He called His dis-ciples together, and gave them

power and authority over alldemons and to cure diseases.He sent them to preach theKingdom o God and to healthe sick.

Te passages rom the ninthand tenth chapters o the Gos-pel According to St. Luke callall Christians to the Gospelmessage o healing and rec-onciliation by announcingthat the Kingdom o God hascome near you. In making that

announcement, what it pointsto is the transorming Graceo God in Jesus Christ thathas been unleashed in Godscreation, to be present in thedeepest tragedies and sorrowso lie. Gods purpose can beseen in the words o St. Paulwhen he says that the wholecreation groans in pain andtravail together until now,And Gods response to that isJesus Christ, crucified and res-urrected.

A


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I think its very important, aswe look at those two chapters,

to understand the urgency othem. For instance, they be-gin both by saying, Carry nobag, knapsack, money. Greetno-one on the way. Remain inthe same house. Be ocused.Tats an important message,I think, to the Church, be-cause i there is any groupwith which I have been asso-ciated all these years that canbecome easily un-ocused, itsthe Church. Our ocus is sup-posed to be on Jesus Christand His saving power, and so

the message is, Tis is o theutmost importance. Focus onproclaiming the Kingdom oGod.

In that ninth chapter o Luke,Jesus is trying to say some

very important things to Hisdisciples, things they struggleto see because they are on theront end o the crucifixionand resurrection. And then-later, when the twelve disci-ples come back and report to

Jesus, they withdraw to a placewhere Jesus can pray, and they

are ollowed by the crowds. Iyou remember the eeding othe five thousand: the disci-ples tell Jesus that the crowdsneed to be sent away; instead,he tells them to eed the peo-ple, and they respond by say-ing, oh, weve only got fivebarley loaves and two fishes.In this eeding o the crowdwe see the expanding powero God in the person o JesusChrist. Ten, afer that mira-cle in chapter nine, Jesus asksHis disciples, Who do men

say that I am?, and they reply,some say John the Baptist,others say Elijah, others sayone o the prophets. And thenHe asked the leading ques-tion, Who do you say that Iam? O course everybody

could predict that Simon Pe-ter would answer that ques-tion thats just his persona and Peter says, Te Christo God. And then theres thatremarkable response: ell noone. Dont tell anybody.

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I can remember saying to acongregation, some years ago:

i youre conused about Jesus,dont ask anybody to come tochurch until you get it straight.Tat, in effect, is what Jesus issaying to the disciples here:dont tell anybody. Te cruci-fixion and resurrection havenot transpired yet, and so it isgoing to look like magic, itsgoing to look like somethingthat its not. And so he says tothem, Te Son o Man mustsuffer many things and be re-jected by the elders and thechie priests and the scribes,

and be killed and raised on thethird day. No cross, no resur-rection, no Gospel, no trans-ormation, no salvation. Tatswhat Jesus is trying to say toHis disciples.

Te most important thing inchapter nine, when Jesus istalking to his disciples, is tobegin to get clear about whohe is, as the Son o God. Andin the 44thverse o that chap-ter, it says, Let these words

sink down into your ears, orthe Son o Man is about to

be betrayed into the handso men. It is vitally import-ant that we know who we are,what we are, and what we areabout and that is the an-nouncement that Jesus Christ,the Son o God, the Kingdomo God, has come near to you.

Id like to suggest to you, as weare required to be sent out, asthe 70 were sent out, that thisis probably one o the mostpregnant times or the Gospelo Jesus Christ to be heard in

my lietime. Let me tell youwhy I think thats the case: Weare in a traumatic time, whenthe oundations o the culturein which we live have beenshaken, the complacency othis culture has been shaken.

Some time ago, I was on aplane, reading the Financialimes, and came across an ar-ticle by Joe Quinlan in whichhe said there are five painullessons that our country is

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learning; I just want to pointto two o them. First: Like it or

not, we are all connected. Wehavent really believed thatin years, have we? But thinkabout Alan Greenspan. He isa sharp man, yet he admittedthat hed made a mistake: hehad no idea that people whowere leaders in the financialindustry would not have thewell-being o their share-holders at heart. Really?! Hashe never heard o mammon?Or sin? But, you see, becausewere all connected, whenpeople do things they ought

not to do, its not just personal.In that same newspaper, therewas an article about Washing-ton Mutual, and one o thewomen who was ormerly anofficer there was testiyingthat she had been required to

approve loans that should nothave been approved, some-times when she couldnt evenveriy that the parties existed.She described what had beengoing on there as I.B.G. andY.B.G. meaning that, by the

time anybody figured it out,Ill be gone and youll be

gone. You see, think were notconnected, but the Gospel un-derstands us profoundly con-nected.

Second: Confidence is a fragilecommodity. O course it is, i

its worldly confidence! I yourconfidence rests on the stockmarket always going up, ormoney always producing thekind o security that we need,or everything working like wethink it ought to work, youmay have all the confidence inthe world, but that wont stopit all crashing down aroundyour ears. But the confidenceo the Gospel rests upon JesusChrist, and that confidencecannot be shaken, becauseJesus Christ is with us in the

most proound adversity.

I also read an article by DavidBrooks in which he made acomment about Rick Warrensbook, Te Purpose-Driven



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25

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spring 2016

Lie. Brooks mentioned thatthe first sentence in the book

is, Its not about you, thenwent on to say that that was asign that the age o expressiveindividualism was comingto an end. What he meant byexpressive individualism is abelie that I am the truth, I amthe one who decides whatsright, I can believe what I wantto believe, and you can believewhat you want to believe, andit doesnt matter; the individ-ual is supreme and sits on thethrone. Now, we know that be-lie is wrong we know that

Godis supreme and sits on thethrone but our world todayis reaping the ruits o thatkind o selfish individualism.And the world is beginning tounderstand what the Gospelhas always said: that behavior

has consequences. So I believethat this is absolutely the mostimportant time or Christiansto be articulate about the Gos-pel o Jesus Christ, that theKingdom o God has comenear to us.

Te Christian world-view isthat we live in a allen uni-

verse. We believe that Godcreated us with ree will, withautonomy. But at the hearto the will is the location oevil and that is where thedistortion o creation comes.Te creation is distorted, andthus God allows, but he doesnot will, evil. Te cross is anexample: that God allowedthe crucifixion in a sense,even willed the crucifixion,in terms o providence andin doing so transormed evil.God doesnt will evil, but the

Gospels teach us that JesusChrist comes into the worldin order to restore and trans-orm creation, and to point tothe Kingdom that is to come.

Some weeks ago, I was lis-

tening to the news and heardthat a young deputy in EastSt. Louis, only in his twenties,had been killed in a wreck.Tere were all kinds o peo-ple who were testiying aboutwhat a wonderul man he had


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been, talking about how ac-tive he had been in his church

and so on. One o his riendssaid, You know, God want-ed him home, and I thought,No, God didnt want himhome. Death is the enemy oGod. In this world, all kindso things happen, and we cancount on God being there withus through them but Goddidnt want him home. Butwhen those terrible thingshappen, God will redeem, inhis providence, to see that HisWill will not be broken.

So we as Christians have aworld-view that says we livein a allen universe. DietrichBonhoeffer, in the concentra-tion camp, when asked thequestion, Where is God?would say, Right here. Right

here. Tats what the cross oJesus Christ means.

Some time ago, there was awonderul article in the St.Louis Post-Dispatch that Icut out and saved because I

thought it pointed to some-thing about what this Gospel

Presence means in the world.Tere are all kinds o exampleso it throughout the Church,in ministries large and small,that go out into a brokenworld in order to transorm it.But in the Postwas this mar-velous picture o a GermanShepherds ace, sleeping onthe floor, and a young child,16 years old, with his headagainst another dogs head,and the caption said, Juvenileoffenders train dogs, and inexchange learn the power o

patience, praise, respect, andother tools that they will needto turn their lives around. Tearticle began by saying, Boththe teen and the dog besidehim were very close to dyingyoung. Tats this allen world

we live in. Te dog, a houndpeppered with flecks o Ger-man Shepherd ur, had beenabandoned as a puppy on anailing street in St. Louis wherehomeless canines routinelyscavenge or ood and sleep in


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dank basements o collapsinghouses. And the teen: he was

4 when his mother was mur-dered, his ather was alreadyin prison or violent crime.Lef to an unstable network orelatives, he relied on himselto survive a world driven bymeth, heroin, drug dealing,and stealing. He had a shorttemper. Friends died o over-doses in ront o him. Tis ar-ticle was about a ministry thattakes these young people romthe juvenile detention centersand teaches them to train or-merly stray dogs so that the

dogs can be saved and indoing that, the young people

are saved themselves. Tis isjust one o the ways that thePresence o the Kingdom oGod is proclaimed to us inthis broken creation.

What an exciting time to bedisciples, to be the ones thatJesus has sent out, to Heal thesick, and go out and declarethat the Kingdom o God isamong you. And or that, Ithink we can all say Tanksbe to God.

The Franciscan Order of the Divine Compassion

An Anglo-Catholic religious order of Third Order brothers andsisters striving to proclaim the Good News of Christ throughpenance and prayer. Our brothers and sisters minister in thecommunities in which they live. For further information pleasecontact:

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Requests or books rom seminarians or other readers are filled rom whateveris on our shelves at no charge, other than or shipping and handling. Whenwe have unds available, books and vestments are reshipped at no charge to

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My sons autism ismaking me holy

(ANDI HATEIT)

[Originally published on the Cove-nant blog by Te Living Church;re-published with permission]

R. J MR, C HC, D H, PA

y son Langstonwas born in 2008.Hes perect, said

the parish secretary. She hadbeen in the waiting room,hoping to steal a glimpse othe newborn baby boy. She

said it, and I believed it. Notin the theological sense, ocourse. I knew he was born asinner like the rest o us. Butwhen I looked at my baby sonor the first time, and heardhim coo, and elt him squirm,

all I could do was praise Godand sing Johnny Cash songsinto his little ears, allowingmysel to daydream about thedoctor or lawyer or rock starthat he might become oneday.

Tis is the thing that nobodygets about parents o autistic

children: or the first eighteenmonths, we thought we hadthe perect child. Tere wereno signs o looming disaster,no indications that this childslie and ours were aboutto be turned upside down.Langston developed normallyin the beginning. He hit all hismarks. He even knew a airnumber o words, more thanmany o his peers o the sameage.

And then, suddenly, itstopped. Te words wentaway. Te other behaviorstypical or babies, like mouth-ing objects and babbling, didnot. He fixated on certain ob-

jects, but he did not play likeother children. He laughedand smiled, but he could not

look us in the eye when wespoke to him.

My wie and I were new par-ents. We had grown up insmall amilies. We did notknow the first thing about

M


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how typical children develop.But as we saw the children in

Langstons playgroup chang-ing while he stayed the same,we knew that somethingwas wrong. At first, we triedto chalk it up to somethingelse. Perhaps he had not yetlearned to talk because he wasso rambunctious. Perhaps itwas simply a heavy case oADHD. Maybe he just neededsome mild therapies to releasehis ull potential. All o theseideas floated through ourheads, but by the time he wastwo years old, and the ateul

day came when he had his ap-pointment to be diagnosed,we knew that we had beencomorting ourselves withlies. Our child was not likeother kids. He was never go-ing to be like other kids. He is

autistic. Tat is not the nameo a chronic condition he su-ers with; it is a statement otruth about who he is.

Autism is a disorder that a loto people have heard o but

ew people understand. It isclassified as a neurological

disorder but, truth be told, it isa collection o characteristicsmore than it is a single thing.Autistic people have greatdifficulty with communica-tion. Tey ofen have height-ened sensitivity about move-ment and about how theyare touched. It is a spectrumdisorder, which means thatthe way it maniests in peopleis all over the map. Tere aresome autistic people whomyou might never realize areautistic i you did not know.

With others, like my son, itis quite obvious. No oneknows what causes autism,nor how to cure it. Sometherapies have been provenhelpul over time, but they donot change the way autistic

people understand the world.At best, they make it possibleor an autistic person to navi-gate in a world that has beenset up or people who thinkand act radically differentlythan they do.


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Langstons autism is a burdenor him and an albatross or

my wie and I as his parents.Our lives are a constantly ro-tating series o crises, romdealing with spitting and ag-gressive behaviors, to spend-ing thousands o dollars andman-hours trying to remodelhis room in such a way thathe can no longer chew on thewoodwork and swallow leadpaint. Our lives center aroundmy sons autism. It is the pin-ion that spins our gears, thecompass that keeps us everpointing away rom ourselves

and towards some unknownhorizon.

Parenting a child with severespecial needs is making meholy. It is orcing me out othe sel-centered, personal

-desire-driven lie that I hadplanned or mysel; it is mov-ing me instead into a lie oservice and humility. And Ihate it.

On the day we were given

the diagnosis, I broke into athousand pieces. It was not

like we were not expectingit, but when the doctor saidthe words, Your son has au-tism, any last shred o denialslipped away and I could eelthe darkness o the rest oour lives settling in. He wasnot going to grow out o this.We could not save him romit. Our hopes and dreams orhim would likely not cometo ruition. Our hopes anddreams or our own lives andor our uture would have tochange. We would always

have this to ace. Tere wouldbe no escape.

Afer we got home rom thedoctors office, we were tootired and depressed to makedinner. We ordered take-out

rom a local Mexican place,and I volunteered to pick it up.It was December, and alreadyit was cold like winter. Onthe way back home, O Come,O Come Emmanuel came onthe radio. I pulled over to the


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side o the road, unable to seethrough my tears.

O come, O come Emmanuel,And ransom captive Israel,Tat stood in lonely exile

here,Until the Son of God appear.

Please God, I said out loud.Please, I need it to be true.

Ive believed it to be true be-ore, but now I need it to betrue.

Jesus carried us through thatwinter. He held me when I eltlike I was going to all and justkeep alling. His Word, his

promise, is the one thing thathas kept me going since thatmoment. It is the one thingthat has filled me with hopeor what the horizon mightlook like. I we live in a worldthat is nothing more than

chance chemical reactions,then my sons lie is meaning-less, as are our sacrifices orhim. However, i we live in aworld that is allen but cre-ated good, a world in whichevil has come to reign even in

our bones but in which evilshall never have the last word,

then my sons lie, his eternalworth, has been bought andpaid or by the blood o hissavior.

alking about all o this withpeople who have never ex-perienced anything like it is

difficult. People ask me howLangston is doing, and thereis always an unspoken ques-tion behind the question: Ishe getting better? Is it ok?

Te answer to both o thosequestions is no. He is not get-

ting better, and it is not ok,but that is not because mysons existence is totally voido good things or because Iderive no joy rom being hisather. My son is still beauti-ul. He still makes me smile

when he laughs. He has somequalities that I wish I had. Heis completely unselconsciousand is entirely uninterestedin what he owns or does notown. He is cuddly and silly,and when I look at him in


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his lack o pretentiousness,I ofen think that he has the

advantage; there is so littleor him that might get in theway o his relationship withGod. My son says very ewwords and even ewer phras-es, but the other day, he spon-taneously said to me, I wantJesus. It was a prompt that hehad memorized because hewanted me to singJesus LovesMe to him, but I still think itwas an indication that aithis alive in him. Faith is notan intellectual exercise. Asa Catholic Christian, I take

comort in knowing that theLord is administering graceto my son through the sacra-ments. Bread, wine, and waterput all o us on equal ootingin the Kingdom o God.

We live in a society that plac-es value on people based ontheir abilities, based on howsmart they are or what theyare able to achieve physical-ly, based on their capacity tospend and to consume. My

son does not have value underthat metric. He is a non-per-

son in our society. But he isnot a non-person in the eyeso God. He is broken, as we allare, but God has put his nameon him. When the Fatherlooks upon my son, he seeshis own Son who was unitedwith Langston orever on theday o his baptism. Langstons

value is incalculable in hu-man terms. He bears the veryimage o God.

Priests are called to bepoints o contact be-tween God and the su-ering world. Teir handsstretched out to heal withsoothing touch mens e-

verish souls, their heartsconsecrated in the havenso reuge or the weary

and ainting, must alike bepierced.

Written by the Rt. Rev.Frank Weston, Bishop o

Zanzibar, on the flyleao his Bible


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Have Faith?

R. J. W EP C, S. SE C, S, X

eing told to have aithin the midst o sufferingcan seem at first like a

trite pleasantry. Even worse,

it can be dismissive. I knowIve used it beore as verbalfiller when I dont know whatto say; though I genuinely de-sired to say something helpul,its really just well-intentioned

verbal filler. Te phrase canbe used with an inexactness

that allows a brushing overo deeper questions, and Ibelieve its this vagueness omeaning that causes some to

view it as devoid o meaning.

In spite o this reputation as a

vague sentimentality, tellingsomeone to have aith in themidst o suffering should beseen as a core and meaning-ul part o the Bibles responseto suffering. Gods commandto have aith in him should

be a source o strength andcomort, but must be seen in

the rich context o Scripture.Having aith is, in that con-text, a defiance in the ace oevil, pain, and suffering. Oneparticular example is the ex-perience o the Israelites inthe wilderness. In severalways their experience pro-

vides us with insight into sur-viving our own wilderness.

It was not long afer their mi-raculous deliverance that theIsraelites began to complainagainst Moses and Aaron,

even to accuse them o ne-arious motives. (Ex 16:1-3) You, they said, havebrought us out into this wil-derness to kill this whole as-sembly with hunger. Teyeven believed things had been

better or them under Egyp-tian slavery when they sat bythe fleshpots and had theirfill o bread. Tey had, as thepsalmist would later say, or-gotten God and all the mira-cles he had done. (Ps 78:11)

B


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Having aith in the wildernesswas grounded in remember-

ing, and Israel had a remem-bering problem.

I imagine, i we traveled backin time and asked them howthey escaped Egypt, theycould have accurately recalledthe historical events but

when God commands hispeople to remember, or ac-cuses them o orgetting, he isnot speaking o mere mentalrecollection. His commandto remember his ordinances(Num 15:39-40) was an in-

junction to obey them. Hiscommand to remember theirown slavery in Egypt alsoimplied a command to act incaring or the orphan, widow,and immigrant. (Deut 24:17-22) In the wilderness, its notthat we orget the existence o

God, its that our recollectionhas not resulted in acting. Ourremembrance has not becomepart o who we are.

Start with recollection. Tinkabout the times God has giv-

en you an unexpected bless-ing, when you may have ex-

perienced a deliverance, orwhen you elt Gods presencein the midst o trying times.Afer recalling these times,open yoursel in prayer toGod, praising him or hisactions in your lie. Toughmere recollection is not theend o remembering, it is thebeginning. Looking back tothe past provides a model orGods grace in the uture. Tatis the purpose o recollection:an active remembrance thattrains us to believe and trust

in the God who acts.

Tis type o active remember-ing results in a present trustor Gods provision. ToughIsrael railed against God, he

acted in mercy by providingor them ood rom Heaven.(Ex 16:4-12) God used thisprovision as a test o aith,providing only enough oreach day, and twice as much inpreparation or the Sabbath.


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rusting God in the presentis a daily, i not hourly, strug-

gle. Yet this daily reliance onhis provision is the epitomeo aith. It is easy to have aithwhen lie is going well andGods grace eels constant, butthe aith that is valuable is theaith that has been tried andtested in the wilderness. Tisaith is ofen built one day ata time, as God provides justenough or each step, and asksus to trust him or the next.

Being lost in the wilderness

is an opportunity or aith togrow and shine. Our path toEaster is only by the road oLent. I know aith not when Isee it in the lie o the healthyand wealthy, but when I see itin the struggles o the poor,

sick, and suffering. oo ofenthe privileged o the westernworld use suffering as an ar-gument against God whenthe very people suffering usetheir lives as a testimony tohis provision!

When God gives daily bless-ings, we must then also learn

to recognize them. When theood rom Heaven ell, Isra-el responded not in thanks-giving but in conusion. (Ex16:13-15) Teir response asthey looked at Gods bless-ing and asked, what is it?,showed an inability to recog-nize Gods grace in their lives.Moses response was directand a little chastising: this isthe bread that the LORD hasgiven you to eat. Tis is theblessing or which you criedto God. Tis is the provision

that you claimed God wouldnever give you. Tis is theproo that God did not leadyou into the wilderness to die,but to live more ully, with astronger aith on the way tothe promised land.

At times, we may need a Mo-ses to point out Gods bless-ings; more ofen, we need tosee them ourselves. We devel-op this ability by a aith thatis actively supported though


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a lie o intentional Christiandiscipleship. Over time, by

staying ocused on Jesus inprayer, and by reading Scrip-ture, our senses are sanctifiedand we grow in ability to per-ceive these blessings. In con-trast, nurturing bitterness atsuffering, reacting by callinginto question Gods love oryou, or abandoning a lie oaith in our Lord, blinds us toGods grace in the wilderness.

It is in the wilderness, and notthe promised land, that aithgrows and proves itsel. Being

told to have aith in the aceo evil, pain, and suffering isnot wishul thinking or pas-sive acceptance o ate. It is adaily decision to rememberGods mighty works in thepast through trusting in his

present daily provision, andallowing that trust to openour eyes to the grace he givesduring that time.

Grief is the pricewe pay for love

R. K M, R, C A,R C, NY

o see someone you lovesuffering in great painand to be unable to

make it go away, is, I think,one o the greatest agoniesthat we endure as humans. Itis perhaps worse than actuallysuffering ourselves. Physicalpain damages and woundsour bodies, but watching

someone you love sufferinggoes deeper; that is emotionalpain, that is pain that is bornout o love, and it cuts rightto the heart o you. ime andtime again, I have witnessedpeople die; each time, no mat-

ter how much discomort thedying person was in, it alwaysseemed to pale in comparisonto the pain being experiencedby the loved ones gatheredthere. Tankully we have anarsenal o medications that


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can help alleviate the pain othose that are dying, but we

have nothing, no pill or se-rum, that can ease the pain ogrie.

When Her Majesty QueenElizabeth was writing to con-sole those who lost loved onesin the World rade Centeron September 11th 2001,she said nothing that can besaid can begin to take awaythe anguish and the paino these moments. Grie isthe price we pay or love.

Nothing can be said to takeaway the pain o grie. I wishmore people understoodthat. When I was a chaplain Iwould regularly walk into sit-uations with people who werestruggling with extreme grie,

and so many times the rest othe staff would expect me tohave the right words or theright prayers to make all thetears go away. Well, I am hereto tell you that those prayersand those words do not exist.

Nothing I or anyone else cansay or do is going to take away

the existential pain o moth-ers who have just lost childrenor o partners who have justburied the loves o their lives.In act, trying to address suchdeep pain with trite phrasesor platitudes is likely just tocause more pain. When youexperience pain that deep,usually the best thing you cando is just sit with it. Honor it.Hold that person and be withthem. You wont be able totake their pain away, but youcan make sure that they arent

suffering alone.

Most o the disciples couldnot stand by and watch theirteacher and riend, a manwhom they loved great-ly, suffer. Tey ran off. Tey

hid. Maybe they were araido getting arrested too, butI am sure they also couldntbear the thought o watchingsomeone they love die. At theend, the only ones standingby, present there at the oot


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o his cross, were his mother,his aunt, Mary Magdelene,

and the beloved disciple John.Where were the other elev-en disicples? Where were thecrowds o people he had ed,or preached to, or healed? Allgone. Araid to ace the per-secution, araid to ace thepain, araid to look into theeyes o someone whose agonythey could not relieve. Tosethat stood by Christ to theend were ew, but they are theones who probably loved himthe most.

Maybe it is or this reason thatthe Church has traditional-ly looked to the Virgin Maryor inspiration on how to bea Christian. She was the firstto hold him when he came

into this world, and she wasthe last to hold him when hewent out o it. Her ability tostand by Christ, even thoughit meant her own heart-shat-tering pain, was inspirationor generations o Christians

struggling with how to makesense o this thing we call

the crucifixion. Her presencethere at the oot o the crossmeant the ulfillment o thewords that the priest Simeonsaid to her when Jesus wasborn: a sword will pierceyour own soul too. And nowit had happened. Te centuri-on could have pierced her sidewith that lance and it wouldhave hurt less. How can welearn to love Christ that deep-ly, so deeply that we would notlook away or walk away romhim in his agony? Tis is the

question that Christians havehad to ask themselves when-ever we have walked the wayo the cross: how can we ap-proach the cross with Maryslove and aithulness?

One o the responses to thatquestion rom the MiddleAges is a Latin hymn: the sta-bat mater dolorosa. We nowassociate this hymn with theStations o the Cross, as its

verses are requently sung

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between stations, and it is fit-ting, because these lyrics in-

vite us to walk the way o thecross with Mary:

At the Cross her stationkeeping,

stood the mournful Motherweeping,

close to her Son to the last.

Trough her heart, His sorrowsharing,

all His bitter anguish bearing,now at length the sword has

passed.

O how sad and sore distressedwas that Mother, highly

blessed,of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,she beneath beholds the pangs

of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would notweep,

whelmed in miseries so deep,Christs dear Mother to

behold?

Can the human heart refrainfrom partaking in her pain,

in that Mothers pain untold?

For the sins of His own nation,She saw Jesus wracked with

torment,All with scourges rent:

She beheld her tender Child,

Saw Him hang in desolation,ill His spirit forth He sent.

O thou Mother! fount of love!ouch my spirit from above,make my heart with thine

accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt;make my soul to glow and meltwith the love of Christ my

Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce methrough,

in my heart each wound renewof my Savior crucified:

Let me share with thee Hispain,

who for all my sins was slain,who for me in torments died.


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Let me mingle tears with thee,mourning Him who mourned

for me,all the days that I may live:

By the Cross with thee to stay,there with thee to weep and

pray,is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!,Listen to my fond request:let me share thy grief divine;

Let me, to my latest breath,in my body bear the deathof that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His everywound,

steep my soul till it hathswooned,

in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,

lest in flames I burn and die,in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Tou shalt callme hence,

be Ty Mother my defense,be Ty Cross my victory;

While my body here decays,may my soul Ty goodness

praise,Safe in Paradise with Tee.

Standing side-by-side withMary at the oot o the cross,we realize that, while it is notalways possible to take some-one elses pain, it is possible toshare their pain with them. Itis possible to keep aith withthem, to stand there steadastand not allow them to sufferalone. It is possible, throughlove, to eel the pain that theyeel in act, because o love,

to eel it stronger and deeper.Mary cannot take away herchilds pain or his death, butshe cannot, she will not, letthis child whom she loves diealone.

When you look at Mary at theoot o the cross, you beginto realize that this is exactlywhat Christ is doing on thecross or us. God, as a lovingparent, is not going to let oneo his children die alone. With


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Christs crucifixion, God or-ever knows our pain, wheth-

er it is the physical pain obeing beaten or tortured, asso many are in our world to-day, or the emotional pain owatching someone you lovedie. With Christs crucifixion,God knows that pain insideand out. God is present withus, crucified with us. In ourdeath and in our suffering, wehang there on either side ohim, just like one o those twothieves. Christ suffers with uswhen we suffer, just as Marysuffers with her son hang-

ing there on the cross. Whenwe walk the way o the cross,we honor that suffering, andwe honor all o those who,through grie, pay the priceor love. May we never con-sider it too high a price to pay

or love, and may we alwaysremember that grie is not theend o this story.

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Pain, suffering,and death: GOD

DOESNT ALWAYSHAVE A PLAN.

R. M BV, S P S PE C, M, X

n August o 1992, I was14 years old and my am-ily lived in Tibodaux,

Louisiana, about an hoursouthwest o New Orleans.(Yes, there is land south oNew Orleans; its a successulport partly because its so ar

inland.) St. Johns EpiscopalChurch was and is a histor-ic and beautiul parish neardowntown Tibodaux. My a-ther served as junior wardeno St. Johns multiple timesduring the years that we livedthere. As junior warden, hewas responsible or oversee-ing the physical plant o theparish. He had keys to thechurch and the adjacent par-ish hall, and was over there atall hours o the day and night.

I


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I dont remember i he wasjunior warden that year.

Regardless o his exact title,he went over to St. Johns earlyon the morning o August 13,1992. I dont remember why;it might have been that thelights were still on in the rec-tors office. We lived very closeto St. Johns in those days not directly across the street,but close enough that youcould walk there and back ina couple o minutes.

As I said beore, I was 14. Au-

gust 13 was a Tursday andschool had not started yet.Like a typical teenager, I gotup late. My ather was waitingat the bottom o the stairs. Itsbeen 23 years, and I have triedto let the days memories ade.

What I remember him sayingis, Mike, I have some badnews. Father Horgan is dead.

Te Reverend Hunter H. Hor-gan came to St. Johns in 1989.He supplied or us a ew times,

and then we called him as rec-tor. Father Horgan was very

different rom the previousrector. He was rom the NewOrleans area. His amily didnot relocate with him when heaccepted the call. eenage-methought Fr. Horgan was un-ny and open. I could talk tohim about anything. Te ideao knowing and beriending aminister was something newto me. I heard whispers thatFr. Horgan had problems. Hewas divorced and remarried.He might have issues with al-cohol. None o that mattered

to me.Father Horgan was beaten todeath in his office sometimein the night. My ather wasone o the first on the scene.Te Tibodaux Police De-partment did not arrest any-

one. Rumors flew as anxious,hurting people tried to resolvetheir anxiety over his sudden,

violent death.

Who beats a priest to deathin his own office, in his own


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church? Did he deserve it?Who did it? Tis last question

was one I heard again andagain. When I started schoola ew weeks later, I rememberone treacher casually askingthe class, Yall hear aboutthat preacher that was killed?I was so scared those killersmight be coming afer me. Ihid under my bed. And thenshe went on to laugh.

Who killed Father Horgan?No one knew, but everyonehad a theory, though I wontdetail them here. Many o

them blamed him in someway, shape, or orm. He an-gered someone. Wrongedsomeone. His issues caused it.

I wasnt worried about thewho question. I assumed

God knew and He wouldsettle the score in His owntime. Vengeance is mine,thus saith the Lord. (Romans12:19) Te bigger question tome was, why? Priests areGods chosen. His servants.

Somewhere along the line Idreceived a dose o Calvinism,

specifically a belie in doublepredestination, and I asked,Why did God kill FatherHorgan?

Tere was no answer. It wouldbe many years beore I learnedmore about Father Horganslie. But within three and ahal years I drifed away romreligion altogether. Terewere no answers. Tere wasno point. It was all mass delu-sion, an opiate or the masses,a crutch or the weak minded.

I would be away rom religionuntil my final year o college.Tat doesnt mean I stoppedasking questions or caringabout God.

Te standard answers in the

ace o tragedy were mean-ingless to me. Its all part oHis plan, or He called themhome, or even, It all going tobe okay, were a dirty band-aid on the top o a esteringwound. No one would ac-

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knowledge the deep hurt anddo the hard work o cleaning

it all out, most o all not me.

I wish I had read the book oJob back then. I you recall,Job encountered tremendoussuffering. He lost his amily,his possessions, and even hishealth, or no apparent rea-son. Teres a passage in thesecond chapter, where Job issitting in ashes, scraping him-sel with a potsherd, and hiswie comes to him and says,Dost thou still retain thineintegrity? curse God, and die.

Job answers, Tou speakestas one o the oolish wom-en speaketh. What? shall wereceive good at the hand oGod, and shall we not receiveevil?

I want this read at my uneral.Jobs answer connects with anon-Scriptural work that hasbeen very important or mein recent years. Was therea man dismayd? / Not tho

the soldier knew /Someonehad blunderd: / Teirs not

to make reply, / Teirs not toreason why, / Teirs but to doand die. (ennyson, Chargeof the Light Brigade, ln. 10-15)

ennyson is writing o one othe great military mistakeso history. 600 horse mount-ed soldiers, armed only withlances (think, spears), are sentagainst a heavily ortified ar-tillery (think, big guns) withclear lines o fire. As you canimagine, the Light Brigadewas massacred.

Te Light Brigade were pre-sented with orders they didntunderstand, but they obeyed.Job, likewise, is presentedwith a reality he doesnt com-prehend. In that second verse,

he simply acknowledges itand lives.

I didnt need to know whokilled Fr. Horgan. A ew yearsago they ound his murderer,but he was already serving a


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lie sentence or other offenc-es. Punishing the murder

does not restore balance. Iwill not see Fr. Horgan againin this lie.

I am now a priest in ChristsOne, Holy, Catholic, and Ap-ostolic Church. How I gothere is another story. I have

seen more suffering over theyears: vicariously throughthe lives o my parishioners;personally through Hurri-cane Katrina, the death o mymother-in-law, and the livedexperience o parish minis-

try in the Episcopal Church.I dont need to know who. Idont even need to know why.

Suffering and death happen.Tey dont always serve a pur-pose or a plan. Tey just are.Understanding doesnt always

lessen the pain. I God toldyou the plan and you didntlike it, then what would youdo?

My response, and what I callmy parishes to do, is to be

aithul in the midst o it all. Ithurts. It isnt air. God is with

us through it all. Rememberthat the Father sent His Sonto us, and that we mocked,tortured, and killed Him. Fa-ther and Son suffered. Goddidnt take the easy way out.I we ollow Jesus, were go-ing to suffer. I we liveweregoing to suffer. But thats notall. Suffering and death dontwin. Our place, today, is toaccept whats in ront o us. Ithat means joy, then be joyul.I that means suffering, thensuffer. Dont explain it away.

Dont avoid it. Look at Jobsexample. Listen to ennyson.Follow Jesus.

Q Q

When pain is to be borne, alittle courage helps more thanmuch knowledge, a little hu-man sympathy more thanmuch courage, and the leasttincture o the love o Godmore than all.

C.S. Lewis,Te Problem o Pain


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A Lucky Break

[reprinted from the Michaelmas

1985 AD]

R. J BG, OK

ver since my seniorLiturgics course in sem-inary, I have been ex-

tremely meticulous abouthow the Holy Eucharistshould be celebrated. (Temore blunt-spoken o my pa-rishioners might substitutepompous and nitpicking ormeticulous.) It is true that I

have an unortunate habit ostaring laser beams through agiggling acolyte, or raising myeyes heavenward and heavinga martyred sigh at a layread-ers absent-mindedness. Iyoure going to do the thing at

all, I tell mysel, do it right.I like to give God the best Ican offer him when I presideat His able, and I give a gooddeal o thought and care toevery motion and gesture. Atits best, the liturgy is a grace-

E

ul, stately dance beore theLord o Glory, with priest and

people rejoicing in his love.

A moment o clumsiness onNovember 7,1984, changedeverything I brought to theleadership o the Holy Eucha-rist. An unseen chair sent meinto a vaudeville pratall Har-old Lloyd would have beenproud o. Te doctors diagno-sis escalated over several daysrom severe wrist sprain tocracked radius to ractureo the navicular. Te peb-ble-sized navicular lies at the

base o the thumb, where aRegency dandy would placea pinch o snuff. I ound my-sel sporting a plaster cast onmy right arm that went romknuckles almost to the elbow,with the thumb in an awk-

ward hitchhikers signal.All the care and precision Ihad so proudly brought tothe outward signs o the lit-urgy suddenly vanished. Eachcelebration o the Eucharist


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became a comedy o spilledwine, umbled chalices, and

dropped purificators. TeGreat Cross, traced in theair in absolution and bless-ing, was a clumsy wave. Tecentral act o the drama, theBreaking o the Bread, wasdone with a Host on the tabletop, grasped between indexand middle fingers.

I was exasperated with God.Why had he treated me, hisservant, this way? Why hadhe made me so clumsy andsel-conscious about the one

thing that meant the most tome as his priest?

Slowly, his answer came. Likea stage set coming out o thedarkness as the lights areturned up, the wider dimen-

sion o the liturgy began tobecome clear to me. I had toask or more help rom altarguild, acolytes, and chalicebearers. At first, this enorcedhelplessness galled me. Ten Ibegan to see it as a kind o liv-

ing metaphor or the offeringmade by the whole people o

God. Priest and people are alljoined in the great Sacrifice,each contributing a part othe action, just as each graino wheat is a part o the bread.

With my hands idle, I beganto be more aware o the wordso the liturgy. As the weekso the Church year revolvedrom the post-Pentecost sea-son to the Epiphanytide, onePrayer o Consecation ol-lowed another. Te phrasesbecame acets o a jewel, each

giving its own view o the in-ner light o the great Mysteryo Christs presence: Youdid not abandon us to thepower o death not weigh-ing our merits, but pardoningour offenses in these last

days you sent him to be incar-nate sanctiy us, also aperpetual memory o that hisprecious death and sacrifice we may enter the everlast-ing heritage o your sons anddaughters All honor and


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were with us at both times,and at all times, brother Jesus.

When I got my A in seminaryLiturgics, I knew everythingthere was to know about theEucharist. God has used theinconvenience o a crackedbone and a plaster cast toopen my eyes to the eter-nal, unolding Mystery o hispresence.

Te Carmelite Father NoelDermot ODonoghue has saidit best in Te Holy Mountain:

Te center (o the Eucha-rist), or rather the vital en-ergy that fills the sanctuary,is the prayer o Christ andthe presence o Christ inthat prayer. Tis presenceis as real, as substantial, as

the prayer is real and sub-stantial. Te young priesthas not as yet attained to thedimensions o this prayerany more than Peter hadon Tabor or in Gethse-mane. But he has, however,

glory are yours, Almighty Fa-ther

I became more and more con-scious o the precious gif omy priesthood, and the joyand privilege o gathering inthe Churchs prayer the glad-ness and sorrow, the whole-ness and brokenness o all thebrothers and sisters o Jesuscalled to Messiahs east.

Te externals o the liturgymatter only insoar as theymake us more aware o theMystery at the heart o the

Eucharist the loving, heal-ing touch o the Risen Christ.In the past ew weeks, I haveoffered the sacrifice o theEucharist vested in white silkand cloth o gold, surround-ed by the majesty o Vivaldis

Gloria in Excelcis. I have alsoshared the presence o Christin a crowded hospital roomwith the soap-opera babbleo the television set or back-ground music and a clutteredormica tabletop or altar. You


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tremblingly, even oolish-ly, responded to this call to

pray with Christ, and herehe is most ully involved inthis prayer. He does not atall realize that he is as yeta babe in arms, that he isbeing carried by the prayero Christ and the Church,perhaps even by the prayero some o those who are hisflock. As times goes on hewill learn all this, and willcome to admire the courageo Peter even when he couldbut tough the ringes o themystery. So his making is

an unmaking, his knowingis an unknowing, and hisbreaking o the bread moreand more a breaking ohimsel, so that he too mayollow his Master into theglory o Resurrection.

Te cast finally came off onJanuary 21. Now the Lordonce again has my handswhen I come to His able. Healso has much more o myheart.

Sometimes people eel that

they have a right to be hap-py in this world. A Chris-tian is not to be necessarilyhappy but is to work towardblessedness. In the Sermonon the Mount, those blessedones were ull o joy but notnecessarily happy. Blessed-

ness is a religious concep-tion and joyulness is ourresponse to God. Strictlyspeaking, in our human re-lationships we may be hap-py but not joyul. I we arehungry because we havegiven our ood to someoneless ortunate, we are nothappy but we may

the anglican digest - spring 2016

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