The Ember Days in Lent naturally bring up a question about
the effect personal sin has in ordained life. Today, this question is rarely
asked out loud…though it is thought about quietly and with pain behind-the-scenes
often enough. We tend to focus on corporate or societal sin in the Episcopal
Church today, pretending that personal sin is an artifact of our benighted
ancestors, or the province of televangelists and the like.
Sadly, though, personal sinfulness remains a fact for us
all, and to the degree we as clergy are not engaged in an active life of ascesis, repentance, and discipleship,
the ministries we have received from Christ will become increasingly mired and
compromised by what we have not cared to see or offer up to Christ in humility
and desire for transformation.
When each of us was ordained, we were personally addressed
by the Risen Christ, through the Holy Spirit’s presence and power, to “be my
deacon/priest/bishop.” We were not given a franchise in ministry—something
proprietary of our own, something we may use as we please—nor were we allowed
to place our confidence in the opinion of others. We have a constituency of One
(in Three): God the Holy and Undivided Trinity, alone.
Sin in our life causes us to forget this. We begin to put
our focus on what the “majority” says, or on how the political winds blow, or mere numbers, techniques, personal comfort. We
may also retreat into our own frustration, pain, fears, and anxieties…creating impoverished
fiefdoms that gradually come to acknowledge no Lord, no sovereign. When these
things happen, our ministry becomes an act of ego, and it is only a matter of
time before we will do great damage to those we serve and to our selves.
The Lenten Embertide is the time par excellence for each of us in Holy Orders to “come to ourselves”
as Prodigal Sons and Daughters; to peer into the mirror of self-awareness (as
opposed to the blank wall of being self-absorbed) and see the degree to which
we have ceased to be God’s minister and become the minister of our own
unredeemed selves. We all need truly skilled confessors, spiritual fathers and
mothers who are unafraid to speak the truth to us. Above all, we need the
courage to see the truth of our lives as they are.
This is, of course, an act of humility. Such humility, St.
Benedict shows us, is the result of a life lived in prayer, work, and
stability-lived-in-community. There is no escaping it: we are all part of a
Body—Christ’s own Body—and we cannot become fully ourselves until we have
surrendered everything to Him. For, in Christ alone is our peace, our rest—and,
I might add, our freedom. This is the hidden power of obedience to our vows, wherein
we join Christ in what it means to take up one’s cross and live under
an obedience of Love itself.
The sacred vows at ordination are the means by which we gain
our freedom. Like the baptismal vows on which they are based and through which
they live, those made at ordination establish a context, a mold in which we
are formed by Love into the persons we
are not yet. For us, faithfulness to these vows—as in a marriage—is at the
center of our active discipleship. Thus, coming to see where we have tossed the
vows behind our backs is essential not only for the well-being of the Church at
large, but for us individually. For the Church, individual sin becomes
corporate sin; individual healing becomes corporate health.
Today, the Friday in Embertide, is a particularly solemn day on which to recall Christ’s words, as hands were laid on us at that most
solemn hour: “Be my deacon.” “Be my priest.” “Be my bishop.” Where we have sought (in effect) to hire ourselves out
to others, we must repent and return to the Lord.
Today, as we “come to ourselves,” we know we may return to the Father who awaits us with open arms, back to the joy, the source of the energy making Living Water flow from the hard rock of human strife, human limitation and failing, human sin.
Today, as we “come to ourselves,” we know we may return to the Father who awaits us with open arms, back to the joy, the source of the energy making Living Water flow from the hard rock of human strife, human limitation and failing, human sin.
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Litany of
Remembrance
Commonly called “The Southwell Litany”
For the use of clergy at the Embertides & other times of the year.
[Dr. George Ridding, first Bishop of Southwell, who composed
this Litany for use at meetings of his clergy, was accustomed to introduce it
with the following words:
Seeing, brethren, that we are weak men but entrusted with a
great office, and that we cannot but be liable to hinder the work entrusted to
us by our infirmities of body, soul, and spirit, both those common to all men
and those specially attaching to our office, let us pray God to save us and
help us from the several weaknesses which beset us severally, that he will make
us know what faults we have not known, that he will shew us the harm of what we
have not cared to control, that he will give us strength and wisdom to do more
perfectly the work to which our lives have been consecrated--for no less
service than the honor of God and the edifying of his Church. I will ask you to
let me first say the suffrage to each petition, and then all join in repeating
it together; after which a short pause shall be made.
Let us pray.]
O Lord, open our minds to see ourselves as Thou seest us, or
even as others see us and we see others, and from all unwillingness to know our
infirmities,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From moral weakness of spirit; from timidity; from
hesitation; from fear of men and dread of responsibility, strengthen us with
courage to speak the truth in love and self-control; and alike from the
weakness of hasty violence and weakness of moral cowardice,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From weakness of judgment; from the indecision that can make
no choice; from the irresolution that carries no choice into act; and from
losing opportunities to serve Thee,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From infirmity of purpose; from want of earnest care and
interest; from the sluggishness of indolence, and the slackness of
indifference; and from all spiritual deadness of heart,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From dullness of conscience; from feeble sense of duty; from
thoughtless disregard of consequences to others; from a low idea of the
obligations of our Christian calling; and from all half-heartedness in our
service for Thee,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From weariness in continuing struggles; from despondency in
failure and disappointment; from overburdened sense of unworthiness; from
morbid fancies of imaginary backslidings, raise us to a lively hope and trust
in Thy presence and mercy, in the power of faith and prayer; and from all
exaggerated fears and vexations,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From self-conceit, vanity and boasting; from delight in
supposed success and superiority, raise us to the modesty and humility of true
sense and taste and reality; and from all harms and hindrances of offensive
manners and self-assertion,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From affectation and untruth, conscious or unconscious; from
pretence and acting a part, which is hypocrisy; from impulsive self-adaptation
to the moment in unreality to please persons or make circumstances easy,
strengthen us to manly simplicity; and from all false appearances,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From love of flattery; from over-ready belief in praise;
from dislike of criticism; from the comfort of self-deception in persuading
ourselves that others think better than the truth of us,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From all love of display and sacrifice to popularity; from
thought of ourselves in forgetfulness of Thee in our worship; hold our minds in
spiritual reverence; and in all our words and works from all
self-glorification,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From pride and self-will; from desire to have our own way in
all things; from overweening love of our own ideas and blindness to the value
of others; from resentment against opposition and contempt for the claims of
others; enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our
judgments; and from all selfish arbitrariness of temper,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From all jealousy, whether of equals or superiors; from
grudging others success; from impatience of submission and eagerness for
authority; give us the spirit of brotherhood to share loyally with
fellow-workers in all true proportions; and from all insubordination to law,
order and authority,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From all hasty utterances of impatience; from the retort of
irritation and the taunt of sarcasm; from all infirmity of temper in provoking
or being provoked; from love of unkind gossip, and from all idle words that may
do hurt,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
In all times of temptation to follow pleasure, to leave duty
for amusement, to indulge in distraction and dissipation, in dishonesty and
debt, to degrade our high calling and forget our Christian vows, and in all
times of frailty in our flesh,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
In all times of ignorance and perplexity as to what is right
and best to do, do Thou, O Lord, direct us with wisdom to judge aright, order
our ways and overrule our circumstances as Thou canst in Thy good Providence;
and in our mistakes and misunderstandings,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
In times of doubts and questionings, when our belief is
perplexed by new learning, new thought, when our faith is strained by creeds,
by doctrines, by mysteries beyond our understanding, give us the faithfulness
of learners and the courage of believers in Thee; alike from stubborn rejection
of new revelations, and from hasty assurance that we are wiser than our
fathers,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
From strife and partisanship and division among the
brethren, from magnifying our certainties to condemn all differences from all
arrogance in our dealings with all men,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
Give us knowledge of ourselves, our powers and weaknesses,
our spirit, our sympathy, our imagination, our knowledge, our truth; teach us
by the standard of Thy Word, by the judgments of others, by examinations of
ourselves; give us earnest desire to strengthen ourselves continually by study,
by diligence, by prayer and meditation; and from all fancies, delusions, and
prejudices of habit, or temper, or society,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
Give us true knowledge of our brethren in their differences
from us and in their likenesses to us, that we may deal with their real selves,
not measuring their feelings by our own, but patiently considering their varied
lives and thoughts and circumstances; and in all our relations to them, from
false judgments of our own, from misplaced trust and distrust, from misplaced
giving and refusing, from misplaced praise and rebuke,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
Chiefly, O Lord, we pray Thee, give us knowledge of Thee, to
see Thee in all Thy works, always to feel Thy presence near, to hear and know
Thy call. May Thy Spirit be our will, and in all our shortcomings and
infirmities may we have sure faith in Thee,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
Finally, O Lord, we humbly beseech Thee, blot out our past
transgressions, heal the evils of our past negligences and ignorances, make us
amend our past mistakes and misunderstandings; uplift our hearts to new love,
new energy and devotion, that we may be unburdened from the grief and shame of
past faithlessness to go forth in Thy strength to persevere through success and
failure, through good report and evil report, even to the end; and in all time
of our tribulation, in all time of our prosperity,
Save us and help us,
we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.
O Christ, hear us.
Lord, have mercy upon
us.
Christ, have mercy
upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon
us.
Our Father…
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all forever. Amen.
