Friday, March 14, 2014

“Be My Priest” – Reflections on the Lenten Embertide



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.

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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.

2 comments:

  1. It was a joy to pray this litany. Thank you for posting it, Brandon.

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  2. you are very welcome, Erika. I have used this litany for many years and found it to be of immense use in its honesty, subtlety, and encouragement to return to the truth in ministry. I'm delighted you found it useful.

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