For Fridays: An Obsecration before the Crucifix

Lord, by this sweet and saving Sign,

Defend us from our foes and thine.

Jesus, by thy wounded feet,

Direct our paths aright:

Jesu, by thy nailed hands,

Move ours to deeds of love:

Jesu, by thy pierced side,

Cleanse our desires:

Jesu, by thy crown of thorns,

Annihilate our pride:

Jesu, by thy parched lips,

Curb our cruel speech:

Jesuby by thy closing eyes,

Look on our sin no more:

Jesu, by thy broken heart,

Knit ours to thee.

And by this sweet and saving Sign,

Lord, draw us to our peace and thine.

- Richard Crashaw, and others.

The Knot

Bright Queen of Heaven! God's Virgin Spouse

The glad world's blessed Maid!

Whose beauty tied life to thy house,

And brought us saving aid.

Thou art the true Love's-knot; by thee

God is made our ally;

And man's inferior essence He

With His did dignify.

For coalescent by that band

We are His body grown,

Nourish'd with favours from His hand

Whom for our Head we own.

And such a knot, what arm dares loose.

What life, what death can sever?

Which us in Him, and Him in us,

United keeps for ever.

-- Henry Vaughan

Our Share in These Things

It is time we acknowledge that Christians themselves bear a large share of the responsibility for this tragedy of freedom, that it is not accidental that the roots of this tragedy stretch out into that world and that culture that not very long ago at all called itself Christian. On the one hand, the unheard of, impossible good news of freedom – the call, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore” (Gal. 5:1) – came into the world with and only with Christianity. It is precisely Christianity, and only it, which has forever spoiled human consciousness with this unquenchable thirst. But on the other hand, who, if not Christians themselves, have substituted, or one can even say, handed down this good news while reducing it – for the world, for “those outside” – to facile, “scientific” and “objective” knowledge about God, to a knowledge from without that cannot define God other than in categories of power, authority, necessity, and law. Precisely from here stems the terrible pathos of theomachy [a war or struggle against God], inherent in all ideologies that promise freedom to mankind. And here there is no misunderstanding, for if God is what “knowledge about God” self-assuredly affirms about him, then man is a slave, in spite of all the stipulations and elucidations suggested in smooth apologetics and theodicy. And then, for the sake of freedom, it is necessary that God not exist, that he be killed, and through this murder of God contemporary man, deifying himself, advances to his lowest depths.

-- from The Eucharist by Alexander Schmemann

A Question of Rights

The Rule of St. Benedict is imbued with an extraordinary force for normalizing the relations between God and man, and between man and his fellow. It has a rare wholesomeness and capacity for giving man an equilibrium both psychic and physical by re-establishing in him right concepts and by ordering an hierarchy of value in him. There is in it no neurotic affirmation of the rights of man. Where God occupies his true place, everything sorts itself out in the best way for man. The rights of man are assured where the rights of God are respected.

- from Serving God First, by Dom Sighard Kleiner

Thoughts on True Prayer

Anyone who prays should pray having his heart in touch with his mouth and his mind with his lips. If, however, he bows down and stretches out his hands in prayer while his heart is daydreaming somewhere else, then he is like the cedars which storms bend down and flatten out. Or if his lips are eagerly murmuring but his mind is somewhere [else], then this resembles the case of doors being buffeted by the winds, which no one can open or shut.

For anyone who stands in prayer a discerning compassion is required. Tears of compunction are also beneficial. He also requires a recollected mind. If he has any grudge against any of his fellows, he should wash this away from his heart. And he should pray in silence, his lips murmuring with awareness. And when he puts the seal on his prayer, let him stop and remain still in silence. He should not occupy himself with empty talk or with unedifying chatter; rather, he should remain in silence and awareness. Then his prayer will be fully accepted by him who receives prayers and pure thoughts.

Philoxenus of Mabbug (obit. 523 AD)

Strength in Fragility

From all evil and wickedness; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the devil; and from everlasting damnation, Good Lord, deliver us.

From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity, Good Lord, deliver us.

From all inordinate and sinful affections; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, Good Lord, deliver us.

In these three petitions we bring before God the vulnerabilities, flaws, and delusions which beset all humanity. Why this? How can it be “good psychology” or “beneficial self-esteem” to do this? It is because the strength we seek can only be found by a clear understanding of our own fragility.

The first petition cries out to God that we are utterly beset by brokenness. Any honest, clear-eyed assessment of the world will attest to this fact. We had best admit this; if it were not so, why would be appealing to God on behalf of a suffering world in the first place? This brokenness, this illusory search for life apart from God, has a name: sin. It is not just an impersonal “concept.” It is a highly personal fact, addressed to each one of us by our ancient foe: the devil. Evil’s desire is for our final “undoing,” our complete rejection of relationship with the Triune God. The ultimate cost of yielding to the false logic of sin is an everlasting aloneness.

The second petition moves from the grand scale to the theatre of the human heart. In our search for life apart of God, we have become blind of heart: alienated from the illumination coming from God alone, we grope in the darkness of our own aloneness. Having lost full union with the God who gives us dignity and value, we have substituted pride and vainglory, searching for identity and purpose by exerting power and control over others. Because we are not whole and honest with the God who formed us, we have split the world in two – the world of “being seen” and the “personal life” where we live and do as we please, giving rise to hypocrisy. With these distortions in our heart, we are constantly tempted to act out of their deadly fruit: envy, hatred, malice, and want of charity. Our Lenten pilgrimage each year deepens our recognition of this “other law” within us, a law we must acknowledge in order to fight against in the power of God revealed at Easter.

The third petition “gets down to cases,” as we might say. We confess to the specific ways in which sin operates on the personal level. In a society obsessed by comfort and license, we recall the inordinate and sinful affections we place higher than “the kingdom of God and its righteousness,” and by which we allow the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil to go unchallenged as our personal (if unacknowledged) “logic.” Thus, the tragic dimension of our fallen reasoning, desires, and expectations are laid honestly before our own eyes and before our God. But why do we do this here in the Litany?

The reason is difficult for the secular – or the secularized Christian – mind to comprehend, distorted as it has become by confusing self-esteem with self-awareness. The Christian confesses his or her fragility precisely because it leads to renewed trust and strength in God. Without this we will likely only further the wrong done by those before us. By renouncing Satan’s ancient lie – that by severing our life in God we can become “gods” – and embracing the gift of True Life which comes from God alone through salvation in Christ, we are freed to do the true work of discipleship. Only then, with humility (in the sense of knowing and living in reality), may we proceed in prayer aware of our true place, our proper and indeed essential role of sharing in Christ’s ministry of reconciliation and intercession. It is when we come to understand, with St. Paul, that we are "treasures in clay vessels" that God's strength may be "perfected in human weakness."

(Photo: Ad Meskens)

Remember Not

Remember not, Lord Christ, our offenses, nor the offenses of our forefathers; neither reward us according to our sins. Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and by thy mercy preserve us for ever. Spare us, good Lord.

The above words follow immediately after the Invocation of the Trinity in the Great Litany. They are what is known as a “obsecration,” or earnest pleading. In it, we pray God not to remember sins, pleading that the consequences of our sins will not be visited on us. Henry Purcell, the great 17^th Century Anglican composer, set the 1662 version of the text to music; it is a haunting and profound meditation on this masterpiece of prayer.

This prayer necessarily follows the Invocation, in that once we call to mind the holiness of God, our own sin becomes immediately apparent. How may we proceed in praying for the world when we ourselves are so compromised, so identified with the very brokenness we submit to Christ for healing and redemption? We should instinctively join the Prophet in saying: “Woe is me…for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5)

To remember – to make present – is central to the Christian life. At every Eucharist we remember Christ’s command to “do this” – making Him present by the action of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Mysteries. Each time, the consequences of God’s love in Christ are poured out upon us.

In this portion of the Litany, we in effect ask God to forget. Joining with the Psalmist in Psalm 51, we cry out: “in your compassion, blot out our offenses.” We, who are burdened by the present effects of our sin, our lost opportunities for holiness, plead with God to lift from us all the unbearable horror of this oppressive weight.

“With men it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26) As the Litany is addressed to Christ, so it is through His mercy and grace made known eternally on the Cross that we have access to the Father, and thus the weight of sin, which “clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1) may finally be shed.

Intercession on the world's behalf is senseless without the mercy of the Cross. Our puny attempts to “make a difference” by ourselves would be worse than hopeless. In Christ, though, we have the victory that frees us from despair and helplessness. Sharing as we do with Him in a ministry of reconciliation, it becomes our joy and our mission to bring before the Throne of Grace all those many people and needs which come our way. Indeed, the "fruit of good deeds" done in our own local or personal circumstances require a direct connection to the concerns of the wider world. Through the life-giving Cross, this connection can be made without overwhelming us. Rather, we find added compassion and peace by sharing in Christ's ongoing intercession for the world.

By turning to Christ with contrite hearts in this opening petition of the Litany, we take off our “spiritual shoes” and stand on the holy ground of God’s own redeeming. We are now ready to call upon our God in humility – the prerequisite for true Christian intercession.