Thursday, May 17, 2007
To "Anonymice"
Anonymous comments will not be posted, however, the writer of this journal would enjoy a dialogue and open communication. I look forward to an opportunity to explore those things that rest heavy on your heart.
i ain't tell'n!
Recently there was a discussion within the parish about the fact that there was an over abundance of "secrets". This is almost a contradictory phenomena for if someone knows there are "secrets", how come they don't know the secrets?
And besides, how do you end the perception that "secrets" are in the air? For if someone says there are "secrets" there must BE "secrets". Such a thought can easily put the rector on the defensive. For such a discussion is suggestive that the rector is to blame for these secrets. If he would be more forthcoming, more open with everyone, then these "secrets" will become know to everyone.
I have a more important question. I wonder what they (those aware of the secrets) want to know? All they need to do is ask, to enter into dialogue, to explore life more deeply. Now, no doubt, there will always be "secrets" we can't forget that somethings are told to me and others in confidence, most people don't want their private lives shared openly and indiscriminately. You know the more I think about it the more I realize how good it is that "secrets" abound for it means that the faith community is protected from one another.
And besides, how do you end the perception that "secrets" are in the air? For if someone says there are "secrets" there must BE "secrets". Such a thought can easily put the rector on the defensive. For such a discussion is suggestive that the rector is to blame for these secrets. If he would be more forthcoming, more open with everyone, then these "secrets" will become know to everyone.
I have a more important question. I wonder what they (those aware of the secrets) want to know? All they need to do is ask, to enter into dialogue, to explore life more deeply. Now, no doubt, there will always be "secrets" we can't forget that somethings are told to me and others in confidence, most people don't want their private lives shared openly and indiscriminately. You know the more I think about it the more I realize how good it is that "secrets" abound for it means that the faith community is protected from one another.
Ascension Joy!
Today is our parish's name day. Ascension holds before us the full meaning of our humanity in Christ and reminds us of our interconnectedness with God and one another. Ascension is the spirituality of community, the realization that community is not something we created, but something that creates us.
In our scientific age, the Ascension has become more of a symbol than a literal fact leaving us still yearning for fuller meaning and hope. In, through, and with Christ our flesh has been received with all its limitations into the presence of God. Christ, who is our high priest, continually prays to the Father that we shall "be one" as he and the Father are one.
May we recognize the true meaning of ourselves, formed and molded by others, as a people reborn in the risen Christ who has filled all in all. Alleluia.
In our scientific age, the Ascension has become more of a symbol than a literal fact leaving us still yearning for fuller meaning and hope. In, through, and with Christ our flesh has been received with all its limitations into the presence of God. Christ, who is our high priest, continually prays to the Father that we shall "be one" as he and the Father are one.
May we recognize the true meaning of ourselves, formed and molded by others, as a people reborn in the risen Christ who has filled all in all. Alleluia.
Second Homily on the Ascension of our Lord
From a homily by the former Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, III
Here we are faced with a paradox: What the Apostles perceived as Jesus leaving them once again, this time not by way of the cross by way of ascension, was in fact a prelude to a deeper, fuller and more substantial knowing of the risen One mediated by the Spirit.
... a new kind of knowing in which Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life is known inwardly and with such force that they will, in time, be able with St. Paul to cry out, “The life I now live is not my own, but the life Christ lives in me.”
Here I am put in mind of an observation made by Carl Jung that “the Western attitude, with its emphasis on the object, tends to fix the ideal -- Christ -- in its outward aspect and thus to rob it of its mysterious relation to the inner man.” “Too few people,” he observes, “have experienced the divine image as the innermost possession of their own souls. Christ only meets them from without, never from within the soul.
Christ’s ascension opens the way for a new mode of being present, being with ... What the Spirit takes from Christ is not information but life, life expressed as love and realized in the intimacy of communion whereby Christ dwells in us and we in him.
Here we are faced with a paradox: What the Apostles perceived as Jesus leaving them once again, this time not by way of the cross by way of ascension, was in fact a prelude to a deeper, fuller and more substantial knowing of the risen One mediated by the Spirit.
... a new kind of knowing in which Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life is known inwardly and with such force that they will, in time, be able with St. Paul to cry out, “The life I now live is not my own, but the life Christ lives in me.”
Here I am put in mind of an observation made by Carl Jung that “the Western attitude, with its emphasis on the object, tends to fix the ideal -- Christ -- in its outward aspect and thus to rob it of its mysterious relation to the inner man.” “Too few people,” he observes, “have experienced the divine image as the innermost possession of their own souls. Christ only meets them from without, never from within the soul.
Christ’s ascension opens the way for a new mode of being present, being with ... What the Spirit takes from Christ is not information but life, life expressed as love and realized in the intimacy of communion whereby Christ dwells in us and we in him.
First Homily on the Ascension of our Lord
From a Homily of Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Ascension of the Lord:
The Lord says to us, mysteriously, that his going away and disappearing will also be a coming and an appearing: "I am going away, and I will come to you" (Jn 14:18). And to help us understand that his going away and coming are one and the same, he puts it even more clearly: "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you" (Jn 14:18-20).
His disappearance from the world begins with his Passion and ends with his Ascension. For since he was laid in the tomb, no worldly person, no one who lacks the Spirit of Christ, has seen him anymore. His coming to us, however, starts on Easter morning, where he meets one disciple after another; it continues throughout the Forty Days and is brought to its fulfillment at Pentecost, when he pours out his Spirit over the Church and thus fills her with his own innermost being.
It is not that his presence changes into his absence; what changes is the mode of his presence.
(You Crown the Year with Your Goodness [Ignatius Press])
The Lord says to us, mysteriously, that his going away and disappearing will also be a coming and an appearing: "I am going away, and I will come to you" (Jn 14:18). And to help us understand that his going away and coming are one and the same, he puts it even more clearly: "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you" (Jn 14:18-20).
His disappearance from the world begins with his Passion and ends with his Ascension. For since he was laid in the tomb, no worldly person, no one who lacks the Spirit of Christ, has seen him anymore. His coming to us, however, starts on Easter morning, where he meets one disciple after another; it continues throughout the Forty Days and is brought to its fulfillment at Pentecost, when he pours out his Spirit over the Church and thus fills her with his own innermost being.
It is not that his presence changes into his absence; what changes is the mode of his presence.
(You Crown the Year with Your Goodness [Ignatius Press])
The Feast of the Ascension
Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Rule of Saint Benedict
On Calling the Brethren for Counsel
Whenever any important business has to be done
in the monastery,
let the Abbot call together the whole community
and state the matter to be acted upon.
Then, having heard the brethren's advice,
let him turn the matter over in his own mind
and do what he shall judge to be most expedient.
The reason we have said that all should be called for counsel
is that the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best.Let the brethren give their advice
with all the deference required by humility,
and not presume stubbornly to defend their opinions;
but let the decision rather depend on the Abbot's judgment,
and all submit to whatever he shall decide for their welfare.However, just as it is proper
for the disciples to obey their master,
so also it is his function
to dispose all things with prudence and justice.
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