Another great one today from catholicity and covenant:
While this entire passage is absolutely wonderful, what struck me most - at least at first - was this part: "....or better still, forget ourselves altogether. For God is here: let us adore him."
That's at the very heart of things, I'd say - and it's far, far more profound than it at first appears. It's crucially - so to speak - about the subjugation of the ego, something that is so difficult and rare that it doesn't even manifest itself as a thought - let alone a hope! - most of the time.
But that is the power at the heart of faith: that one can at last forget oneself - and Christianity offers at once the most piercingly beautiful and achingly heart-rending means of being drawn into that blessed state. (In these last days especially, this seems to me to be of great importance for the human heart and soul. Joy at life and beauty and pain and sorrow at death - and the incomprehensibility of evil - are all part of the human experience; Christianity speaks powerfully, directly, and lovingly to the human condition itself.)
It's telling, I think, that A.A.'s 11th Step uses a form of the "Prayer of St. Francis" that includes a bit about "self-forgetting":
There's also that other bit, though! "....it's the price (how small a price!) paid for the supreme mercy of God, that he does not wait for our dignity or our perfection, but just puts himself there in our midst; in this bread and this wine: in the priest: in this Christian man, woman, or child."
Beautiful! And a completely unearned - unsought-for, while we're at it! - gift.
One week before his death on 29th December 1968, Austin Farrer preached in Holy Trinity, Northword for the first eucharist of Fr. Edward Ryan, on the evening of Advent IV. In the sermon Farrer famously described those given the gift of ministerial priesthood as "walking sacraments".
The Advent Ember Days allow us to reflect on the vocation of deacon, priest and bishop to serve the Church in such a way that we may more authentically be sign and sacrament of the Kingdom. There is, of course, an obvious absurdity here. The brokeness of the Church, the brokeness of our lives as disciples, the brokeness of each deacon, priest and bishop forcefully emphasises that the treasure of the Kingdom is carried in vulnerable clay jars - chipped, scarred, plain, ungainly. It is absurd that we should be signs of the Kingdom.
It is, however, this very absurdity - this Advent hope - which Farrer celebrated at the conclusion of his sermon:
There is inevitably something absurd about our priesthood, because what we stand for is so infinitely greater than our poor little selves. But there's the same absurdity, really, about being a Christian at all. None of us can be let off being Christ in our place and our station: we are all pigmies in giants' armour. We have to put up with it: it's the price (how small a price!) paid for the supreme mercy of God, that he does not wait for our dignity or our perfection, but just puts himself there in our midst; in this bread and this wine: in the priest: in this Christian man, woman, or child.
He who gave himself to us as an infant, crying in a cot, he who was hung up naked on the wood, does not stand on his own dignity. If Jesus is willing to be in us, and to let us show him to the world, it's a small thing that we should endure being fools for Christ's sake, and be shown up by the part we have to play. We must put up with such humiliation of ourselves, or better still, forget ourselves altogether. For God is here: let us adore him.
While this entire passage is absolutely wonderful, what struck me most - at least at first - was this part: "....or better still, forget ourselves altogether. For God is here: let us adore him."
That's at the very heart of things, I'd say - and it's far, far more profound than it at first appears. It's crucially - so to speak - about the subjugation of the ego, something that is so difficult and rare that it doesn't even manifest itself as a thought - let alone a hope! - most of the time.
But that is the power at the heart of faith: that one can at last forget oneself - and Christianity offers at once the most piercingly beautiful and achingly heart-rending means of being drawn into that blessed state. (In these last days especially, this seems to me to be of great importance for the human heart and soul. Joy at life and beauty and pain and sorrow at death - and the incomprehensibility of evil - are all part of the human experience; Christianity speaks powerfully, directly, and lovingly to the human condition itself.)
It's telling, I think, that A.A.'s 11th Step uses a form of the "Prayer of St. Francis" that includes a bit about "self-forgetting":
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.
There's also that other bit, though! "....it's the price (how small a price!) paid for the supreme mercy of God, that he does not wait for our dignity or our perfection, but just puts himself there in our midst; in this bread and this wine: in the priest: in this Christian man, woman, or child."
Beautiful! And a completely unearned - unsought-for, while we're at it! - gift.
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