Themes of Faith from Sunday, January 31

1 Corinthians 13:1-10, 12-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ... For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Songs of Solomon 8:6-7

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, ...Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it ...





Gregorian Chant for Maundy Thursday



Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.
Exultemus, et in ipso iucundemur.
Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

A Loose Translation

Where true charity and love dwell, God himself is there.
Since the love of Christ has joined us in one body,
let us rejoice and be pleased in him
Let us respect and love the living God,
And from the heart, let us love one another sincerely.

Themes of Faith from Sunday, January 3

Prayer Intention for the Second Sunday of Christmas

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives;

From the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians (3:17-19a)

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe ...

Quote from Saint Athanasius

When He became man, the Savior's love put away death from us and renewed us again; for Christ became man that we might become [like him].

A Hymn of the Season




From the Gospel of Saint Matthew (2:11-12)

On entering the house, [the wise men] saw the child [Jesus] with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Quote from Rebecca Solnit, a Californian essayist

Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with ... To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.

Themes of Faith from The Third Sunday of Advent, 2009

Hymn Verse by Saint Ambrose of Milan (translation by William Morton Reynolds) Savior of the nations, come; virgin's Son, here make thy home! Marvel now, O heaven and earth, that the Lord chose such a birth. This English text has essentially the same meaning as the following choral composition by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Prayer intention for the Third Sunday of Advent
Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us.

From the Gospel According to Luke (3:16-18): John [the Baptizer] answered [the pilgrims at the Jordan River] by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

From the Letter from the Apostle Paul to the Philippians (4:8-9): ... whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Quotation from Meister Eckhart Meister Eckhart o. p. (c. 1260–c. 1328) For however devoted you are to (God), you may be sure that he is immeasurably more devoted to you.

Themes of Faith from The Second Sunday of Advent, 2009

Selections from "In a Dark Time" by Theodore Roethke

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade ...
A lord of nature weeping to a tree
I live between the heron and the wren...

A man goes far to find out what he is ... Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire ... The mind enters itself, and God the mind, and One is one, free in the tearing wind.

Verse 1 From an Hymn by Carol Christopher Drake

What is the crying at Jordan? Who hears, O God, the prophecy? Dark is the season, dark our hearts and shut to mystery.

Verse From an Ancient Hymn (contemporary wording)
Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding, "Christ is near" it seems to say; "Cast away the workds of darkness, O you children of the day"

Prayer intention for the Second Sunday in Advent

Merciful God, who sent your messenges the prophets to preach repenance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer ...

From the Letter of Paul to the Phillipians (1:9-12)

... this is my prayer, that your ... knowledge and full insight ... help you to determine what is best, that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousess that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Hymn verse by James Mason Neale

O very God of very God, and very light of light, Whose feet the earth's dark valley trod that so it may be bright; we wait in faith and turn our face to where the daylight springs, till Thou shall come our gloom to chase with healing in Thy wings.

Themes of Faith from Sunday, August 9

The following are recollections and interpretations of what I heard at church today.

In today's gospel reading (according to the Revised Common Lectionary), John continues to explain who Jesus was. In this passage, Jesus' fame has spread and he has been drawing crowds, including a group of 5,000 who showed up at a hillside pasture to hear him teach. Those present at this gathering experienced an apparent miracle, through which Jesus provided bread and fish to feed the entire crowd. After feeding the multitude, he suddenly crossed Lake Genesseret to get away from the crowd, who might have otherwise tried to form an army to march on Jerusalem with Jesus as its leader. So that took the steam out of the would be revolutionaries, but the more persistent followers pursued him around to the other side of the lake at Capernaum, with the bread they had received fresh in their minds. And here is part of what Jesus said to them this time, according to John, the apostle:

Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." John 6: 47-51

So what does that mean? First, one must have an understanding that heaven is the place (or dimension) inhabited by God, the Creator. Jesus came down from heaven and offers eternal life to those who believe him ad who accept the nourishment that he offers. Eternal life for humans does not occur in our present state of existence, so it must be a feature of an alternative state of existence like heaven. The nourishment that Jesus is offering is not for our physical bodies, but for that which makes us who we are.

"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey." Pierre Theilhard de Chardin, SJ (1881-1955)

Alison Krauss seems to understand that we are spiritual beings, as the following video link will attest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9TmJBBKYmU I wonder if she ever thinks about the other one --- Allison Krause, who was killed in the massacre at Kent State Univeristy, about 14 months before she was born.

Curmudgeon Redux

On Februry 19, life got a lot busier when 40% of our office staff was laid off. I believe they are all now employed elsewhere, Laus deo. Nevertheless, my days are longer, and I had to give up something --- the daily postings that I used to make here.

Now however I would like to use this space to help spread a virus --- a certain YouTube video that already has 15,000,000 hits. Since it was mentioned favorably in a sermon at church and as we struggle to retain in the 21st century the joy of the ceremony honored by Christ at Cana, the following is worth a look.

Data for Friday, February 20

This has been the week that was. Next is the week that will be. It seems to be time to put this blog on hiatus. We'll see if the Accidental Curmudgeon, whoever that is, comes back after Lent.