Woman & Mother: Sign of Love

I have only two items in my Mother’s Day repertoire: one, a poem called “Mother, Ph.D.”, author unknown, and the other, a story:

The gowns she ties on

Aren’t a whit academical;

The formula she fixes

Is not a bit chemical.

She draws up some triangles

Ungeometrically, 

Notes wetness and dryness

Unbarometrically.

In her main course of study,

Complete with details,

For twenty-four hours

She classifies wails!

The story is about a young Roman Catholic priest who was to preach his very first sermon on Mother’s Day. He agonized over what to say, and was beside himself with fright. The old monsignor, his pastor, lovingly sat him down and said, “I’ll help you, son. The trick is to begin with a strong and unique opening so that you can grab the congregation’s attention. Then the rest of the sermon will be a breeze! So, I want you to memorize this opening sentence: ‘I’ve spent the major part of my life in the arms of a loving woman...’, then you pause dramatically and continue: ‘...my mother.’” The young priest felt a bit reassured.

Then came Sunday morning, and the monsignor slipped quietly in and stood at the rear of the church, figuring that his presence would lend moral support to his junior. Instead,when the young priest stepped into the pulpit and caught sight of the monsignor, he panicked, then said: “I’ve spent the major part of my life in the arms of a loving woman...” -- (dramatic pause, which got longer and longer) -- then he continued: “But I can’t remember her name!”

Let’s never forget that God’s only Son came to us through a woman. Bearing and nurturing and, yes, losing that son, letting him go, could only have been sustained through the empowerment of God’s Spirit and of faith. Jesus was the richest fruit ever born of a woman’s and a mother’s self-giving, a fruit which “abides”, using the Gospel’s terminology (John 15:9-17), with us always.

When I think of womanhood and motherhood in my own life, I feel extremely grateful. My mother, Grace, favored me with warmth and understanding, with respect and love for other people, and with a sense of fairness and honesty. She shared with me her basic sense of the holy, of responsibility, as well as a love of learning. Her giving, as a woman and mother, didn’t come easy. My father left us when I was about three. Being an only child and leaving home for the seminary just out of 8th Grade, Mom and I lived together only 14 years. In mid-life Mom became an alcoholic. In addition to that disease she was also plagued with phlebitis, and in the midst of a bout with that she lost her husband of only 12 years, my stepfather, Tom, who died suddenly at age 44. In John Steinbeck’s classic, The Grapes of Wrath, Ma says: “Everything we do -- seems to me is aimed right at goin‘ on. Seems that way to me...Jus‘ try to live the day, jus‘ the day.” With the same indomitable spirit of woman and mother so common in our human history, Mom became a recovering alcoholic, and remained so up to the time she died in December, 2003.

I feel very blessed to have had many women throughout my life, each of whom contributed something to an integral outlook and attitude toward women so necessary for us men. Jesus’s attitude toward women, understandably, was extremely healthy and integral, primarily because of the influence of his own mother, Mary. Later, when Mary of Magdala was about to be stoned for her sexual indiscretion by eager, self-righteous, men, whom the Gospel intimates were every bit as guilty, perhaps more so, than she, Jesus showed uncommon understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. Another time, as Luke records (11:27), “As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.’” To which he replied: “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” The man Jesus met “delicate” situations like these, the kind in which many men in our society might recoil in discomfort, with maturity, ease and great respect.

Woman stands as a sign, a person-sign, to man. As a unique symbol woman speaks to humanity and to the Church, almost paradoxically, of two things: motherhood and virginity. Speaking of woman as a sign of motherhood in sermons, I’ve often wondered if  female hearers have ever had the question put to them: Did you ever realize that you could have been Jesus‘ mother? As a woman, you have everything that Mary had, everything essential, to have been his mother. Perhaps in responding to the woman in Luke’s Gospel account, as he did, Jesus is saying, in effect: “You can be my mother,” not physically, of course, but in a different yet no less real way. Society and the Church cry out today, especially with a hunger and poverty for the one thing so characteristic of a woman/mother: genuine love, love which abides in, keeps, and gives the Word of God’s love. Far from being a mere emotion, sentimentality, or “warm fuzzies” in the stomach, it’s that Presence of Godself which expresses itself in openness and willingness to hand oneself over in self-giving love. 

As a sign of virginity women are able to share the kind of virginal commitment which Mary modeled, whether they are married or not, whether a mother or not. Perhaps the full understanding of virginity is not so much about physical integrity, though it is that too, as about the God-given ability to be truly open, truly unselfish: in other words, the ability to genuinely love.

To be motherly and virginal involves not filtering God’s Word, not turning it off as it comes to one from wherever in one’s life. It implies becoming an abiding presence of Jesus to and for others, learning to recognize another’s possibility for greatness in the Lord, and encouraging and nurturing that possibility.

The late Fr. Robert Capon, in his wonderful book Bed and Board, says that to be a woman and mother is “...to be the sacrament of  place”, to be “the very diagram of belonging...the ‘where’ in whose vicinity we are fed and watered, and have our wounds bound up and our noses wiped. She is geography incarnate, with her breasts and her womb...and her hands reaching up to us the fruitfulness of the earth.”

Each of our own personal experiences of mother and woman, obviously, colors the meaning of “womanhood” and “motherhood” for us. The women in Scripture certainly give us much to think about in this regard. Eve is the mother of life. Sarah is faithful and rich, even though barren for a time, with so little to give. Ruth is generous in going where her mother-in-law goes and taking her people as Ruth’s own. Judith is willing to take the risk of action for the greater good of others. Mary, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, proclaims her servanthood, not as she wishes but as God wishes. 

Another unknown author has written: “Whether your mother is 40 or 80 years old, [living or dead] she is an irreplaceable treasure in your life. As the years roll on and turn into decades, she takes on an indestructible sort of beauty, the reflection of her inner soul.”

A Theology Of The Heart: Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

Christian hearts, in love united, seek alone in Jesus rest;

has he not your love excited? Then let love inspire each breast.

Members on our Head depending, lights reflecting him, our Sun, brethren—his commands attending, we in him, our Lord, are one.

(Moravian Book of Worship 1995: 673) 

In one of the many hymns which he wrote, the stanza above reflects the "theology of the heart" which Zinzindorf espoused, as well as what it might look like if the members of the Church not only espoused it, but lived it.

Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was born in Dresden, Saxony in 1700. His father was in the service of the Saxon Elector at Dresden, but died six weeks after Nicolaus' birth. His grandmother, Henriette Catharina von Gersdorf, a devout Pietist, assumed primary responsibility for raising Zinzendorf. She determined where he attended school, his study of law at Wittenberg in 1716 and ultimately where he lived with his wife. Erdmuthe Dorothea, sister of Count Heinrich XXIX of Reuss, and an equally devout Pietist. 


In 1722 Zinzendorf purchased his grandmother's estate, Bethelsdorf, near the town of Herrnhut. The estate's tenants were remnants of a group of religious refugees from Bohemia and Moravia, the Unitas Fratrum or Bohemian Brethren.  Zinzendorf was impressed and empathized with their ideals. A successful community formed at Herrnhut and developed a rich liturgical and devotional life. It later came to be called the Moravian Church. Soon the community was at odds with the local aristocracy, town guilds and the Lutheran Church. Zinzendorf tried to stabilize the religious environment by becoming an ordained Lutheran minister in 1735, but to no avail. In 1737 the Saxon government banished Zinzendorf for eleven years. 


 Exile actually freed Zinzendorf. He was consecrated a Moravian bishop in Berlin, May, 1737, and immediately worked to establish new congregations in other parts of Germany, the Netherlands, England, the Baltic States, and the West Indies and New York and Pennsylvania. In 1741 he visited Pennsylvania and while there met such leaders as Benjamin Franklin, as well as leaders of the Iroquois. He was able to arrange free movement for Moravian missionaries in the area. In 1749 Zinzindorf leased Lindsey House, a large manor in Chelsea built on the estate of Sir Thomas More. He made it the headquarters for missionary work and lived there until 1755. Moravian missionary colonies had been set up in the West Indies, Greenland, among the North American Indians, in the Baltic area, among the African American slaves in South Carolina and South America, in the East Indies, in South Africa, among the Copts in Egypt, and among the Inuit of Labrador. The largest of all of his missions was Bethlehem, PA. During a Christmas Eve Service in 1742, according to legend, while singing the hymn by Adam Drese "Jesus, Call Thou Me … lowly Bethlehem", Zinzendorf was inspired to rename the settlement "Bethlehem". In 1747 the Saxon government rescinded his exile and two years later recognized the Church of the Unity of the Brethren (a.k.a. the Unitas Fratrum or the Moravians.)

He was an early advocate of ecumenism, and in the U.S. he tried to bring Protestant denominations together in the "Pennsylvania Synods". He met and developed friendships with leaders such as Cardinal Louis Antoine de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, John Potter.


Zinzendorf's son, Christian Renatus, whom he'd hoped to make his successor, died in 1752 and the loss devastated Zinzendorf. Four years later, June 17, 1756, he lost his wife, Erdmuthe Dorothea, who had been his counselor and confidante in all his work. After living as a widower for a year, Zinzendorf remarried a second time in June, 1757, to Anna Caritas Nitschmann  21 May 1760), with whom he'd been very close for many years, since Anna had for years been the spiritual leader of the movement's women. Three years later, Zinzendorf fell ill and died on May 9, 1760, leaving Bishop Johannes von Watteville, who had married his eldest daughter Benigna, to take his place at the head of the community. Zinzendorf's wife, Anna, died only a few days later on May 21. 


Nicolaus von Zinzendorf lived his "heart religion", discovered early on, and it well characterized his life and ministry. He once made the statement, "All life becomes a liturgy." In other words, anything that you and I do, even the most lowly or mundane kind of work, can serve as an act of worship.

Julian of Norwich & the Precious Blood of Christ

For thirteen years as a seminarian and four years as a Catholic priest, I was formed and nurtured in the theology of the Blood of Christ as a member of the Society of the Precious Blood. I must confess that the concept of devotion to the Blood of Jesus wasn't always easy for me to understand clearly. Through the years only progressively, thanks to continued education by the many gifted teachers, writers, interpreters and spiritual models within the Society, as well by others, have I come to appreciate better and experience the depths of this particular aspect of faith.

One of those guides was John XXIII (1881-1963), who was Pope for only five short years during my time in seminary. In his Apostolic Letter of June 30, 1960, On Promoting Devotion To The Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Pope John quotes the words of a verse from Thomas Aquinas' famous hymn, Adoro Te devote, a hymn, interestingly, which wasn't used publicly in the medieval Church. "How truly precious is this Blood", Pope John says, "is voiced in the song the Church sings with the Angelic Doctor (sentiments wisely seconded by our predecessor Clement VI): 
'...Blood whereof a single drop has power to win 
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.' (Translation by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.) Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man's Blood -- just as unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us...Such surpassing love suggests, nay demands,  that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love..."

Pope John's reference was to a passage in the papal bull, Unigenitus  (1343), by Pope Clement VI (1291-1352). If you're not familiar with Vatican terminology, a papal bull is a written communication from the Vatican Chancery, bearing a formal papal seal. The title of a bull is its opening word(s). "Bull" is derived from the Latin bulla, referring to the seal impressed onto wax which was contained in a hemisphere of gold about the size of the eye of a bull, through which passed the ends of a gold and silver braided cord, looped through slits in the document. Such seals were used to authenticate a document because the seal could not be transferred to a forged document without either cutting the cord, which would be too obvious, or first removing the cord from the seal, which could not be done, due to knots in the cord within the wax seal, without melting the wax, thus also destroying the image impressed into it.

In Unigenitus Clement VI writes: "The only-begotten Son of God deigned to come down from his father’s bosom into the womb of his mother, in whom and from whom he joined, by an ineffable union, the substance of our mortality to his divinity, in unity of person...His purpose was in this way to redeem fallen humanity...Nor did he redeem us with corruptible things—with silver and gold but with his own Precious Blood, which he is known to have poured out as an innocent victim on the altar of the cross: not a mere measured drop of blood (which, however, because of its union with the Word would have sufficed for the redemption of all humanity) but as it were an unmeasured flood..."

Since the sixteen shewings, visions, or revelations from Our Lord which Julian experienced during her grave illness, "in the year of our Lord, 1373, the 8th day of May", as Julian notes, centered on Jesus' suffering and death, mention of his Blood is no surprise. When I became an OJN Oblate some 15 years ago, naturally I was intrigued by Julian's several references to the Blood of Christ. In Chapter 6 of her Revelations, Julian summarizes the purpose of the 1st Showing: "...to teach our soul wisely to cleave to the goodness of God." That reminded her of the current custom, when people prayed, to create "many intermediaries". She fears that this can lead us to misunderstand the full reality of our relationship as human creatures with the God of goodness and love. We often pray, she says, "by His Holy Flesh and by His Precious Blood, His Holy Passion, His dear worthy Death and Wounds, by all His blessed Human Nature...we pray to Him by His sweet Mother's love who bore Him...by His Holy Cross that He died on...and in the same way, all the help that we have from special saints and all the blessed company of heaven..." Julian even affirms that God provides such intermediaries to help us, "of which the chief and principal intermediary is the blessed Human Nature that He took from the Maid..."

Nevertheless, she says, "...if we create all these intermediaries, it is too little, and not complete honor to God", unless we acknowledge that "...all the whole of it is in His goodness, and there absolutely nothing fails." The grace of God is Godself who is goodness for us, always. The act of creating us, Julian says, is God loving us, enwrapping us in this goodness and love which God is. This is, according to Julian, an endless reality: God makes us, God keeps us, God loves us. As human creatures, we emerge in goodness and love from our beginning; we're sustained throughout our human lives in that goodness and love; and we return, at the moment of human death, to endless goodness and love. Commentator Dr. Frederick Roden puts it thus: "Here is the foundation of the incarnational process: the manifestation of goodness. Incarnation is the extension of goodness." (Love's Trinity: A Companion To Julian of Norwich, Liturgical Press, 2009, p. 23) Through Jesus the Christ, through his coming among us as a real human being as well as God's Son, God's grace, goodness, and love is held out to and embedded in our very human nature and being.

In Chapter 12 of the Revelations, Julian goes on to elaborate how the humanity of Christ, specifically his Blood, is part of the ongoing process of being "oned" in God. As she contemplates the shedding of his Blood in the 4th Showing, Julian uses the metaphor of liquid, of water, in recalling how the Creator has provided humankind with "plentiful waters" to assist us and "for our bodily comfort because of the tender love He has for us". We can think of the oceans, lakes and rivers which surround us, and their importance in the thriving of the ecosystem, the refreshment and delight they provide for our recreation, as well as the inspiration and inner images which they fire up in our spirits. "...But", Julian says, "it still pleases Him better if we accept most beneficially His blessed blood to wash us from sin. There is no liquid that is made which it pleases Him so well to give us, for just as it is most plentiful, so it is most precious (and that by the virtue of His blessed Godhead). And the blood is of our own nature, and all beneficently flows over us by the virtue of His precious love. The dear worthy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, as truly as it is most precious, so truly it is most plentiful..."

For Julian of Norwich human nature and God's grace are of one cloth: "...for grace is God as human nature is God. He is double in His way of working but single in love, and neither of these two works without the other, nor is either separated from the other." In God the Creator we have our being; in God, through the humanity of Jesus we have our growing; and in God the Holy Spirit we have our completing.  All that has been created shares being-in-God from God who shares being/goodness/love which is Godself. In creating us God knits us to Godself; in taking flesh, through Jesus, God is knit to humankind. Thus, in our human existence you and I are made in and "oned" with the Persons of the Trinity and with Jesus the Christ.

In talking about our human nature as created by the goodness and love which God is, Julian distinguishes a "higher part" and a "lower part": in our essence or nature, we're complete; in our fleshliness, we're insufficient. Made in the image of the God, One-in-Three, Julian says that she sees no difference between the triune God and our substance, though, she clarifies, "God is God, and our substance is a creation of God. (Chapter 54) In Julian's view, human beings are "two-fold in God's creation": essential and substantial, but also fleshly and sensual. It's how we exist in the world, body and soul. It includes our embodied, spiritual nature. It's where we experience the mercy and grace of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit. Our fleshliness is God's dwelling place, the place where we're "oned" with God. Though complete in our essence, yet insufficient in our fleshliness, nevertheless Julian believes that God completes our insufficiency by mercy and grace. Though inadequate, incomplete, we're never separated from God's goodness, love, grace. Julian assures us that Christ, who knits in himself both our essence and our sensuality in a perfect balance, will restore us and make us complete by the working of God's goodness and love, embedded in our nature. And the way he effects this is through the instrumentality of his Precious Blood, the sign and symbol of life communicated. "Thus", says Julian, "when we by the mercy of God...come to harmony with both our human nature and grace, we shall see honestly that sin is truly more vile and more painful than hell, without comparison, for sin is opposite to our fair human nature!...But let us not be afraid of this...but humbly let us make our moan to our dear worthy Mother, and He shall all besprinkle us with His Precious Blood and make our souls very pliant and very gentle, and restore us to health...In the taking of our human nature He restored life to us, and in His blessed dying upon the cross, He birthed us into endless life." (Chapter 63)

Invitation & Promise

Today’s Scriptures, in one way or another, are filled with invitation and promise, particularly about the nature of God as Love, and how each of us, by “abiding”, being oned in Jesus, God’s Son, can be transformed into what one commentator has called “a transparent exhibit of the perfect love of God.”  

In Acts (8:26-40), Philip the Deacon, passionately enthusiastic to proclaim the “good news about Jesus”, which is God’s love, and invited by God, pursues and patiently helps a eunuch, who could’ve been a Gentile or a Jew, to come into the embrace of Jesus’ love through baptism.  The eunuch, was a court official of the Kandake, the title for queens and queen mothers of the ancient African kingdom of Kush, west of the Red Sea and south of Egypt. People considered that to be the farthest edges of the earth, where the people, whose skin which the sun scorched into dark color, were considered foreigners and outcasts.  We know that region today roughly as the Sudan. 

The eunuch would probably have been a castrated slave, usually in order to be a reliable servant where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence.  He was obviously well trusted by the queen who allowed him to travel such a considerable distance to Jerusalem. The eunuch “had come to Jerusalem in order to worship”, implying that he sought something more than standing, wealth and privilege. Unfortunately, purity laws at the time prohibited eunuchs from entering the Temple. Nevertheless, he continues to seek God through Scripture, specifically Isaiah. Isaiah Chapter 56, not in today’s passage, sets aside Deuteronomy’s ancient prohibition, and makes room for eunuchs who keep the Law and hold fast to the Covenant. God promises, it says, to “give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” 

Philip becomes, in a sense, “the transparent exhibit” of God’s love by which this man is introduced to Jesus the Risen Lord. The man is so moved by Philip’s explanation that, at the sight of water along the way, he begs to be washed in the water of eternal life. And, all this time, the eunuch thought he was just on a journey to Jerusalem! The deeper journey was an invitation to new life and the promise of God’s enduring love. 

In the 2nd reading, the writer of 1st John (4:7-21) redefines the meaning of love in terms of the Risen Jesus.  John was well aware that koiné Greek (that used in the Christian Scriptures) has not just one, but three words for love: 1) eros = meaning ordinary human, fleshly love: good in itself, but because of human weakness, it can degenerate into mere selfish treatment of persons as things and objects; 2) philía = meaning familial love, “brotherly/sisterly” love, the love of friendship; and 3) agápe = the love which God has for the whole creation, love which finds it necessary to go out of itself, to sacrifice, to spend itself for the beloved.  “In this is love,” says John, “...that God loved us and sent his Son...if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us...God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them...because as God is, so are we in this world...those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen...”

Today’s Gospel passage from John (15:1-8) is like a reprise to the Epistle, explaining that it’s only by Jesus “abiding” in us and we abiding in him and, through him with each other, that we experience real agápe-love.  Using an earthy, viticultural metaphor, not lost on us here in Sonoma County: that of grapevines and branches, Jesus says  “I am the true vine...my Father is the vine grower...you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing...”  

Jesus invites us to remain in him as he remains in us. In the process of being branches united to the vine, the Risen Lord holds out to us the promise of bearing “much fruit”, the fruit of love. But he’s also clear that there’s a cost to us: that of being “pruned”, sometimes an uncomfortable , even agonizing process, yet necessary so as to bear “more fruit”. L. P. Jones comments that “The purpose of grapevines is to bear grapes; the purpose of Jesus' followers is to bear fruit. We bear fruit not to earn our identity but to express it by helping others to have more to eat, more hope, more purpose and direction, and more reason to believe in goodness, grace, and God.” Ours is an invitation to love and a promise to see that love grow and extend itself to others in our lives.

One of the English saints who experienced firsthand God’s invitation to and promise of love was Julian of Norwich, great 13th century anchoress and mystic whose feast we’ll celebrate on Tuesday this week. We know little of Dame Julian’s early life. She was probably born c. 1342. There’s convincing evidence that hers was an aristocratic family in Norwich and that her name was Lady Julian Erpingham. Her first marriage, which was childless, ended with the death of her first husband, Roger Hauteyn, in 1373, and around this time, at age 30 or 31, she became gravely ill, received the last rites, and nearly died. Fortunately, she recovered and later remarried, to Sir John Phelip, Sr.,  and bore three children: Rose, William, and John, Jr. Sir John died in 1389. 

During her serious illness Julian experienced sixteen visions or “shewings” of Christ, which brought her great peace and joy. “From that time I desired oftentimes to learn what was our Lord’s meaning,” she wrote. Over the next 20 years she quietly reflected and prayed about the showings and their unique and powerful message. 

Around 1393 Julian, her daughter being married, and her sons provided for, became an enclosed recluse, an anchoress, living in a small dwelling attached to the Church of St. Julian in Norwich. Even during her lifetime, Julian gained a reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor and was frequently visited by clergy and lay people. She died c. 1414, at the age of 72.

Before she died, the Risen Lord finally gave Julian a glimpse of “what was our Lord’s meaning”, when he answered her, as she says, “in spiritual understanding”. She writes: “Be well aware: love was His meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. What showed He thee? Love. Why did He show it thee? For love. Keep thyself in that love and thou shalt know and see more of the same, but thou shalt never see nor know any other thing therein without end.”

Julian came to know that even before God created us, God loved us and continues always and ever to do so, even in our sinfulness. Her message to her “even Christians”, as she terms it, to all of us, is to abide in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to accept wholeheartedly God’s invitation and promise, and to bear the fruit of love, both in our own hearts and in the hearts and lives of one another. 

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

"The Pillar Of The Church"

"Thus as in music there is a plectrum, so the man becoming himself a stringed instrument and devoting himself completely to the Spirit may obey in all his members and emotions, and serve the will of God. The harmonious reading of the Psalms is a figure and type of such undisturbed and calm equanimity of our thoughts. For just as we discover the ideas of the soul and communicate them through the words we put forth, so also the Lord, wishing the melody of the words to be a symbol of the spiritual harmony in a soul, has ordered that the odes be chanted tunefully, and the Psalms recited with song. The desire of the soul is this—to be beautifully disposed, as it is written, Is anyone among you cheerful? Let him sing praise. In this way that which is disturbing and rough and disorderly in it is smoothed away, and that which causes grief is healed when we sing psalms. Why are you sad, O my soul, and why do you trouble me? That which causes stumbling will be discovered, as it says, But my feet were almost overthrown.

When they chant in this way, so the melody of the phrases is brought forth from the soul’s good order and from the concord with the Spirit, such people sing with the tongue, but singing also with the mind they greatly benefit not only themselves but even those who are willing to hear them. Blessed David, then, making music in this way for Saul, was himself well pleasing to God, and he drove away from Saul the troubled and frenzied disposition, making his soul calm. The priests who sang thus summoned the souls of the people into tranquility, and called them into unanimity with those who form the heavenly chorus. Therefore the Psalms are not recited with melodies because of a desire for pleasant sounds. Rather, this is a sure sign of the harmony of the soul’s reflections. Indeed the melodic reading is a symbol of the mind’s well-ordered and undisturbed condition. Moreover, the praising of God in well-tuned cymbals and harp and ten-stringed instruments was again a figure and sign of the parts of the body coming into natural concord like harp strings, and of the thoughts of the soul becoming like cymbals, and then all of these being moved and living through the grand sound and through the command of the Spirit so that, as it is written, the man lives in the Spirit and transforms the deeds of the body. For thus beautifully singing praises, he brings rhythm to his soul and leads it, so to speak, from disproportion to proportion, with the result that, due to its steadfast nature, it is not frightened by something, but rather imagines positive things, even possessing a full desire for the future goods. And gaining composure by the singing of the phrases, it becomes forgetful of the passions and, while rejoicing, sees in accordance with the mind of Christ, conceiving the most excellent thoughts."

(A Letter of Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms, in Athanasius, tr. Robert C. Gregg, Paulist Press, 1980.)

SS. Philip & James, Apostles

Almighty God, who gave to your apostles Philip and James grace and strength to bear witness to the truth: Grant that we, being mindful of their victory of faith, may glorify in life and death the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

St. James the Less, "son of Alphaeus", is one of the obscure Apostles whose only apparent notability is that he may have been the one who stood with Jesus' women followers as they witnessed the Crucifixion. We can only guess the impact it must've had on his life. Quiet, humble discipleship and contemplation of the cross: like so many of Christ's followers today.

St. Philip could perhaps be called a "homie" with Andrew and Peter, since they all came from Bethsaida. He's a good example of the "E" word: evangelism. Philip had a friend, Nathanael, with whom he excitedly spoke about Jesus, who'd just invited Philip to be one of his band of brothers. I suspect they were probably good friends because they seem to have shared the trait of being forthright and of speaking their minds. Nathanael's famous, almost adolescent, put-down has come to us through the centuries: "What good can come from Nazareth?" What good, indeed! He soon found out. Periodically throughout the Fourth Gospel Philip pops up letting everyone, including Jesus, know what he thinks. When Jesus urges the Apostles to provide food for the hungry crowd, Philip points out that "Two hundred denarii wouldn't buy enough for each of them to have just a little...Are you kidding me?!" Jesus wasn't kidding. In John 12 some Greeks approach Philip, asking for an interview with Jesus. Philip respectfully subdelegates the request to Andrew, then the both of them go and tell Jesus. Unfortunately, the writer of John leaves us hanging and we don't know if the Greeks ever got in to see Jesus or not. Finally, at the Last Supper Jesus is giving a lengthy spiel about "the Father". Having misread Jesus, along with the other 11, for all the years they've been with Jesus, Philip blurts out: "Lord, just show us the Father, and we'll be satisfied." Probably struggling not to roll his eyes, Jesus patiently and gently explains to Philip, once again, step by step, how it is between Jesus and the Father and them. 

What is it that Hymn 293 says? "...for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too."