"St. Nicholas" Ferrar

During my 13 years in the seminary, a number of the young men were tagged as "saints", sometimes out of genuine admiration by others, sometimes because others felt they spent too much time in chapel or were overly scrupulous about using "bad language", etc. Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637), according to the great Anglican divine, George Herbert, had the reputation of being called "St. Nicholas" from the age of six!

Ferrar, born in London, attended college at Clare Hall, later Clare College, at Cambridge (also Thomas Merton's school), becoming a Fellow there in 1610. [The photo at the left is the window at Clare College Chapel, commemorating Nicholas Ferrar]. For some 10 years he travelled in Europe working as a businessman, then as a parliamentarian after he returned to England. In 1625 Nicholas moved to Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire. I can tell you from our pilgrimage there in 2007 that it's a rather remote place. Our tour bus could barely get down the lane leading to the chapel!

Ferrar was joined at Little Gidding by his mother, his brother and sister, and their families. They formed and followed a community life devoted to prayer and to charitable service in the local area. Archbishop William Laud ordained Nicholas Ferrar a deacon in 1626. Nicholas, writing to his niece in 1631, says: "I purpose and hope by God's grace to be to you not as a master but as a partner and fellow student."

Nine years after Ferrar died in 1637, the Puritans, fearful of anything smacking of "Papist Roman" practices, insisted on breaking up the Little Gidding community, of which they were suspicious and which they called "the Arminian Nunnery", destroying all of Ferrar's manuscripts in the process. So typical of small-minded, ignorant and uninformed fundamentalist bigots of any ilk, secular or religious!

The great British poet, T. S. Eliot, immortalized the Little Gidding community in his Four Quartets:

"If you came this way, 
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment 
Is England and nowhere. Never and always..."

I found Little Gidding to be a very sacred place -- it's almost palpable when you stand in St. John's Chapel -- what the Celtics call a "thin place". Little Gidding is a site where one feels, in Eliot's words, "the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling" to "A condition of complete simplicity/(Costing not less than everything)"..."And all shall be well and/All manner of thing shall be well/When the tongues of flame are in-folded/Into the crowned knot of fire/And the fire and the rose are one." 

St. Andrew, Apostle: The Middle Child??

Some have speculated that Andrew could've been a middle child. His high-powered older brother, St. Peter, certainly overshadowed him. Interestingly, it was Andrew who introduced Peter to Jesus, resulting in Peter's following the Master and eventually becoming head honcho among the close followers. Both the young men were fishermen by trade. It seems that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptizer before being called into Jesus' inner circle. Andrew seems to have always been working the background: telling Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes which Jesus used in feeding five thousand people; announcing to Jesus the arrival of some Greek visitors who wanted an audience.

Legend has it that Andrew later ministered among the Scythians, ancient inhabitants of what we know as Russia. Not surprisingly, Andrew has long been a patron of Russia, as well as of Scotland, probably because his relics were brought there in the 8th century. The Scottish flag features an X-shaped cross, associated with St. Andrew who is said to have been martyred on such a cross. The Brotherhood of St. Andrew, an informal fellowship of adult and young men, has been a long-standing organization in the U.S. Episcopal Church.

Rear window

St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral

Honolulu, Hawaii

From a sermon by Mark Frank:

"...And alas, what have we, the best, the richest of us as highly as we think of ourselves and ours, more than Andrew and his brother: a few old broken nets? What are all our honours but old nets to catch the breath of the world! What are our estates but nets to entangle us? What are all our ways and devises of thriving but so many several nets to catch a little yellow sand and mud? What are all those fine catching ways of eloquence, knowledge, good parts of mind and body, but so many nets and snares to catch others with?...And our life itself, what is it but a few rotten threads knit together into veins and sinews, its construction so fragile that the least stick or stone can unloose it or break all to pieces.

O blessed saint of this day, that we could but leave these nets as thou didst thine: that nothing might any longer entangle us or keep us from our Master's service! Follow we St. Andrew as he did Christ, follow him to Christ, cheerfully and without delay, and while it is today, begin our course. Cast off the networks, the catching desires of the flesh and the world, and so you also may be said to have left your nets. And having so weaned your souls from inordinate affection to things below, let Christ be your business, his life your pattern, his commands your law..."  (Celebrating the Saints, p. 453)

"Servant of God": Blessed Dorothy Day

Among people whom I would most liked to have met in my life, Dorothy Day certainly stands out among them. I envied my late former spiritual director, Fr. Robert Lechner, C.PP.S., with whom I worked closely for two years, who had met Dorothy. Wikipedia lists her title as: "Servant of God"

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert. She advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an Christian anarchist. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement: a nonviolent, pacifist movement which continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. Day's cause for canonization is open in the Catholic Church.

On the jacket of Dorothy Day's book, Loaves and Fishes, Thomas Merton wrote: "Poverty for Dorothy Day is more than a sociological problem, it is also a religious mystery." Merton was quite taken with Dorothy, and considered her an icon of what it means to genuinely take the Christian Gospel seriously and to live it: to be concerned about the poor who, as Jesus said, "are always with us", about the outcast and unloved, and about the homeless; and to unashamedly oppose war and violence. Over the span of almost 10 years Merton sent her 29 letters. He once wrote: "If there were no Catholic Worker and such forms of witness, I would never have joined the Catholic Church."

Almighty God, you have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses:

Grant that we, encouraged by the good example of your servant,

Dorothy Day, may persevere in running the race that is set before us,

until at last we may with her attain to your eternal joy;

through Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Amen.

The Danger of Advent

The late British Scripture scholar, J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), speaks of an Advent danger: that of Advent being too familiar to us Christians. Like any of the seasonal celebrations occurring year after year, we run the risk of becoming indifferent to the reasons behind the celebration and its meaning to us individually and corporately. In our culture, the irrational preoccupation with "Christmas", from at least October on, fairly blinds us to the rich meaning of the Advent season.

There was a time when Christian families routinely used visual aids to reflect on and emphasize Advent's significance: the Advent wreath, a daily Advent calendar, the Jesse Tree, etc. Some families, I'm sure, continue those traditions, but I wonder if it's in any sense a widespread practice today.

J. B. Phillips, in an article "The Christian Year", notes: "What we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to its quiet but explosive significance. For Christians believe that so great is God's love and concern for humanity that he himself became a man. Amid the sparkle and colour and music of the day's celebration we do well to remember that God's insertion of himself into human history was achieved with an almost frightening quietness and humility."

Look at the historic facts: when Jesus was born few people were really aware of what was happening, even his parents. After the fact, apparently, no one spoke openly about this unusual human being for some thirty years. As an adult, he was recognized by few people for who he really was. In fact for the short two or three years in which he taught, preached and did remarkable healings, he was looked down upon, opposed, and written off by many folks as pretty much a nobody. He was betrayed by one of his inner circle of followers, deserted by many of the rest of them after his arrest, and murdered by Roman occupiers and Jewish leaders outside the capital city, as a common criminal. By human measuring, this was just another young, poor, idealistic man who failed in the pursuit of his cause, and was murdered by professional politicians and religious fundamentalists in an outback province occupied by Rome.

But Phillips makes this observation, quite relevant in this age of outspoken professed atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins: "It is two thousand years ago that his apparently invincible [Roman] Empire utterly collapsed, and all that is left of it is ruins. Yet the baby, born in such pitiful humility and cut down as a young man in his prime, commands the allegiance of millions of people all over the world. Although they have never seen him, he has become friend and companion to innumerable people. This undeniable fact is, by any measurement, the most astonishing phenomenon in human history. It is a solid rock of evidence that no agnostic [or atheist!] can ever explain away."  

Advent 1

 

This is the eve of the First Sunday of Advent, on which we recall the hope we have in Jesus the Christ. The prophets of Israel all spoke of the coming of the Anointed One, a savior who would be born, a king in the line of David. They spoke of how he would reign over the world wisely and bless the nations. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ our hope. On Good Friday the Christ of our hope died. On the day of Resurrection the Christ of our hope rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. On the Last Day the Christ of our hope will come to establish his reign over all things in heaven and on earth.

We light this first Advent candle to remind us to be alert and to watch for his return.

Loving God, we thank you for the hope you give us. Help us prepare

our hearts for the Lord's coming. Bless our worship. Help us live holy

and righteous lives. We ask it in the name of the One born in Bethlehem.

Amen.

Our Lady of the New Advent Icon

 (Photo by Lars Hammar)

From House For All Sinners & Saints, an urban liturgical community in Denver, CO:

"This is the icon we created during liturgy over the 4 weeks of Advent. Every piece of this is from "Christmas" ads: circulars, catalogs and all that junk that comes in the mail and the newspaper. We created 1/4 of it each week. An Artist in the community traced the image onto poster board indicating what color should go in each shape. People ages 6-65 cut out the right color from the ads and glued it in the space. Easy and subversive." (On the blog Sarcastic Lutheran, December 29, 2008)

A quite relevant project and words, as we have just come through another "Black Friday" experience. So begins the secular season of the Grinch of Greed, just as (in fact, weeks before, even) the Christian community anticipates the celebration of Advent: how Jesus the Christ came into the world and the condition of a human being: taking on our joys and struggles, eventually running up against the leaders of organized wealth, power, and yes, religion, whose tunnel-vision devotion to their idols constitutes a formidable draw away from commitment to Jesus' values of simplicity, compassion, mercy, and love.

Fr. Pius Parsch, in his Year of Grace, suggests that we take some time just before plunging into Advent to think about three things: 1) the quality of our service before Christ in the past Church year; 2) giving thanks for God's grace and guidance during the past Church year; and 3) rededicating ourselves to serving Christ and our sisters and brothers in the coming "year of grace".


What opportunities have we missed to "cry the Gospel with our lives"? What's at the root of our lukewarm or lazy service? Which of our baptismal vows have we found most difficult to carry out this year?


Christ Jesus has brought us through another "year of grace". We have our lives, both physical and spiritual. We have the reality of Jesus' presence with us still, at this moment. Do we appreciate what this gift really means? Parsch remarks: "Yes, let us readily admit it, we are the true children of fortune." Each of us has much for which to be truly thankful. Nothing good which we've thought, or said, or done has gone unseen. Every prayer, kindness, and good resolve has got God's attention. All that we've suffered, all our anxieties, all our challenges, accepted with faith and patience, have been noted. As the Preface says: "It is truly meet and right that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to You, O holy God!"


What will the new Church year bring? None of us knows for sure. We do know that we are the "apple" of God's eye; that God gathers us, as a mother hen gathers her chicks under protective wings; that whatever we do this year, small or great, out of love and caring for a sister or brother, we do for Christ.


Pius Parsch concludes: "What is left for us to do? Open our New Testaments and meditate upon the last things as set forth by our Savior: Be always prepared; live your days in the light of the Second Advent. I am sure that such is the spirit of the Church according to the liturgy. By directing our gaze toward Christ's Second Coming, the Church reminds us how to become rich in the fruits of good works and in the increase of patience and perseverance. We may never forget that she wants work to follow words. In the holy Sacrifice [of the Mass] she brings the Lord in His Second Advent close to us mystically...'I am thinking thoughts of peace, not of punishment'...The Cross [Jesus] chose for Himself, but to us He says: 'Come, blessed of my Father'..." 

And, with the people of the ancient Church communities, we say: "Marana tha!...Come, Lord!"

For All Your Gracious Gifts and For One Another, We Thank You, Lord!