All of Us are Beggars

A friend of mine, who is a Serbian Orthodox priest in Montana, once gave me The Prologue of Ohrid. It is a handsomely bound, two-volume work intended for personal devotion for Eastern Orthodox laity and clergy. It is arranged according to the Byzantine rite liturgical year, and for each day of the year contains hagiagraphies of the saints for that day, a "Hymn of Praise" composed often by saints, a reflection, an aid to contemplating particular Scriptures, and a brief homily.

I really don't look at it that often. As I wrote, it follows the Byzantine calendar and so the feasts of major saints are on different days than what is customary in the West; the many minor saints are unknown to me; and the hymns are not metrical (as I'm used to), but poetic meditations.

However, today I happened to pick it up just to see what was listed for June 19. On the opposite side was the homily for June 18 which, coincidentally, touches on the themes from yesterday's Gospel. Here is that homily.

The poor man who begs and the rich man who gives--both make the Lord their debtor, but only under the condition that the poor man begs in the name of the Lord and with humility and that the rich man gives in the name of the Lord and with compassion. Everyone who receives should know that he receives that which belongs to God, and everyone who gives should know that he gives that which belongs to God. Such giving has a price and such receiving has a price. All of us enter this world naked, and naked we shall leave this world.

All of us are beggars before the Lord, for we possess nothing that we have not received from the Lord. Therefore, give to the poor man as God has given to you. You take what is another's and you give to your own when you give alms. The poor man is closer to you than all of your goods, just as to God, the Creator of all men, every man is incomparably more precious than all of his goods.

If you have been given riches, they have been given to you for temptation: that your heart be tempted! That God and all the heavenly hosts might see whether you have understood whence are all your riches and why they were given to you. Blessed are you if you know that your goods are from God and belong to God! Blessed are you if you consider the poor as your companions, as members of your family, and share with them that which God has entrusted to you!

Oh, how immeasurable is God's love for mankind! Behold, all that you have belongs to God, and yet God considers Himself your debtor if you take from Him and give to the poor, and He will repay you for your good. What kind of mercy can be compared to this?

O man-loving Lord, open our minds to understand the mystery of Thy mercy, and soften our hearts like wax, that as wax they may burn and shine with the reflection of Thine inexpressible mercy!

To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen. (Source)

NOTE: The Prologue of Ohrid is online.

The Mass is All I Have

The Mass is all I have, because it is all I need in order to live.

That’s what the Christian says, because that’s what the Christian believes.

Now, I’ll grant that it sounds radical—like a gross overstatement. It certainly sounds pious, but it also sounds like it steps beyond all notions of reality—like an escape from the real world into some super-religious world of zealots and fanatics. But before you dismiss that little sentence, consider what it says.

The Mass is not simply some ritual, some spiritual exercise that you go through because that’s how you were raised. When you boil it down, the Mass is two things—the deliverance of Jesus Himself in word and in deed. In the preaching, the Spirit delivers the actual words of Christ into your heart and mind. And in the Blessed Sacrament, the same Spirit delivers the true Body and Blood of Christ into your flesh and bones.

Both those things—the Lord's Word and the Lord's Supper—go inseparably together. If you hear but don’t receive, or if you receive but never hear, you’re getting half of what Our God and Lord gives in the Mass. Now some may honestly believe that half is good enough. But it’s only half—half of Our Lord, because it is half of the way He delivers Himself into you.

The Mass is all I have means that the Mass is all the Lord gives in answer to your prayer. You pray “Give us this day our daily bread, forgive our sins, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil—protect, strengthen, guide and comfort us.” A fine prayer, indeed! And where does Our Lord answer it? At the Holy Mass. And to what extent does He answer it there? Fully, completely, without short-changing you one bit.

The Mass is where the Lord daily loads you with benefits. For what is better than the Lord’s forgiveness and compassion? And what is better than being so intimately united to God that He comes and makes His home in you? He dwells in you, and you dwell in Him. That doesn’t happen in the signs you look for, or the feeling of God’s presence that you get. That happens nowhere but at the Mass. For there, and only there, is where He ties Himself to you.

When you push it further and say The Mass is all I need in order to live—now you’ve said that nothing else in life matters. Not only because everything else pales in comparison, or because life is not worth living without God’s love in Christ. But primarily because your life—and all life of whatever kind—depends solely and entirely on that love of God delivered into your very being. Without the Lord’s mercy delivered in the Gospel preaching and Gospel Sacraments, there is no life—for you, for the world. Without the Mass, nothing exists!

Isn’t that what Jesus says when He calls Himself the living Bread of Heaven and then says, “The bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world”? And, just so you understand, He pushes it one step further when He adds, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”

The Mass is all you need to live. That’s what Our Lord is saying. And He says it not as a theory or a spiritual truth. He says it to you, as the only truth worth believing. In fact, He says it so plainly and bluntly that, if you turn your back on it, you revert to hellish living and, ultimately, hellish death.

And so what else can you say in response to what Our Lord says? The Christian has only one thing left to say:

The Mass is all I have, because it is all I need in order to live.

First published in the Zion Trumpet, the official newsletter of Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Detroit.

Two Statues

In 1975 & 1976, the following two statues were installed at Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Detroit. They were custom made in Italy and donated by parishioners in memory of loved ones. They grace two alcoves in the Nave designed in 1933 with, I'm sure, no thought that statues would one day appear. Since their installation, both stations have been used as places of prayer.

These statues are known as either the Madonna or Theotokos statue, and the Christus or Christos statue. As one might imagine, the former induces quite a number of comments from those who question the propriety of its appearance in a Lutheran Church. However, it has caused no consternation among the parishioners of Zion, who have been carefully catechized concerning the veneration of the pure, holy, ever-Virgin Mother of God.

NOTE: Here are more photos of the interior of Zion Church.

Optional Orandi begets Proscribed Credendi

With reasoned voice, a friend of mine has offered a perceptive diagnosis:

Lutheranism has a lex credendi (rule of faith) but no lex orandi (rule of prayer). Anglicanism has a lex orandi (Book of Common Prayer), but no lex credendi (anything goes, doctrinally speaking). Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism have both a lex credendi (Tradition) and a lex orandi (the Liturgy). Lutheranism has a great lex credendi (Book of Concord) but no actual lex orandi (all in the name of "liberty," of course).

He then concludes:

The liturgical and practical instability of Lutheranism flows out its reticence to define dogmatically its rule of worship in the way of a received "holy tradition." This is why Lutheran practice frequently comes unbuckled from Lutheran doctrine. It relies on paper subscription to a book without practical adherance [sic] to any liturgical or practical norms.

One evidence of this is in the liturgically-schizophrenic LCMS where the Commission on Worship, as it finishes an extensive nine-year service book project, has now begun "a process leading toward the development of diverse worship resources." With astounding and lamentable words, a member of the Commission proves my friend's point:

[We] will not talk much about traditional worship, but a diversity of worship approaches and styles. We want to help the church define what worship is in general, to help people discover what is Lutheran about worship. And, to that end, we want to identify material that will lead us to that.

Yet this raises what, no doubt, is the obvious question. In the Lutheran Church, is there such a thing as a lex credendi regarding not just what the orandi means (i.e., "theology of worship"), but also how liturgy is to be done? In other words, doesn't "liturgical theology" involve the way one prays (as well as what is left unsaid or said vapidly) and not just the doctrinal soundness of the words used?

What my friend doesn't say--perhaps because it is too painfully true--and what is categorically denied by the Commission member, is that lex credendi and lex orandi are of a piece. And if one must rank them, it is the lex orandi that inevitably shapes the lex credendi. Most people, of whatever religion or liturgical stripe, instinctively know this. Otherwise they would not be so upset over changes in their way of worship (or customs and traditions).

To say it another way, the pithy condensation of Prosper's famous dictum is not intended to suggest hopeful ingredients for sustainable, stable church practice. (And I don't think my friend suggested that.) Rather, it indicates that dogma that is not reverently prayed is paper-faith; and whatever is prayed becomes the true dogma or, if you will, the interpretive norm for the paper-confessions.

The genius of my friend's comment, then, is that he has exposed not a point of instability in Lutheranism which needs, somehow, to be shored-up and strengthened. Whether he knows it or not, my friend has exposed the fatal flaw which exists in Lutheranism as much as it exists in Episcopalianism; namely, the rending of lex credendi from lex orandi. This flaw has existed from the beginning of the Reformation. One might say it was then no more than a simple virus; but now, thanks in large part to a combination of ignorance, undiscipline, pride, and weak-kneedness, it has left its patients' stubborn adherents frenetically minding monitors that announce impending death, all the while hysterically lashing out at doctors, nurses, aids, friends, or anyone else who happens by the death bed.

Which is all a lengthy way of amending yet another lex coined by a former vicar of Zion: "Where historic liturgy is optional, historic faith will sooner or later be proscribed."

The Tree of Life

Because of the Lord’s great and abundant mercy, Adam and Eve did not die immediately and instantaneously. Communion in God had been broken, but the Lord graciously and mightily held back the power of death. Death now entered into the world, but not at this moment—for in this moment the Lord snatched his infantile creatures from the jaws of death and from the gates of the grave. And then Our Father devised a plan and made a way of escape. He fashioned death into His instrument for restoring life, and called on His Son, by the Spirit, to blaze the new path from the garden through the wilderness and back into paradise. This way of escape requires tasting death and meeting the grave. Yet when that path is entered upon in true faith, communion in God is fully restored.

But what about the Tree of Life? The Lord God drove man out of the garden—“lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” Does this mean that the Tree is gone, that its fruit is withered, and that the life it once offered is no longer available? By no means!

The Tree of Life still bears fruit—and that fruit is the food for our journey from this life to the life of the world to come. And now here is the great mystery. The Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden is Our Lord Jesus Christ—the same Lord Jesus who speaks plainly to us in today’s Gospel. Today He says that He is the Bread of Heaven which a man must partake of in order to have true life. For He says, "My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him."

And so you see—the Tree and its fruit is not gone. Rather, for our sakes it has been wondrously, mercifully transformed. The fruit it offers is the flesh and blood of Christ—which is now given for us to eat and drink in the Blessed Sacrament. So the life that the Tree promises is offered anew—but in another form.

An excerpt from the Corpus Christi sermon preached at Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Detroit.

"Without Christ, No One Possessed Salvation"

In preparing for Mass this coming Sunday, I searched (as I always do) for sermons from the fathers. This site has great resources. But alas, one of my favorite patristric is missing. So I reached for the proper volume in my library and discovered, much to my joy, that he has not one but three sermons on the appointed Gospel. And near the end of the third, I happened upon this jewel that must be displayed.

This is why the Lord himself came on the scene, he who had banished the first man, that is, the insubordinate servant; the Lord himself, who had bolted paradise, who had locked up the netherworld, descended in the fullness of his power to the earth and below the earth, in order to extinguish the flames and to destroy in an instant what had been kept secure. This is why he carries his cross as a battering ram as he is about to enter the netherworld, in order to crush and shatter the very gates of Tartarus which were fortified with bronze and iron. From his side he poured water out in order to mark the way to paradise, to extinguish the fire of the underworld on the saints’ side, to wash away and completely dissolve the ancient bond of debt, and to remit by suffering what he had imposed by his command.

Recognize this, brothers: be glad, brothers, that after the triumph of Christ the prison of the saints has been broken open, and the netherworld no longer exercises any jurisdiction over the saints, since Christ penetrated all the way to the netherworld in order to free the just, not the unjust. Let us realize how great a benefit Christ has provided, or rather, how without Christ no one possessed salvation, since, besides the wretched dissolution of their bodies, the souls, too, of the saints were being held in confinement in the underworld. Therefore, Lazarus was blessed who owed everything to God, in order not to owe anything to sin! He was blessed who here received so many evils, in order to possess there every good thing! (St Peter Chrysologus, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Vol 110)

Lutheran Corpus Christi?

From time to time, I am directly questioned concerning the propriety of certain ceremonies, usages, or other practices done at Zion. These range from the use of the parish's custom of honoring their pastors with the appellation "Father" to the celebration of daily mass to the use of Luther's Baptismal Order.

Often these questions are asked with curious courtesy, but occasionally condemnatory accusation frames the "mood" of the question. In either case, I am grateful for those who address me directly and for the questions they ask since I am always eager to give an answer explaining the history or theology behind such practices. (The questions also give me an opportunity to brag about Zion--the parish I'll always love with neverending love.)

However, I am non-plussed and increasingly irritated with those (some of whom I have considered friends) who assume certain information and criticize from afar. Often, they have never been to Zion; neither have they had the gentlemanliness to address a question before insinuasting an accusation.

No doubt I'm being sensitive, but it appears that this might be happening yet again concerning Zion's long-standing tradition of celebrating the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ (commonly known as Corpus Christi). This feast was celebrated (as Western tradition would have it) on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday; i.e., yesterday. And what occurred this year is what occurs every year: Hymns were sung, a sermon was preached, the Sacrament was distributed, and the Mass was celebrated in the usual fashion. The one exception was that the congregation sang the Sequence (written by St Thomas Aquinas) according to the translation and melody given in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (#321).


NOTE: A copy (in pdf format) of the propers and the day's ordo is available upon request (stjohnofkronstadt@gmail.com)

The Culture that Promotes What is Right

A Lutheran pastor does not have the luxury of doing what is right. This is not because he may lack the guts to do the right thing, but because even when he does what is right he does not have a “culture” that supports the right thing—that is, a “culture” which cannot imagine anything but doing what is right.

Several years ago I wrote a piece on fasting that hinted at this phenomenon. Relating the “right thing” to fasting, I said, “The Lenten fast was [once] practiced by all without any compulsion because it was part of the annual rhythm.” I suggested that it was part of that rhythm because it was part of the Christian culture; that is, fasting had woven itself into the fabric of ethnic identify and the rhythm of life so that the nominal as well as the devout partook of the Lenten and Friday fasts.

The Lutheran culture, however, has shifted so dramatically that we—those who truly want to live the catholic religion—still consider and practice as optional many things (like fasting) that simply are not optional. This notion of what is optional fosters an individualism which, in turn, does not give a Lutheran pastor the luxury of doing what is right—at least, as “right” pertains to the communal congregational context.


NOTE: The example of fasting is only one instance of doing the "right thing." Also included under this rubric would be closed communion, the use of truly Lutheran hymnody, conducting marriages only when both persons are baptized, granting Christian burial only to Christians, celebrating Mass every Sunday, the distribution of the Sacrament only by the ordained, and any other number of doctrines and practices which otherwise confessional Lutheran pastors feel constrained to compromise upon or consign to the heap called "adiaphora."

Resuming the Weekly Fast

During Pentecost week, one should really avail oneself of the opportunity to read the three Pentecost sermons of St Leo the Great. Yesterday, at Holy Mass at Zion, for the homily I read St Leo's sermon "On the Whitsuntide Fast." Among traditional Western Catholics, that fast is kept on Pentecost Wednesday, Pentecost Friday and Pentecost Saturday; i.e., the three Ember Days during Pentecost week. Some would suggest that this fast is also the resumption, after Easter, of the annual every-Friday fast that Christians have kept since the earliest days.

In enjoining his hearers to maintain the disciple of regular fasting, St. Leo begins his sermon with these remarkable sentences.

[W]hen the Apostles had been filled with the promised power, and the Spirit of Truth had entered their hearts, we doubt not that among the other mysteries of heavenly doctrine this discipline of spiritual self-restraint was first thought of at the prompting of the Paraclete in order that minds sanctified by fasting might be fitter for the chrism to be bestowed on them. The disciples of Christ had the protection of the Almighty aid, and the chiefs of the infant Church were guarded by the whole Godhead of the Father and the Son through the presence of the Holy Ghost. But against the threatened attacks of persecutors, against the terrifying shouts of the ungodly, they could not fight with bodily strength or pampered flesh, since that which delights the outer does most harm to the inner man, and the more one's fleshly substance is kept in subjection, the more purified is the reasoning soul. And so those teachers, who have instructed all the Church's sons by their examples and their traditions, began the rudiments of the Christian warfare with holy fasts, that, having to fight against spiritual wickednesses, they might take the armour of abstinence, wherewith to slay the incentives to vice.

And then, just before his concluding paragraph, St. Leo offers this exhortation to his hearers:

Therefore, after the days of holy gladness, which we have devoted to the honour of the Lord rising from the dead and then ascending into heaven, and after receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, a fast is ordained as a wholesome and needful practice, so that, if perchance through neglect or disorder even amid the joys of the festival any undue licence has broken out, it may be corrected by the remedy of strict abstinence, which must be the more scrupulously carried out in order that what was on this day Divinely bestowed on the Church may abide in us. For being made the Temple of the Holy Ghost, and watered with a greater supply than ever of the Divine Stream, we ought not to be conquered by any lusts nor held in possession by any vices in order that the habitation of Divine power may be stained with no pollution.

Dealing with Temptation

The following is from The Ascetic Life (ACW 21.115-116) by St Maximos the Confessor. The first sentences are posted in several places on the internet, but I thought I'd give a fuller context.

Many of the things that befall us, befall us for our training, either to do away with past sins or to correct present neglect or to check future sinful deeds.

He then, who reckons that temptation has come upon him for one of these reasons, is not vexed at its attack, especially as he is conscious of his sin. Nor does he censure him through whom the temptation came; for whether through him or through another, he surely has to drain the chalice of the divine judgments. Rather, he looks to God and gives thanks to Him that pardons; he censures himself and heartily accepts the chastisement, as did David with Semei, and as Job with his wife.

The foolish man often asks God to be merciful; when the mercy comes, he does not accept it, as it did not come, in fact, as he willed, but as the Physician of souls thought fitting. And so he gives no heed and is thrown into confusion.