This interview with Australian politician "Senator Collins" is classic politico speak. Honest, wordy, to the point, but saying absolutely nothing! Funny, funny video. Check it out!
When I was a kid, my father would often play music in the house. His favorite singer was (and still is) Mario Lanza, the great tenor from the 50's. I learned to love opera listening to him sing arias, and through him I also came to love the American Standard Songbook. While my favorite singer is Frank Sinatra, Mario Lanza still ranks up in the top 5. Lanza's song, "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life", a great piece of music from the American Standard Songbook, ranks in my top ten favorite songs of all time, and it was that song that came into my head as I read the below article.
The mystery of life is just that: a mystery. We don't understand it, and we can't. Sure, there are the mechanics of the body that we have a rudimentary understanding of. But life it self: why it is, how it is, what it is, is beyond the realm of science and belongs to Faith. Science can tell us how (to a certain extent), only the Faith can tell us why. What is good and true in one only serves what is good and true in the other.
Why? All truth compliments truth. Truth is One, and everything good and true (with a small 't') points to the One Truth (capital 'T') who is Jesus Christ. He is the Word through whom God made the Universe, the Word that the Father spoke to pronounce creation Good, the Word who was there in the beginning with the Father bringing and breathing life into creation. The prologue of St. John's Gospel, which speaks of this, reads like poetry:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Why? Because out of nothing but love God made us for life, and even when we introduced death though sin, He was not content to let us wallow in it. The darkness that is sin cannot fathom or overcome the light that is Christ. God the Father sent His only Son to bear the burden of our sin, so that again we might have life through Christ. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." This is the mystery of life, this is the mystery of faith. We were created for life, we are made for life, and Christ came to carry us out of this vale of tears into eternal life.
This article goes to show how little science understands. Science can be good, no doubt, but it can't be God. Brain dead, sent home to die with her family, and yet life remained and responded to care and love. What a novel idea! This article, and a thousand others like it, may be anecdotal but go to show that while we may understand what makes the engine work, we don't understand how or why it works.
Questions and comments are always welcome!
God love you! ************
Woman Diagnosed as "Brain Dead" Walks and Talks after Awakening By Hilary White
LAKE ELMO, Minnesota
February 15, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com)
65-year-old Raleane "Rae" Kupferschmidt's relatives were told by doctors that she was "brain dead" after she had suffered a massive cerebral haemorrhage in mid-January. Her family had taken her home to die and were in the process of grieving and planning her funeral when she awoke and was rushed back to hospital.
In accordance with her own wishes, doctors had removed Rae's breathing tube and were waiting for her to die. She was taken home from the hospital, and while friends and family gathered to say a last good bye, Kupferschmidt's daughter Lisa Sturm used an ice cube to wet her mother's dry lips. When her mother sucked on the ice cube, she thought it was only an instinctive reaction. She said, "I knew suckling is a very basic brain stem function, so I didn't get real excited. But when I did it again she just about sucked the ice cube out of my hand, and I looked at my aunt and said, 'Did you see that?'"
"So I leaned down and asked, 'Mom... Mom, are you in there?'" Sturm said. "And when she shook her head and mouthed, 'Yes,' we all just about fell over.
"Rae was rushed back to the hospital and underwent surgery to drain the blood clot from her skull. After surgery, she recovered her strength and is now undergoing physical therapy and can walk with the aid of a walker. Doctors expect her to be walking on her own within weeks. Rae says she does not remember anything during her coma.
"I still don't know what my task is here on this Earth, but I know God's not done with me yet. How else could you explain everything that has happened to me?" Rae said.
She told family that she had seen angels in her room. "I said these angels are not here to take me home to my father. They're here to help me, to help me get over this."
"Brain death" or "death by neurological criteria," is a common diagnosis of patients who are said to be in an irreversible coma, sometimes referred to as a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS). Physicians and bioethicists who support the brain death criteria claim that such a diagnosis is reliable and means that a patient is beyond any hope of recovery.
Under new bioethics criteria, "brain death" can be used as a condition under which organs are removed from a patient while his heart is kept beating. Organ transplant requires that tissue be recovered from donors as close to physical death as possible and physicians are under heavy pressure to procure more organs.
The fact that in many cases patients who have been unconscious, semi-conscious or severely neurologically disabled, such as Terri Schiavo, have been declared "brain dead" or "PVS" only to recover, has undermined public confidence in the medical system.
In the US in 2006, Terry Wallis, who experienced a car wreck in 1984, woke unexpectedly and began to recover after 19 years in a minimally conscious state. In 2005 in Italy, Salvatore Crisafulli woke from a coma he had suffered for two years. He had been declared "nearly dead" by doctors after a serious auto accident that left him unresponsive. In Poland in 2007, a railway worker astonished his family and doctors when he awoke spontaneously after 19 years.
Doctors at United Hospital said they are amazed by Rae Kupferschmidt's recovery. One told Good Morning America, "I've been here for ten years and I've never seen anything quite like this."
Rae told Good Morning America, "God's got something for me to do. When I learn it, I'll unfold it and follow it."
I wanted to write something on Ash Wednesday, about Ash Wednesday. I preached yesterday on the days of Lent, and how we are not simply walking with Christ towards His death on that Good Friday afternoon, but allowing Him to accomapany us on our journey towards death as well. The ashes imposed on our foreheads are the remanent of something dead, something that once was that no longer is.
Our bodies too will return to that state, mixing again with the dust of the earth from which the first of our race was created. We will stand before God in judgement with simply our soul, marked with His indeliable seal given us in Baptism. We will either kneel in adoration and ask for His mercy (and be sure of receiving it), or we will turn from His glory, seeking to hide ourself from Him who knows and sees all.
How do we know which path we choose? By looking at the path we have walked thus far. We were told that, (ontological change aside,) the man we were the day before ordination to the priesthood, is the man we would be the day after ordination to the priesthood. The person you are the day before your wedding will be the person you are the day after.
In the same way, the person you are the day before you die will, most likely, be the person you are the day after you die. Have you served God in every moment? Have you followed His commandments? Have you loved Him as He made you to love Him? Or, have you declined His invitation to grace and holiness time and time again? Have you rejected the unique help He offers through His Church and her Sacraments? Have you broken the commandments without a second thought to going to Him for forgiveness? Have you loved Him as you wanted instead of as He made you to love Him; or very honestly, have you loved Him at all?
If we refuse to kneel before God asking Him mercy in life, we will not kneel before Him asking for His mercy in Judgement. And this is the paradox: those who kneel are invited to stand with Him in the Father's house sharing in the Father's glory for all eternity. Those who refuse to kneel for a moment of penance before the Lord find that they kneel for all eternity under the weight of their pride, lust, greed, anger, envy, gluttony and sloth.
As Chesterton said while dying, "the issue is now clear, it is between light and darkness and everyone must choose their side." Ash Wednesday reminds us of exactly who we are: sinners in need of a savior, sinners who will die and stand before the Lord in Judgement, and sinners that God loved so much He sent His only Son to die for.
We are all making our way either to Heaven or to Hell, and Lent provides us with the reminder that we can change course. We can drop all the burdens of our life, the sins we have accumulated, the garbage we hold in our hands in order to reach out and take the one gift God wants to give us: joy, peace, and life with Him forever in Heaven. We can serve God, and find the happiness that He offers, the happiness that only He can give, the happiness that we are made for.
The below article is taken from the Catholic Education resource center, and a very good reflection on our fallen human condition and the need for universal mourning.
God love you ************
Ash Wednesday DAVID WARREN
Today is an international day of mourning, and it is because we are fully human that we need to wear the ashes on our brow.
Only forty non-shopping days to Easter, one recalls, on this, the most solemn fast of the Christian year, except Good Friday. The thought being: What would happen to the economy if, by some miracle of repentance, all the descendants of Christians were suddenly recalled to faith? This is the flip side of an argument I have often made in conversation, when learning of millions of dollars of receipts from some gross horrible vicious obscene and cynical product, often as not from the entertainment industry. "We never thought the collapse of Western civilization would be good for the economy." It would be dishonest to continue repeating this remark: for by now, the thought is perfectly familiar.
Familiar, and of course, bitter in the mouth, as befits Ash Wednesday.
Since Saturday, I have been intending to write about a passing event, of no great significance to the history of the world. A friend said I should use it to grab people's attention. It was the latest successful suicide bombing in Iraq — "successful," in the sense that a hundred people were killed, enough to earn mention in the world press. Bombs went off in two crowded markets, scattering heads and limbs all over the stalls. What made this any different from the standard Islamist atrocity in New York, Madrid, Bali, London, Kabul, Jerusalem, Baghdad, or anywhere? Certainly not the final total of corpses, or the number of mutilated survivors (more than twice that hundred).
I have a list before me of confirmed Islamist terror attacks since 9/11/01, in Iraq and all over the world. More than ten thousand of them. In Iraq, the number peaked at 478 bombings in 2005 — an understatement, because multiple bombings in a single approximate location were counted as one event. With point-form brevity, the list goes on like a telephone directory.
Two bombs went off, last Friday morning in Baghdad. The first was at the al-Ghazil pet market, the second, 20 minutes later, at the bird market in New Baghdad. Friday is the Muslim holiday, and with people in Iraq feeling, lately, much more secure, these markets were crowded. They are, according to one of my Iraqi correspondents, especially popular among the poor, who take their children to look at the animals. And indeed, part of the confusion after the large explosions was sorting through the remains to distinguish parts of the children, from parts of their mothers and fathers and aunts, from parts of the animals.
Still, nothing special in that, for the Koran-reciting zealots choose the defenceless by preference, not only in Iraq but all over the world. It is so much easier to kill defenceless people — as psychopaths of non-Muslim persuasion realize, even when hitting campuses and shopping malls in North America. For the big death tolls are invariably achieved at locations where guns have been publicly banned, and they know they'll have the leisure to continue the massacre until armed police finally arrive. (That is why crime rates suddenly climb wherever "gun control" triumphs.)
Not that any armed affiliate of the NRA could have prevented what happened last Friday in Baghdad. For the bombs were concealed on the persons of two exceptionally innocent-looking ladies.
Both were Down's Syndrome. Quite obviously, they did not know what they were carrying, or why. They were detonated by remote control, using cellphones. The detached head of one of these ladies was among the first of the body parts that Baghdad police were able to identify.
Down's people can be extremely suggestible. They are like children, in many respects, and especially, trusting like small children, even as adults. As the father of a Down's child myself, I can tell you just how innocent they are, and how loving. God made them without guile, and utterly in need of our protection. And in return for that demand upon our decency (Down's children in Canada today are usually aborted), He made them a light in this world. O Lord.
My friend, who told me to write about this, is himself a man with long experience working for people with mental disabilities. He told me I had to write about this case, because it was the final abomination. He said, "we should have an international day of mourning." He said, "I give up my membership in the human race if these Al Qaeda terrorists are human."
Yet the truth is, that the use of the mentally disabled to carry explosives — and of children, too — is a standard Islamist practice in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and elsewhere. So in this respect, too, the bombings at al-Ghazil and New Baghdad were nothing new. An even stranger truth, is that the Al Qaeda terrorists are human, like us. Like their victims. Like the two Down's ladies.
Today is an international day of mourning, and it is because we are fully human that we need to wear the ashes on our brow.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT David Warren. "Ash Wednesday." Ottawa Citizen (February 6, 2008). This article reprinted with permission from David Warren.
I have been an absentee blogger, and for this I apologize! I have been blogging for more than two years, and I may be running out of steam (or just getting busier!)
I am going to try to post at least one blog a week, so be patient with me! Thank you to all my readers who have stuck around. (Still 499 subscribers! Thanks!).
This video shows (one of) the fruits of the Communist regime in Russia: the destruction of a great Orthodox Cathedral in order to kill faith in the Russian people. They persevered, and this grand Cathedral was rebuilt in the year 2000. The footage is sad, and a bit disturbing, but worth watching. Remember the millions killed by this "enlightened" regime in the name of progress. Think of this video the next time you hear the "Communism is good, it just hasn't been put done by the right people" argument (that is one listens carefully, is found in a great deal of modern political rhetoric).
Any regime or government that denies God denies as well the inalienable rights that God has given His people, life first and foremost among them. The 20th century is proof enough of this.
May God have mercy on Stalin's victims, and may God have mercy on Stalin. And remember to pray as well for all of those who still live under Communist regimes and oppressive governments anywhere.
I have often used Wordsworth's beautiful line about Our Lady: "our tainted nature's solitary boast," but was not familiar with the whole poem.
Thanks to the Internet I found it in only a few seconds, and found it so beautiful I thought I might post it as a prelude to Christmas. Our Lady, seat of wisdom yet simple in her holiness, prepares for the birth of her Divine Son. Who is this Virgin to receive and bear such a gift? Who is this simple girl to be the instrument of the worlds coming salvation? Who is this woman whose heart too would be pierced?
She is Mary, the Mother of God and Our Mother, preserved from sin and entrusted to all who would seek to be beloved Disciples, ever Immaculate and ever Virgin, mother and maiden, wiser than Solomon yet simple in her humility. Mary.
Mary, meek and humble, pray for us.
God love you. ************
Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied; Woman! above all women glorified, Our tainted nature's solitary boast; Purer than foam on central ocean tost; Brighter than eastern skies on daybreak strewn With fancied roses, then the unblemished moon Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast; Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend As to a visible Power, in which did bend All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee Of mother's love with maiden purity
I came across this great video on YouTube. It's a vocations film made by the Dominicans in 1964. I am a great "fan" (for lack of a better word) of the Order of Preachers. A great deal of my formation was entrusted to a loyal son of Dominic, and my Seminary was lead for a time by a fearless rector from the same Order. Great video, and still as beautiful today as when it was made. (The vocation, that is.)
This article is taken from the Daily Mail out of London, via the Drudge Report. It is the heartwarming story of a woman, pregnant with twins who, following her doctor's advice, decides to abort one. Here's the heartwarming part: despite repeated attempts to kill one of the twins, he held on to dear life and was born healthy. He so strongly fought the attempts to kill him the doctors nicknamed him "Rocky."
What? You're missing the feel-good aspect of this story? You think that the people involved in this whole nefarious scandal should be embarrassed, indeed horrified, by their actions and not celebrating their failure? I do too. As I read this article, I thought to myself, "Am I the only one deeply troubled by this whole ordeal? Have we gone mad when the executioners celebrate the survival of their charge?"
Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled beyond imagining that this child, Gabriel, survived. However, this should be a call to conscience for all involved and not an "ahhh, isn't this nice" story.
Questions and comments are welcome.
God love you, Father V. ************
We're twinseparable!
Happy with his brother, the boy who refused to die
By LUCY LAING – 3 November 2007
They say twins share a strong bond - but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.
When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.
Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel's suffering sooner rather than later.
Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel's life . Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.
They then cut Mrs Jones's placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.
But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas. Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.
Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother's womb for another five weeks - until the babies were delivered by caesarean section.
Now he and Ieuan are back at home in Stoke - and are so close they are always holding each other's hand.
Mrs Jones, 35, a financial adviser whose husband Mark, 36, is a car salesman, said: "It really is a miracle. Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die - yet he hung on.
"It was unbelievable."
"When I felt him kicking madly the morning after the operation, I suddenly knew that he was going to hang on.
"The doctors couldn't believe it when they could still hear his heartbeat the next morning."
Mrs Jones learned she was expecting twins when she was ten weeks pregnant. She said: "When they told us we were over the moon."
But at her 20-week scan, doctors had some devastating news. One of the boys was half the size of his brother.
They didn't know what was causing it, but somehow he wasn't getting enough nutrients. Then doctors said his heart was three times normal size and it was likely he would have a heart attack or a stroke in the womb.
Mrs Jones said: "They told us that if he died, it could be life threatening for his brother. We had to decide whether to end his life and let his brother live, or risk them both."
They said it would be impossible to keep him alive afterwards as he was so poorly. It would be kinder to let him die in the womb with his brother by his side than to die alone after being born.
"That made my mind up for me. I wanted the best thing for him."
At Birmingham Women's Hospital, when Mrs Jones was 25 weeks pregnant, doctors tried to sever Gabriel's umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply and allow him to die.
But the cord was too thick, and they could not cut through it.
As a last resort they divided Mrs Jones's placenta so that when Gabriel died, it would allow Ieuan to survive. Mrs Jones said: "I put my hands on my stomach thinking of Gabriel. It was devastating. I had said my goodbyes."
But the next morning Mrs Jones felt Gabriel kicking. A scan showed his heart was still beating. She said: "No one could quite believe it."
Gabriel hung on, and his enlarged heart started to reduce in size. He also gained weight.
Mrs Jones said: "They thought it may be because the placenta had been divided. Inadvertently, it had evened out the distribution of nutrition between them, allowing Gabriel to survive.'
When Mrs Jones reached 31 weeks doctors carried out a caesarian to deliver the twins. Ieuan weighed 3lb 8oz and Gabriel 1lb 15oz. Both were kept in hospital, but since going home they have thrived. At seven months, Ieuan weighs 15lb and Gabriel 12lb 6oz.
Mrs Jones said: "The boys are so healthy, they have huge appetites too. Ieuan is the noisy one, while Gabriel is always laughing, it's like he's just so happy to be here. "There is such a strong bond between them.
"They are always holding hands and if one cries, the other reaches out to comfort him." "Doctors tried to break their bond in the womb, but they just proved it couldn't be broken."
Thriving: Gabriel, right, with his twin brother Ieuan, is now a healthy 12lb 6oz at seven months
I will be away until the 31st of October on vacation, and not checking e-mail or MySpace. Please pray for me, and the couple whose wedding I will be attending in sunny California!
I have no doubt that, in lieu of a wedding gift to them, my friends would rather you give me a gift. One wonderful gift would be a vote in the Bloggers Choice Awards competition! Click on the link above; it would only take a moment, and you would help spread the word about the blog.
One more shameless plug for votes! The voting is almost over, and I have been stuck on page 4, with 87 votes, for quite a while. I would love to score a little higher, and increase my exposure and readership. With 504 subscribers and over 1000 hits a week, I should be able to score a little better than that!
So if you have it in you, and I pray you do, let's push the blog up a little further; it would only take a moment! It would be great to at least place in the top 10. If only 200 of my readers voted, I would make this goal easily.
If you enjoy this blog, find it interesting, challenging or even aggravating, vote and push me up a few notches!
Be sure to stop in and vote! I am on the bottom of page 4 in "Best Religious Blogs." Your votes would help to spread the word and increase readership!
God love you! -Father V.
My ordination, May of 2006, by Sean Cardinal O'Malley.
Paradoxically, there has been in recent history, a disturbing trend among those in Catholic higher education to do all that they can to attack the Church and her moral teachings, and to distance themselves from their true identity in order to embrace and receive accolades from those in the liberal secular movement. This situation objectively causes great scandal and harm to the faithful. The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts provides the latest example.
Holy Cross is hosting a conference in which NARAL (National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws) and Planned Parenthood (the nations largest abortion provider and distributor of contraceptives) are the principle participants. The venue serves to promote and further their expressed goals, which run contrary to the truth about the dignity of the human person taught by the Church.
Why would a Catholic institution want to hurt what should be an integral part of its mission? The only reason I can deduce is that the institution, and those who run it, have abandoned the mission of the Church, and recreated the mission, and the Church, as they see fit. What they are left with is not the Church that Christ gave us, Christ guides, and Christ provides for our salvation. Instead they replace the Bride of Christ for the Bride of Frankenstein: a monster-church of their own making, comprised of various parts of secular ideologies and modern-liberal agendas, who contains no truth, no beauty, and no soul, and with a visage that can be looked upon without horror only by those who created it. This monster-church, like Frankenstein's monster, mimics life as God gives it but reeks with the stench of death.
Truth be told, and to follow the Frankenstein analogy, even they come to hate this new creation, their monster-church with its false God. They come to see that their 'new church' is indeed not a new creation, but the work of the ancient Accuser and Father of Lies, who allows man to think that he has asserted his independence and superiority over God and His Church, all the while making him the most pathetic of slaves.
Bishop Robert McManus is the ordinary of Worcester and has bravely and strongly called Holy Cross to task. He calls them to their duty and dignity as a Catholic institution, and reminds them not to forget that he, as bishop, has "pastoral and canonical responsibility to determine what institutions can properly call themselves Catholic."
This article from Catholic World News provides a good synopsis of the Bishop's statement.
Pray for Bishop McManus, and all Bishops, that they may have the courage of the Apostles whose successors they are, and proclaim the Truth of Jesus Christ in season and out, without counting the cost.
Questions and comments are welcome.
God love you!
************
Massachusetts Bishop Issues Warning to Jesuit College
Worcester, Oct. 11, 2007 (CWNews.com) - A Massachusetts bishop has strongly criticized a Jesuit-run college in his diocese, hinting that he could withdraw the school's recognition as a Catholic institution.
Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester issued a statement on October 10, responding to protests from lay Catholics about plans for a conference at the College of the Holy Cross in which Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts will make presentations. Siding with the pro-life protestors, Bishop McManus disclosed that he had urged Holy Cross to cancel the conference plans.
The organizations participating in the scheduled event, the bishop said, "promote positions on artificial contraception and abortion that are contrary to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church." Saying that the Church's position on key issues involving respect for life is "manifestly clear," he questioned why a Catholic school would offer these groups a forum. The bishop warned that the conference could create a "situation of offering scandal understood in its proper theological sense, i.e. an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil." By canceling the conference, he said, Holy Cross would not infringe upon academic freedom, but would "make unambiguously clear the Catholic identity and mission of the College of the Holy Cross."
Bishop McManus noted that as the head of the Worcester diocese in which Holy Cross is located he has the "pastoral and canonical responsibility to determine what institutions can properly call themselves Catholic." He added: "This is a duty that I do not take lightly…"
The bishop concluded his public statement by expressing his "fervent wish" that Holy Cross would cancel plans for the conference, "so that the college can continue to be recognized as a Catholic institution committed to promoting the moral teaching of the Roman Catholic Church."
I love to use incense at the Holy Mass. It helps to support an atmosphere of solemnity and beauty that is fitting to the greatest gift given by Christ to His Church, and the highest prayer the Church has to offer to God: the True Worship of God the Father as offered by Christ on His Cross. It helps man to understand that at Mass we enter into and are united with the worship offered God in Heaven by His Angels and Saints. If we are told, after all, that the angels stand amid clouds of incense singing God's praise in heaven, why shouldn't they do the same gathered around the altar, as they are, singing God's praise during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?
Even though I think most people have a "gut" instinct about incense, one of the questions I often get after using incense at Mass is, "Why do you use incense?" or "What does the incense mean?" This great article from The Catholic Education Resource Center gives a great history of the liturgical use of incense, its symbolism, and its importance.
Questions and comments are welcome.
God love you! ************
Great Clouds of Incense THOMAS J. CRAUGHWELL An unusual tree grows in the sultanate of Oman.
Standing about 15 feet high, with thick stems and dense branches, the Boswellia sacra looks like a shrub that needs pruning. Slash the trunk and a thick resin oozes out; wait a day or two and the resin will hardened into nuggets that look like rock candy. These nuggets are the raw material of incense. For thousands of years the Boswellia trees of Oman have provided the incense that burned in the temples of Egypt, Babylon, Athens, Rome, and of course the holy Temple in Jerusalem. Today, the incense burned in your parish church at a solemn Mass, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, or at a funeral probably came from Oman. ( Yemen has planted groves of Boswellia trees and exports incense, but Oman still dominates the market).
In the temple rituals of the ancient world incense played a symbolic and a practical role. Because it was rare, expensive, and would be completely consumed by fire, it was considered a suitable sacrifice to the gods. Furthermore, priests and people hoped that their prayers would rise to heaven like the great clouds of sweet-smelling smoke. Then there was the practical dimension of burning incense: in temples where animals were sacrificed and their carcasses burned, incense helped mask the stench.
Both the Old and the New Testaments tell us that incense is pleasing to God. In the book of Exodus God commands Moses to build a small, gold-plated altar specifically for burning incense every morning and evening (Exodus 30:1-8). In St. Luke's gospel we read that St. Zachary the priest was about to offer incense in the Temple in Jerusalem when the archangel Gabriel appeared to announce that he and his wife Elizabeth were about to have a son, the future St. John the Baptist (Luke 1:8-13). And the book of Revelations describes a scene in Heaven in which an angel burned incense in a censer, "and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints… before God" (Revelations 8:3-4).
In spite of biblical endorsement of the practice, there is no evidence that Christians during the first three hundreds of the Church used incense at Mass. Perhaps Christians worried that clouds of incense billowing from their little house-churches would have attracted unwanted attention. Another reason is more probable: among the early Christians incense stirred up unhappy memories. During periods of persecution, Roman magistrates always offered a Christian the chance to save his or her life by burning a few grains of incense before an image of a pagan god. Christians who refused were executed, while those who out of a natural fear of pain and death complied and burned the incense became a source of shame and heartache for their fellow Christians.
For reasons are hard to pin down, by the late 4 th century the Church in the East had begun to use incense in worship. Etheria, a nun from present-day France who in 381 began a lengthy pilgrimage to the Holy Land, tells us that incense was burned in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. As the bitter memory of incense's link to the era of persecution faded, the Church in the West took up the custom, too, censing everything that was considered holy—the bread and wine, the altar, the crucifix, the book of the gospels, the celebrant of the Mass and the sacred ministers, and the congregation. Today incense serves the same purpose as it did when Moses burned it in the desert—it pays homage to all that is holy, and symbolizes our prayers ascending to God.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thomas J. Craughwell. "Great Clouds of Incense." Our Sunday Visitor.
There is a wonderful blog written by "Sister Mary Martha," who if I am not mistaken, is a religious sister, commonly known as a nun. However, there is nothing common about her! She runs an extraordinary blog that I check out very often and really enjoy. She is faithful to the Lord and His Church, witty in her commentary, and a wonderful writer. (On top of all that, she is a sister, and anyone who knows me even causally knows that I love my sisters! They are an often underappreciated gift that God gives to His Church, and we should treasure them as such.)
So, with her permission, I am stealing a blog of hers, "What can Brown do for you?" It is about a most important Catholic sacramental called the 'scapular'. I realize that this may get my seperated brethren in a tizzy, but I hope they read this with an open mind, learn what the Church actually teaches on sacramentals, and enjoy Sister's sterling sense of humor.
I wear a scapular, and would invite every Catholic to do the same. It is a wonderful reminder of Our Lady's love for her children and our invitation to eternal happiness through everyday holiness.
(One more special thanks to Sister, as I was asked to write a blog on the scapular a while ago, and haven't found the time.)
God love you! ************
What can Brown do for you?
(A Homey Treatise on the Scapular)
I'm glad to have the opportunity to explain more about sacramentals, which seem to drive many people around the bend. I hope those who have been driven around the bend by sacramentals and the questions about them are offering up their suffering. It IS LENT.
We've had quite the discussion about the Brown Scapular.
One reader wants to know: I am I to understand that as long as I wear the brown scapular (provided it doesn't fall off), I get to heaven even if I deny the Trinity, the Real Presence and Christ's Redemption by the Cross?
I really have to ask a question in return. If you deny the Trinity, the Real Presence and Christ's Redemption by the Cross, why on earth would you run around in a scapular all day every day? Clearly, you have no fear of hell in the first place.
But fine, for the sake of argument, let's pretend someone would do that. (We can do that while we're pretending the bones of the Jesus Family have been found and identified.)
Here's how I see it. Keep in mind I am an old nun that taught Catechism to second graders.
1. Our Lady made the Brown Scapular promise in direct reference to people who had devoted their lives to Christ and His Church. The Brown Scapular to which she refers is a part of their habit. So the promise already refers to the faith. She could have phrased it this way, "All you Carmelites will not see the fires of hell."
2. The Pope extended the promise to the rest of us, meaning, the Church Militant...which means, we believe the same thing. He didn't extend the promise to the separated brethren or the Wiccans.
3. As an old nun who taught Catechism, do I believe that you could be a Catholic believer, yet lead a sinful life and still not see the fires of hell because you wore a Brown Scapular? You bet I do! God can do anything He wants, including honoring Mary's hair-brained promises. God likes to cut people some slack whenever the opportunity arises. Perhaps Mary in her Motherly wisdom realizes that you have to look at that thing and shower with that thing and wear your prom dress with that thing every day of your life and that just maybe that will be enough of a reminder for you to dial it back and straighten up and ask for forgiveness. Like when Jimmy Cagney looks at a picture of his sainted mother while he's in the pokey and he's sorry for the sorry life he has led. So touching. These things happen.
Do you have to believe this? No, you don't.
4. Do I think if you wear a Brown Scapular and lead a sinful life and are not sorry ever but just run around saying, "Ha ha, I'm wearing a brown Scapular! Satan will never get me!" that you won't see the fires of hell? Not a chance. Satan already has you. The one time you take it off to shower, you'll slip on the soap and crack your head open. The bus that knocks you out of your shoes will knock you right out of your scapular. The flood waters that wash you away will wash the scapular off your neck. Your evil boyfriend will remove it while you sleep and murder you for your jewels. The paramedic will take it off to give you a shot of adrenaline that doesn't work. The nursing home worker will steal it from you. The atomic blast will vaporize the Scapular one millisecond before it vaporizes you. As you tumble, end over end, down the basement stairs with no one home to hear all the thumping, your scapular will be tossed off and land right before your eyes along with you at the foot of the stairs. As the life drains from you as you lay bleeding from your head wound, you will reach pathetically for your scapular, but the cat will grab it and run out the basement window. At some point, you are going to want to throw it in the wash. When you do, you'll drop dead.
You are not going to get away with it, mark my words.
From another reader:
The point I am trying to make is that when catholics make claims about sacramentals without giving the whole story, non-catholics easily fall into the "Catholics aren't Christian. Catholics are idolators" and a whole bunch of other stuff. I have to frequently explain to non-catholic friends the ideas of sacramentals, praying 'to' saints, and 'worshipping' the Blessed Virgin.
I have to do that all the time too. Offer it up. It's a great opportunity to set the record straight.
From yet another reader, this crackpot idea ( I had to correct some spelling):
Got to love how we try to secure salvation through any means possible, regardless of how puerile or ridiculous it is. How can a piece of cloth guarantee salvation? What are we, Hindu?
Along these same lines of superstitious, pagan left-overs in the Church, the Eastern Orthodox have numerous nifty wearable items and prayers to guarantee just the thing you need! Sure glad the church thought of everything. 100% money back guarantee, just like Folsom Lake Ford. Except this time it'll be too late to go spend your money.
The piece of cloth is a symbol of what we believe. You don't need the symbol to believe it. You can dump all your sacramentals and saint holy cards into the landfill tomorrow. No problem. You can forget about wearing a scapular. You don't have to believe in anything that came to us through private revelations: scapular, the Miraculous Medal, the St. Gertrude prayer...let it all go, no problem.
I may suggest also that you rid yourself of your family album and all those videotapes of the kids when they were little and the keepsake opal ring that belonged to your Grandmother because.... who needs reminders? What are we Hindu?
This article from Zenit (by way of Catholic Online) helps to explain the posture of the priest facing with the people towards the altar during Holy Mass. This posture, known as "ad orientem" (to the east) is the common posture in what is now called the "Extraordinary Form" of the Holy Mass, and is allowable, although sadly not widely practiced, in the Ordinary Form.
There is something beautiful, and unitive, about the people facing with the priest during the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. It symbolizes the fact that together, as the Church, we are all a pilgrim people moving together towards the Lord through out life. One body acting in concert towards one goal. It is not impossible to express this facing the people, but more difficult and sadly, as we have seen born out, easily lost.
What has been lost in wide measure is that the Mass is a dialogue with God, and not with each other (just it is also missed that the Mass is what God does for man and not man for God) . I believe that the common posture of priest and people accentuates and supports this divine dialogue. I also believe that this posture also accentuates the role of priest as head and shepherd, standing in the person of Christ, acting as mediator between God and man. Why is their a dearth of men answering the call to priesthood? The answer is legion, and no simple answer will suffice. However, I am sure that among those answers that could be had is the "new" and false model of priest as facilitator of the community's worship instead of the true model of priest as alter Christus, standing in the person of Christ, offering the true sacrifice of Calvary for the salvation of the world. This is a mystery worth living and dying for.
Questions and comments are welcome.
God love you! ************
Reorienting the Mass Father Lang Comments on "Ad Orientem" 9/26/2007
LONDON, SEPT. 26, 2007 (Zenit) - The statement asserting that the priest celebrating the older form of the Mass has "his back to the people" misses the point, says Father Uwe Michael Lang.
The posture "ad orientem," or "facing east," is about having a common direction of liturgical prayer, he adds.
Father Lang of the London Oratory, and recently appointed to work for the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, is the author of "Turning Toward the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer." The book was first published in German by Johannes Verlag and then in English by Ignatius Press. The book has also appeared in Italian, French, Hungarian and Spanish.
In this interview with us, Father Lang speaks about the "ad orientem" posture and the possibilities for a rediscovery of the ancient liturgical practice.
Q: How did the practice of celebrating the liturgy "ad orientem," or "facing east," develop in the early Church? What is its theological significance?
Father Lang: In most major religions, the position taken in prayer and the layout of holy places is determined by a "sacred direction." The sacred direction in Judaism is toward Jerusalem or, more precisely, toward the presence of the transcendent God -- "shekinah" -- in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, as seen in Daniel 6:10.
Even after the destruction of the Temple, the custom of turning toward Jerusalem was kept in the liturgy of the synagogue. This is how the Jews have expressed their eschatological hope for the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding of the Temple, and the gathering of God's people from the diaspora.
The early Christians no longer turned toward the earthly Jerusalem, but toward the new, heavenly Jerusalem. It was their firm belief that when the Risen Christ would come again in glory, he would gather his faithful to make up this heavenly city.
They saw in the rising sun a symbol of the Resurrection and of the Second Coming, and it was a matter of course for them to pray facing this direction. There is strong evidence of eastward prayer in most parts of the Christian world from the second century onward.
In the New Testament, the special significance of the eastward direction for worship is not explicit.
Even so, tradition has found many biblical references for this symbolism, for instance: the "sun of righteousness" in Malachi 4:2; the "day dawning from on high" in Luke 1:78; the angel ascending from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living God in Revelation 7:2; and the imagery of light in St John's Gospel.
In Matthew 24:27-30, the sign of the coming of the Son of Man with power and great glory, which appears as the lightning from the east and shines as far as the west, is the cross.
There is a close connection between eastward prayer and the cross; this is evident by the fourth century, if not earlier. In synagogues of this period, the corner with the receptacle for the Torah scrolls indicated the direction of prayer -- "qibla" -- toward Jerusalem.
Among Christians, it became a general custom to mark the direction of prayer with a cross on the east wall in the apses of basilicas as well as in private rooms, for example, of monks and solitaries.
Toward the end of the first millennium, we find theologians of different traditions noting that prayer facing east is one of the practices distinguishing Christianity from the other religions of the Near East: Jews pray toward Jerusalem, Muslims pray toward Mecca, but Christians pray toward the east.
Q: Do any of the other rites of the Catholic Church employ the "ad orientem" liturgical posture?
Father Lang: "Facing east" in liturgical prayer is part of the Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian traditions. It is still the custom in most of the Eastern rites, at least during the Eucharistic prayer.
A few Eastern Catholic Churches -- for example, the Maronite and the Syro-Malabar -- have lately adopted "Mass facing the people," but this is owing to modern Western influence and not in keeping with their authentic traditions.
For this reason, the Vatican Congregation for Eastern Churches declared in 1996 that the ancient tradition of praying toward the east has a profound liturgical and spiritual value and must be preserved in the Eastern rites.
Q: We often hear that "facing east" means the priest is celebrating "with his back to the people." What is really going on when the priest celebrates Mass "ad orientem"?
Father Lang: That catchphrase often heard nowadays, that the priest "is turning his back on the people," misses the crucial point that the Mass is a common act of worship in which priest and people together -- representing the pilgrim Church -- reach out for the transcendent God.
What is at issue here is not the celebration "toward the people" or "away from the people," but rather the common direction of liturgical prayer. This is maintained whether or not the altar is literally facing east; in the West, many churches built since the 16th century are no longer "oriented" in the strict sense.
By facing the same direction as the faithful when he stands at the altar, the priest leads the people of God on their journey of faith. This movement toward the Lord has found sublime expression in the sanctuaries of many churches of the first millennium, where representations of the cross or of the glorified Christ illustrate the goal of the assembly's earthly pilgrimage.
Looking out for the Lord keeps the eschatological character of the Eucharist alive and reminds us that the celebration of the sacrament is a participation in the heavenly liturgy and a pledge of future glory in the presence of the living God.
This gives the Eucharist its greatness, saving the individual community from closing in upon itself and opening it toward the assembly of the angels and saints in the heavenly city.
Q: In what ways does "facing east" during the liturgy foster a dialogue with the Lord?
Father Lang: The paramount principle of Christian worship is the dialogue between the people of God as a whole, including the celebrant, and God, to whom their prayer is addressed.
This is why the French liturgist Marcel Metzger argues that the phrases "facing the people" and "back to the people" exclude the one to whom all prayer is directed, namely God.
The priest does not celebrate the Eucharist "facing the people," whatever direction he faces; rather, the whole congregation celebrates facing God, through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
Q: In the foreword to your book, then Cardinal Ratzinger notes that none of the documents of the Second Vatican Council asked for the altar to be turned toward the people. How did this change come about? What was the basis for such a major reorientation of the liturgy?
Father Lang: Two main arguments in favor of the celebrant's position facing the people are usually presented.
First, it is often said that this was the practice of the early Church, which should be the norm for our age; however, a close study of the sources shows that this claim does not hold.
Second, it is maintained that the "active participation" of the faithful, a principle that was introduced by Pope Pius X and is central to "SacrosanctumConcilium," demanded celebration toward the people.
Recent critical reflection on the concept of "active participation" has revealed the need for a theological reappraisal of this important principle.
In his book "The Spirit of the Liturgy," then Cardinal Ratzinger draws a useful distinction between participation in the Liturgy of the Word, which includes external actions, and participation in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, where external actions are quite secondary, since the interior participation of prayer is the heart of the matter.
The Holy Father's recent postsynodal apostolic exhortation "SacramentumCaritatis" has an important discussion of this topic in Paragraph 52.
Q: Is a priest forbidden from "facing east" in the new order of the Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970? Is there any juridical obstacle prohibiting wider use of this ancient practice?
Father Lang: A combination of priest and people facing each other during the Liturgy of the Word and turning jointly toward the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, especially for the Canon, is a legitimate option in the Missal of Pope Paul VI.
The revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which was first published for study purposes in 2000, addresses the altar question in Paragraph 299; it seems to declare the position of the celebrant "ad orientem" undesirable or even prohibited.
However, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments rejected this interpretation in a response to a question submitted by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna. Obviously, the relevant paragraph of the General Instruction must be read in light of this response, which was dated Sept. 25, 2000.
Q: Will Pope Benedict's recent apostolic letter liberalizing the use of the Missal of John XXIII, "SummorumPontificum," foster a deeper appreciation for "turning toward the Lord" during the Mass?
Father Lang: I think many reservations or even fears about Mass "ad orientem" come from lack of familiarity with it, and the spread of the "extraordinary use" of the Roman rite will help many people to discover and appreciate this form of celebration.
Contact: Catholic Online http://www.catholic.org CA, USCatholic Online - Publisher, 661-869-1000
This is the conclusion to Dr. Howards fine talk at Gordon College. It is very short, and on the Rosary, and very beautiful.
He addresses, I believe, most of the objections people have to the Rosary. It's not exhaustive by any means, but a wonderful catechetical reflection. Again, keeping in mind it was delivered at Gordon College, quite amazing!
As usual, questions and comments are appreciated and welcomed!
God love you! ************
Howard at Gordon on the Rosary
I might wind this up here by mentioning one item that is as sticky as any of the items on the list of questions that good Evangelicals have about Roman Catholic piety. I mean the Rosary.
If anything on earth looks like the vain repetition the Bible warns us against, it would certainly be the Rosary. It entails seemingly endless repetitions of the Hail Mary. That can't possibly be "prayer", surely?
Let me see if I can help you see at least the reason Catholics appreciate the Rosary. First, we all know how terribly difficult it is to fix our minds in Christian meditation. If you have attempted it yourself, you know that your worst enemy is wandering thoughts. You also know that you very quickly run out of things to say when you are pondering one of the Gospel mysteries (and surely if one is a serious Christian one will have as part of one's daily exercises just such meditating and pondering). The Rosary supplies us with a way of tarrying (that is the key word, actually) in a systematic and progressive way, in the presence of all the great events of our salvation, in the company of the one who was most receptive to the Lord, namely, the Virgin Mary, who said, you will remember, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done unto me according to Thy word." Alas--that is what you and I, in our father Adam and our mother Eve did not say in Eden; and it is one way of summing up this whole process of growth in the Christian life we have embarked on. If only I can learn, increasingly, to say, from my heart, "Be it done unto me according to Thy word."
The Rosary presents us with fifteen of the Gospel events--the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and so forth-and, by giving us a sort of refrain to murmur as we place ourselves in conspectu Dei at each scene--the way charismatics will murmur "Jesus! Jesus!" or the way we Evangelicals repeat "Alleluia!" or "Crown him! crown him!" in a hymn--by giving us a quiet refrain to keep on our tongues as we tarry, it helps us to stay in place. The words are like ball bearings, so to speak. They assist our poor scattered faculties to stay in line. And of course, the "Hail Mary" is biblical: we are simply repeating Gabriel's salutation to this woman--we are one of the many generations who want to call her blessed, as she herself sang in the Magnificat. For of course she was the one of us who was taken most intimately into the whole drama of redemption: the patriarchs and prophets and kings and apostles all bore witness to the Word: Mary bore the Word. She is the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15. Insofar as we increasingly unite our own aspirations with hers, we move closer and closer into intimate union with the Lord. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord": if only I can learn to say that, in a thousand situations all day long when irritation, or resentment, or lust, or impatience surge up in me. "Be it done unto me according to Thy word." It is a wonderful frame of mind for a Christian to aspire to. The Rosary, day by day, presents to us those events upon which our souls ought to be habitually dwelling and helps us to tarry in those Gospel precincts.
My time is up. I have scarcely touched on this matter of the Virgin Mary and have said nothing of the Pope, or of prayers to the saints, and Purgatory, and so many other things that seem an outrage to ardent Evangelical imagination. As a form of shorthand, I may simply say that every single one of these notions and practices is profoundly centered on Jesus Christ who, says the Roman Catholic Church, echoing Saint Paul, is "the one mediator between God and man".
There are gigantic matters that we could talk about. For my part, I want to say a most fervent and heartfelt thanks to Gordon College or having me here today. All my memories of my fifteen years on the faculty here are good memories. God bless and prosper Gordon College, say I.
Dr. Thomas Howard is, if nothing else, a very interesting man with an extraordinary writing style. I might add that he is a good, devout man who speaks well of His Lord and His Church, and on the occasions I have had to meet him, he has been most warm and charming. This lecture, given at Gordon College, is another example of his fine work.
His story is quite interesting, as is his gradual move from a 'prominent' evangelical family into Anglicanism, and finally into the Church. To be invited back to his evangelical alma mater to speak is quite a feat, I would think.
It is an excerpt taken from his new book "The Night Is Far Spent" and very much worth the read. It is a little long, but I think everyone, Catholic and Protestant and everyone in-between, will gain a great deal from reading it (and it should generate some good discussion, I think). As the article is long enough, I will stop writing now!
Questions and comments are welcome and encouraged.
God love you! ************
Howard at Gordon
Editor's Note:In his books and articles, Thomas Howard has never been one to shy away from controversy. While attending the Evangelical Church of his parents and teaching English at an Evangelical college, Howard wrote his provocative best-seller Evangelical is Not Enough. Soon after entering the Anglican Communion, Howard began asking the kinds of questions that would eventually lead him into the Roman Catholic Church.
Throughout his pilgrimage of faith, Howard wrote numerous thought-provoking yet respectful articles on a wide range of topics for both Protestant and Catholic publications, gaining him a wide and loyal following. Known for his wit and charm, Howard also was a sought after speaker for conferences and college graduations. Due to a request made by one of his faithful readers, this collection of Howard's best material has now been published: The Night Is Far Spent: A Treasury of Thomas Howard. Liturgical reform and sacred architecture, women's ordination and hierarchical authority, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien--these and many other topics of interest to Protestants and Catholics alike are tackled by Howard with his characteristic thoughtfulness in these articles and speeches--many of them never before published--that span more than twenty years of his prolific career.
The following essay was originally a lecture given at Gordon College, June 1995.
My guess is that a great clutter of bric-a-brac swims into your imagination when you hear of Catholic spirituality: rosaries, holy water stoups, crucifixes, little plastic Saint Christophers for your dashboard, and laminated holy cards depicting pastel-tinted saints with their eyes cast soulfully up into the ozone, not to mention all the polychrome statues and banks of candles flickering in little red glass cups (there are even electric candles that have a bogus flicker).
My guess is also that I am addressing at least three groups of people all stirred in together here in this assembly. The biggest group of you would locate yourselves in that wing of Protestantism known as Evangelicalism and will have been brought up in Evangelical households. A second group will tell us, "I was a Catholic until I was fifteen, then I met Jesus", or "I was Catholic until I was seventeen, then I, became a Christian." A third group of you are Roman Catholic even as we speak and may possibly have discovered that some of your colleagues here are very far from satisfied that your Catholicism qualifies you as a Christian. There may also be a fourth group, namely, those of you who are trying to shuck off whatever remnants of the Christian religion are still clinging to you so that you can get on with your own agenda.
Let me see if I can throw any light on this topic of Catholic spirituality so that the whole array of us may grasp things in a fairly clear light.
As you know, all of us do what we do for reasons that have roots in our history and culture. Some Jews, for example, wear great fur hats and long black coats and white stockings. You need to inquire into their history before you decide that they have unstylish taste. Calvinists put the pulpit at the center of focus in their churches: they have passionate reasons for adopting this architectural arrangement. Evangelicals sing a certain kind of gospel song, or praise song, which finds its roots in modern American culture. I am speaking, of course, of tradition. To be human at all is to be deeply rooted in tradition. We would all agree that there are bad traditions and good traditions: suttee in India, I suppose, and the shackling of slaves would be bad traditions, whereas taking off one's hat in a church and standing up when a woman comes into the room would be good traditions. To say that something is traditional leaves open the question as to whether it ought to be changed. If it is frivolous, or brutish, or misbegotten, then we would all agree that change is indicated.
There is no such thing, as you know, as nontraditional Christianity. What we do when we meet with other believers for worship, and the sequence we follow, and the very phrases and vocabulary that crop up--these did not spring straight from the pages of the New Testament yesterday. John Wesley, or General William Booth, or Menno Simons, or John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or J. N. Darby, or John Wimber, or D. L. Moody, or Roger Williams, or A. J. Gordon, or Ignatius of Antioch, or Clement of Rome, or Justin Martyr, or Gregory I--these gentlemen stand there between you and the morning of Pentecost in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.
Even if you strive mightily for spontaneity in your worship, for example, you find two things: first, there is an ancient tradition of efforts at spontaneity in worship--it is called Montanism--and secondly, you discover that your spontaneity very quickly jells into half a dozen or so phrases and gestures. We are all human, forsooth, and we can no more shuck off tradition than we can shuck off these bodies of ours.
As our forerunners in the ancient Faith moved out from that dazzling Pentecostal morning into the long haul of history, we find that the touchstone for their life together, and for their prayer, and for their worship, was apostolic. Christianity was not just a higgledy-piggledy aggregate of independent believers and groups scattered across Samaria and Asia Minor. You had to be in obedient, visible, organic communion with the apostles themselves. Then, as the decades roiled on and Peter and John and James and the others died, you found yourself under the authority of the men on whom they had laid their hands. These men were overseers, or pastors: bishop is the word that came into play very quickly. If you were a Christian, you said, "Polycarp is my bishop", or "Ignatius is my bishop." There was no such thing in the Church to which you and I owe our faith--there was no such thing as an independent, or individualistic, Christian.
Naturally, zealous types popped up out of the weeds every hour on the half hour, so to speak, saying, "Hi, guys: I'm starting me a church over here", or "I've got a word from the Lord", or "The Holy Ghost has revealed thus and such to me." These men were called heresiarchs by the Christians (there were some women, too).
Things were very strict, actually: if you doubt this, look at Saint Paul's Epistles or eavesdrop on the Council in Jerusalem, which the apostles convened to decide what you were supposed to do about certain matters of conscience. The Christians were not left organizing workshops and symposia to hash over issues: the apostles told you what to do and what to believe. This news may make you skittish, but all of us, Baptist, O.P.C., Coptic, R.C., or Grace Chapel, have to agree that that was the way the apostles did things, for good or ill. If we attempt a different scheme, we do so under the titanic gaze of that great cloud of witnesses who, says the Book of Hebrews, are watching us as we stumble along through our fragment of history.
To be a believer at all in those early days was to look on yourself, not so much as a private individual who had accepted the Lord Jesus Chris
