Christ is the Endless Day: Saint Maximus of Turin

Christ is risen! He has burst open the gates of hell and let the dead go free; he has renewed the earth through the members of his Church now born again in baptism, and has made it blossom afresh with men brought back to life. His Holy Spirit has unlocked the doors of heaven, which stand wide open to receive those who rise up from the earth. Because of Christ’s resurrection the thief ascends to paradise, the bodies of the blessed enter the holy city, and the dead are restored to the company of the living. There is an upward movement in the whole of creation, each element raising itself to something higher. We see hell restoring its victims to the upper regions, earth sending its buried dead to heaven, and heaven presenting the new arrivals to the Lord. In one and the same movement, our Saviour’s passion raises men from the depths, lifts them up from the earth, and sets them in the heights.

            Christ is risen. His rising brings life to the dead, forgiveness to sinners, and glory to the saints. And so David the prophet summons all creation to join in celebrating the Easter festival: Rejoice and be glad, he cries, on this day which the Lord has made.

The light of Christ is an endless day that knows no night. Christ is this day, says the Apostle; such is the meaning of his words: Night is almost over; day is at hand. He tells us that night is almost over, not that it is about to fall. By this we are meant to understand that the coming of Christ’s light puts Satan’s darkness to flight, leaving no place for any shadow of sin. His everlasting radiance dispels the dark clouds of the past and checks the hidden growth of vice. The Son is that day to whom the day, which is the Father, communicates the mystery of his divinity. He is the day who says through the mouth of Solomon: I have caused an unfailing light to rise in heaven. And as in heaven no night can follow day, so no sin can overshadow the justice of Christ. The celestial day is perpetually bright and shining with brilliant light; clouds can never darken its skies. In the same way, the light of Christ is eternally glowing with luminous radiance and can never be extinguished by the darkness of sin. This is why John the evangelist says: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never been able to overpower it.

And so, my brothers, each of us ought surely to rejoice on this holy day. Let no one, conscious of his sinfulness, withdraw from our common celebration, nor let anyone be kept away from our public prayer by the burden of his guilt. Sinner he may indeed be, but he must not despair of pardon on this day which is so highly privileged; for if a thief could receive the grace of paradise, how could a Christian be refused forgiveness?

Saint Maximus of Turin, 380 – 465 AD was a bishop and theological writer in northern Italy.

Do You Believe in the Physical Resurrection of Christ?

The question shouldn’t be that difficult. Life and death, after all, is serious business. At the very beginning of my Christian life I was abruptly confronted with the “problem” of the resurrection. I had gone to a college age group at a large downtown Baptist Church in Toronto, Canada. In the middle of the meeting the Youth Minister came into the room and announced his amazing discovery: Jesus wasn’t resurrected physically; he was only resurrected spiritually.

I had never thought about the resurrection before that moment, but somehow his declaration didn’t measure up even with my subjective experience of Jesus as my Saviour and Lord. Jesus was too real to me for that to be true. That launched me into my first serious bible study and I immersed myself in the biblical records of the resurrection of Jesus. It was immediately clear that the apostles believed that Jesus was physically resurrected. They saw him, touched him, handled him, and he stood in their midst and ate fish and wild honey.  

Some years later at seminary we were taught that Jesus didn’t rise physically from the dead, but after his death his gathered disciples had an experience of his presence and in their excitement read back into the gospel accounts all the stories of the resurrection, and all of the miracles. Our professor led a Lenten series in one of the local parishes. The rector of the parish told me with great distress that the professor’s teaching on the subject of the resurrection had destroyed the faith of a woman dying of cancer. What we believe and what we teach can have serious repercussions.

After graduation I accepted a call as a curate in a parish near Boston, Massachusetts. There was a story circling around in the parish that was quite refreshing. The previous rector, a Father Lou, had a custom of having talk back sessions in coffee hour after his sermons. In a recent Easter sermon he held forth the brilliant but not exactly novel idea that Christ wasn’t resurrected physically, but only spiritually. The parish drunk, Homer, could hardly wait to ask a most pressing question: “Father Lou! Father Lou! If Jesus wasn’t resurrected physically how did Thomas stick his finger in the wounds?” The end result was that the Easter testimony to the resurrection of Christ came from the parish drunk of blessed memory. 

Once more around the barn; I was a young priest in my first church, and as junior man in our Clericus I was stuck with organizing the deanery meetings. In our deanery we had staff from the diocesan office in Boston, and clergy from the churches in and around Cambridge. On the Monday before Easter ten or twelve of us sat around a long table. We had decided to study together, on a once a month basis, the lections for the upcoming Sunday. The rector of a large Cambridge parish started the discussion by saying that he tended to believe in the resurrection but couldn’t get excited enough to preach about it. From there the discussion flowed swiftly down a slippery slope until it reached the Canon to the Ordinary who sat directly across the table from me. With great seriousness he confessed that the closer he got to death the less he believed in the resurrection. 

The discussion limped around the end of the table and finally got to me. What I said in effect was that once I had been dead in alcoholism and that I had been raised to sobriety and newness of life, and as a result I had no doubt in God’s ability to raise Christ Jesus from the dead. Now I know that arguing from experience to theology is not good theological method, but sometimes where theology won’t do, testimony might. With that the Canon to the Ordinary leaned across the table and said, “You’re young. You’ll learn!” That was the first and last of our deanery clergy bible studies. After all what’s the point? If Christ is not raised from the dead we are of all men most pointless. 

What is the problem posed by the physical resurrection of Jesus the Christ? Humanism is the current theological plague. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines humanism as, “a system of values and beliefs that is based on the idea that people are basically good and that problems can be solved using reason instead of religion.” Once you open the door to the resurrection, you logically open the door to all miracles. Once you open the door to the resurrection, man and his works can no longer be at the center of religion. Instead God and his works are at the center where he should be. The religion of “I can do it myself” is banished, and there are many who will be offended if we suggest that Christianity is God centered, and Christ centered, and not man centered. The poet Alexander Pope angrily exclaims, “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.”

In contrast, as Christians, we actually believe what has been believed always, everywhere, and by all. We Christians actually believe that Christ rose physically from the dead. We believe that Christianity is God centered and Christ centered, and that if you would understand humankind, understand humankind as the creation of God. Believing this rests on a serious theological understanding that is at the core of Christian faith. 

John Donne, the great metaphysical poet and sometime Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, preached a sermon on Easter Day 1623 that is quite helpful in getting at the core of the issue. What Donne stressed was the proper understanding of the relationship between the soul and the body. He said, “Never go about to separate the thoughts of the heart, from its context, from the fellowship of the body.” “All that the soul does, it does in, and with, and by the body.” “The body is washed in baptism, but it is that the soul might be made clean.” “The body is anointed, that the soul might be consecrated.” “The body is signed with the Cross, that the soul might be armed against temptations.” “The body receives the body of Christ, that the soul might partake of his merits.” “These two, Body, and Soul, cannot be separated for ever,” because in earthly life they are united in all that they do. 

Christ became incarnate, enfleshed in a human body. Christ suffered in that body, died, and was buried, and in that body he rose again physically from the dead. Christ is born in the flesh that our humanity with him might be crucified, die, and rise again; that our humanity, our human fleshly nature in all its physicality might be taken up into God. It is our flesh as well as his that must after all die and be raised again. 

To tear apart the soul and the body is the old heresy of dualism. Christ’s body, as well as his soul, has eternal value. Once God the Son is incarnate in the flesh, the flesh cannot be discarded as irrelevant to the soul; nor does Christ discard his body in the resurrection. While it is fashionable, and to some extent practical, to talk about body and soul as two separate entities they are in fact a present and eternal unity. To separate them is to make nonsense of the Incarnation as well as of the Resurrection. Let me present you with the key question of St. Paul, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? . . . if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:12, 14).

What is at stake is not only the physical resurrection of Christ, but also your own physical resurrection in the age to come.  Do you believe in eternal life? Do you believe that in eternal life you float around as an ethereal disembodied spirit? Or do you believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, and your own eventual physical resurrection in the kingdom yet to come? The question shouldn’t be that difficult. Life and death, after all, is serious business.

A Personal Journey

            The book had been very inspiring in a negative sort of way.  The story, "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant," had been popularized as a Broadway play, and most people thought of it as a rather innocent fantasy about a man who sold his soul to become a championship baseball player.  I was eleven years of age, impressionable, and fascinated by the concept that there might be a power greater than myself.  It didn't matter that it was the devil.  What did matter was that there was something other, or should I say, someone!  I did what I thought was the logical thing.  I tried my first experiment in prayer.  I got down on my knees behind a chair in our living room and gave my life to Satan.  There was no flash of black lightning, and on the surface I was mildly disappointed.

            In order to understand the significance of my experiment it helps to know that I grew up in a well-churched family.  Sunday worship, Sunday School, choir, youth group and all the other activities normal to churches were a regular part of our family life.  We were orthodox in our beliefs and conservative in our life style.  What was missing was a concept of personal faith.  We looked on ourselves as Christians, but it was something we did, rather than Someone we knew.  What I hungered for, was that Someone to know.  That I was looking in the wrong direction never even occurred to me.

            While there were no overt manifestations of the evil one, circumstances were to provide an answer of sorts to my offer.  A friend of mine began working at a local store and began to steal from the cash register.  I was glad to share the spoils. The thefts from the cash register continued on a weekly basis for almost two years.   Those years were to see an increasing involvement in petty theft and vandalism.  School, always difficult at that time in my life, became almost impossible.  By the time that I was seventeen I had spent three years just getting through grade ten.  My school career ended with a conflict in my home that forced me out of school and into the Royal Canadian Navy.

            I enjoyed the discipline of boot camp and revelled in the physical challenges but that six month period was only the calm before the storm.  Immediately on being assigned to a ship in a Canadian port city where I took up with the heavy drinkers on board ship.  From the very beginning of my drinking I knew only one possible reason for the use of  alcohol, and that was to blot myself out.  Whenever the ship was in port I spent my time drunk, or planning to get drunk, or begging in order to get drunk and I became involved in petty theft and violence in order to sustain the ability to get drunk.  I drank away trade ratings and promotions and thought nothing of it.  My ship-board career ended when I was working on a live electrical box and failed to warn the Electrical Officer before he stuck his hand in the box to correct my work.  Within twenty-four hours I found myself assigned to a shore hospital.  They really didn't know where else to put me. 

Being confined to the hospital interfered with my drinking so I went AWOL in order to spend an evening drinking.  That act transferred me from a hospital room to a cell in solitary detention.  In order to keep track of me they assigned me to duty as a guard at the brig.  During this time came my second and more constructive attempt to pray.  I had spent an entire night drinking and had been unable to get drunk.  That failure to get drunk put me in a state of sheer panic.  I remember rolling over in my bed and crying out, "Oh God, help!"  It was a prayer of sorts, although I didn’t understand that even such prayers are answered. Shortly after that I found myself with a conditional discharge and was told that if I stayed out of trouble with the law for a year they would give me an honourable discharge.

            Here is where the miracle began.  When I arrived home several things happened.  First, God temporarily removed both the opportunity and the desire for alcohol.  It was an act of sheer grace.  Second, I went to lunch with my father who leaned across the table and asked me an utterly incomprehensible question.  He said, "Have you asked Jesus into your heart?"  I didn't even know what he meant, but in the following conversation he shared with me that he had asked Jesus to be his Saviour at a Billy Graham Rally in Toronto.

I enrolled in a special school designed to help people who had not finished high-school to take two years of schooling in one year.  I discovered that several of my classmates, all young people who had been out in the work force and were returning for an education, were more different than I could have imagined.  They had a light about them, a radiance that came from the personal knowledge of Jesus and from an openness to His Spirit.  I began to attend evangelical meetings and began to hear the steps of salvation clearly for the first time. 

Several times I earnestly sought repentance, but one thing always held me back.   That was the theft from the cash register so many years ago.  Finally on an Easter Saturday I read a chapter in a book that bore the heading, "Repentance and Restitution."  The Holy Spirit confronted me with the fact that God, in my case, made a very clear connection between confession and going to talk to the shop-keeper from whom we stole the money.  I got down on my knees in my bedroom and began to pray.  "Father, I can't confess this to you, because If I do, then I will be arrested and then what good will I be to you?"   It was at this point that I heard the voice of God.  Not inwardly, but outwardly with an audible voice!  He said, "Go ahead, son."  I said, "But I can't, because my friend will become involved, and I don't have the right to do that."  He said, "Go ahead, son."  I came up with four or five more reasons, but each time He patiently answered, "Go ahead, son."  I got up off my knees and walked to the corner store and took the owner aside and told him my part in the affair without identifying the other person or giving the date when it happened.  The owner merely asked, "Is it all right in your heart now?"  He gave his forgiveness without lecturing or preaching and in so doing gave me a most precious gift.  I went down the street after our meeting with a tremendous feeling of my burdens being rolled away.  For the first time I felt an immediate sense of the presence of the Father and of Jesus without an accompanying sense of guilt.  But the miracle was not over yet.

            A few weeks later I knelt in a humble living room with a small group of people praying.  It was my first experience of an actual prayer meeting.  The meeting was so dull that the person kneeling beside me kept turning the pages of Life magazine.  Every time he turned a page he would say, "Amen," or "Hallelujah!"  I took a look at that strange performance and turned to God and asked Him, "What am I doing here?"  With that He poured out his Holy Spirit on me with the waves and billows of his love.  I lost all awareness of my surroundings and became only aware of Him.  I stayed under an intense anointing for what seemed like hours.  During all of that experience He was making me anew.  How precious those moments were when He let me know that there was a Power greater than myself and that He Himself loved me.

Copyright © 2015, R. Penman Smith

Anima Christi and Commentary

THE ANIMA CHRISTI

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.

Corpus Christi, salva me.

Sanguis Christi, inebria me.

Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.

Passio Christi, conforta me.

O bone Jesu, exaudi me.

Intra tua vulnera absconde me.

Ne permittas me separari a te.

Ab hoste maligno defende me.

In hora mortis meae voca me.

Et iube me venire ad te,

Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te.

In saecula saeculorum. Amen

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

Body of Christ, save me.

Blood of Christ, inebriate me.

Water from the side of Christ, wash me.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me.

O good Jesus, hear me.

Within Thy wounds hide me.

Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.

From the malignant enemy, defend me.

In the hour of my death, call me.

And bid me come to Thee.

That with Thy saints I may praise Thee

Forever and ever. Amen

This ancient prayer has long been one of my favorite devotional poems, and while its author is unknown it appears in various documents around the end of the fourteenth century.  You will notice just by casual observation that the original Latin form has both a poetic form and rhythm not captured by the English translation, yet the English translation carries well enough the power and inspiration of the original prayer.

Soul of Christ, save me.  Anima Christi, sanctifica me. Do you think in terms of Christ Jesus having a soul?  Of course He does, we’re just not very analytical when we think of Him.  The soul is the interior core of our nature that responds to God, even as Christ Jesus responded to his Father and exulted in the Holy Spirit.  The Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. confesses that Jesus Christ is “at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body.”  He is God through and through, and man through and through, He is truly God and He is truly man, and He has a reasonable soul and a body.  If He didn’t He wouldn’t truly be man.  When we pray “Soul of Christ, save me,” we are acknowledging that His suffering on our behalf was not just a suffering of the exterior body, but an agony and dying of the inner man. What an awesome thing He has done for us in giving Himself, soul, blood and body, that we might be reconciled to God.

Body of Christ, save me. Corpus Christi, salva me.  We are now on more familiar terms. The body is a precious thing to us.  I mean our own bodies, and when we suffer in the body it affects not only the physical realm but also the interior person.  He gave His body to be nailed to the tree.  A late medieval poem, the Holy Rood, is written as a memoir of the Cross itself as it recalls the horrifying events:

                                                                        I saw the Lord of the world

                        Boldly rushing to climb upon me

                        And I could neither bend, nor break

                        The word of God. I saw the ground

                        Trembling. I could have crushed them all,

                        And yet I kept myself erect.

                                    The young Hero God/

                                                                        Himself, threw off his garments,

                        Determined and brave. Proud/           

                                                                        in the sight of men He mounted

                        The meanest gallows, to make/          

                                                                        men’s souls eternally free.

                        I trembled as His arms went round me./

                                                                        And still I could not bend,

                        Crash to earth, but had/

                                                                to bear the body of God.

What is captured here is the utter willingness of Jesus Christ the Hero God to die for you and for me.  O, how He loves us so.

Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Sanguis Christi, inebria me. Christ Jesus says to those who would follow him, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him”(John 6:56).  Many of his earlier followers said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (John 6:60b).  But what Jesus is referring to is that deep koinonia, fellowship, intense intimacy between Himself and those who love him and are one with Him.  “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (I Corinthians 10:16-17).  That is why it is such a grievous thing to break the unity of the body of Christ.  John, the beloved disciple testifies, “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).  There is in this loving union with the Father and the Son an intense intimacy, and intoxication of love priceless beyond all measure.  Drink deeply and be intoxicated with the love of Him who died for you.

Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Aqua lateris Christi, lava me. It was embarrassing for Peter and perhaps for some of the other Apostles to have Jesus lay aside His outer garments, take a towel and tie it around his waste, and begin to wash his disciples feet and dry them with the towel.  Peter cries out, “You shall never wash my feet” (John 13:8).  Jesus responds, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”  Surrender yourself and stand under the cleansing stream water and of blood that flows copiously down from the side of the crucified Lover of your soul.  Humble yourself.  Be cleansed.  But not all whose feet are washed are automatically cleansed.  To be washed by the water from the side of Christ is to be truly penitent, surrendered, and aware of both who you are, and Who He is.  It is the Lord God Jesus Christ who seeks to wash you.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me. Passio Christi, conforta me. Let the testimony of St. Paul be your testimony, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live . It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  By faith we acknowledge that we have been crucified with Christ and our life is hid with him in God (Colossians 3:3).  Only in the strength of that can we take seriously to heart the exhortation of James, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2).  I have discovered the fundamental spiritual truth, that I am shut in so that I cannot escape, that I am a man who has no strength, and that I am helpless.  Initially no-one really wants to go there, but lay your hands to the wood and be one with Him.  After you have died once, or twice, or a dozen times or more, you will discover what a relief it is not to have to control everything.  Carry the yoke with him, His yoke is easy.  His burden is light.  That is when you will say with the Psalmist, “On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased” (Psalm 138:3).  Strength is given only to the surrendered heart.

O good Jesus, hear me. O bone Jesu, exaudi me. The petition is warm and personal.  This Christ who surrenders His soul, whose Body was broken, whose Blood was shed, is after all my Jesus.  My friend and my familiar companion.  He has sworn His love to me, and I trust His words, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).  He who died for me is alive, He has taken His place at the right hand of the Father and through the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit, He is with me always.  I am not berift or alone.  He is the Vine, and I am a branch.  O good Jesus, none is good but God alone, and You are my God.  I know that You hear me!

Within Thy wounds hide me. Intra tua vulnera absconde me.  Why should we pray to be hidden within the wounds of Jesus the Christ?  There are three reasons that immediately come to mind; and the first is perhaps the most important.  It is the heart’s desire of the lover of God to see His face, indeed we are commanded to do so.  “You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, LORD, do I seek." But like Moses we are faced with a very real obstacle.  Moses says to the Lord, “Please show me your glory,” the Lord replies, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”  But, "behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen" (Exodus 33:18-23).  We have lost the sense of reverent awe before the Sovereign and Holy God.  The simple truth is, that in our flesh, we cannot see God, save for being hidden in the cleft of the Rock.  That leads to the second reason; we desire to be hidden in the wounds of Christ Jesus that our sins may be covered, indeed for that purpose he died so that we may be forgiven and reconciled to the Father of Lights.  The third reason has to do with a very simple safety factor.  There is an enemy that pursues our souls (Psalm 143:3) who seeks our very life.  He is a liar and a murderer and desires nothing better than the death of our peace, the death of our joy, the very death of our souls.  Within Thy wounds hide me. Intra tua vulnera absconde me.

Suffer me not to be separated from Thee. Ab hoste maligno defende me.  There was a time when “the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12:9). “Woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" (Revelation 12:12  ).  There is a reason to be hidden within the wounds of the Christ.  There is a reason to put on our Holy armour.  There is an Adversary, an Accuser. and that wily one is a schemer, a trickster who never tells the truth except to turn it into a lie. The enemy prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8).  You just might be his favorite meal.

In the hour of my death, call me. In hora mortis meae voca me. There will come a time for each of us when the race will draw close to the goal.  Not only are we called to die now to self-centeredness, we will eventually be called die to our bodies also.  We will take nothing from this life to the next that has not been founded upon the Rock.  At the hour of my, death call me.  And bid me come to Thee. Et iube me venire ad te.  I long to come to Thee.  All the days of my life I have longed to come to Thee.  Before I knew Thee, even when I fled from Thee, I longed to come to Thee.  “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides Thee” (Psalm 73:25).  But there is more that You give to us, more than we could have dreamed.

That with Thy saints I may praise Thee. Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te. So often we have a limited idea of  whom we will see in heaven.  Certainly there are some saints of our own from our faithful families and friends who have gone on before. Beyond that a few of the saints from the history of the Church may come to mind. But the roll call of the blessed is more glorious than we could ever imagine.  A hint of the awesome prospect ahead is given in the Letter to the Hebrews, ^“You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,  and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,  and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24).  

  

Forever and ever. Amen. In saecula saeculorum. Amen.  There we will dwell with blessed for endless ages.  Forever and ever hardly brings into the focus the endless ages rolling down through eternal time.  There we will see “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  There He will dwell with us, and we will be his people, and God himself will be with us and be our God.  There He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away, and there love and joy will abide forevermore (Rev. 21:2-4).

Amen. Amen. So be it. So be it.

Dom Anselm+ Oblate OSB

Come As You Are

Ho! Everyone who thirsts,

            Come to the waters:

And you who have no money,

            Come buy and eat.

Yes, come, buy wine and milk

            Without money and without price.[i]       

            The only requisite for drinking at the wellspring of salvation is thirst.  We have no coin of our own, no works, no penitence, no disciplines, no righteousness, no attributes, and no credits of any kind that will purchase the deep draught of the water of Life.  Come as you are, come in your poverty, come in your grief, come in your abject helplessness and drink freely of the living water.  He did not come for the spiritually affluent but for those who are thirsty.

            Ah!  There lies the rub.  Have you discovered your need?  Do you think you can buy this lively water with your own coin?  He has said, “no one is justified by the law in the sight of God” (Gal. 3:11).  The only coin you need is deep thirst.  Come as you are to the banquet table of the Presence of God.  Bow humbly and drink.

            Our human condition is such that too often our need, our very thirst itself, is so sharp that it becomes all consuming and drives out the very the thing we need most.  We are filled with grief, filled with self-pity, filled with a sense of inadequacy, filled with helplessness and instead of turning outward to Him we turn inward and become focused on the causes of our thirst. 

The antidote is to surrender our human pain and frustration and begin to acknowledge that He who became one of us, did so because He loves us even when we cannot love ourselves.  This has less to do with emotion than with decision.  The simple acknowledgement that I am loved by the lover of my soul, whether or not I feel it, is the beginning of a step through our difficulties into His Presence.  The decision to accept that love is prior to the feeling that comes from living within that decision. 

That decision to accept Divine love is a hinge that swings the door of our soul outward from introspective preoccupation with the causes of our thirst and outward into the light.  Drinking at the well is not a passive experience, but an active and ongoing reception of the love that is offered. It is an old mystical perception that in the desire is the fulfillment.  We must first allow ourselves to desire in order that we may be filled.

            It is not that we should avoid the knowledge of our pain.  What I said was that the acknowledgement that we are loved is a step “through” our difficulties.  We are to come as we are.  We can come no other way.  That acknowledgement of our realities makes possible the surrender of our pain to Him who alone can heal and deliver.  You cannot surrender what you do not acknowledge.  You cannot surrender that which you will not release.  Once you have acknowledged that you are loved, once you have acknowledged your pains and lifted them up in surrender you are already beginning to drink.        

Ho! Everyone who thirsts,

            Come to the waters:

And you who have no money,

            Come buy and eat.

Yes, come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without price.         - Isaiah 55:1

~ Dom Anselm⁺ Obl. OSB

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[i] Isaiah 55:1

Devotional Collects and Texts for Palm and Passion Sunday

The following Collects and Devotional Texts are provided as an aid to worship as we enter into Holy Week. I am struck by the wonder of the Incarnation and its implications as we meditate on the work of Christ Jesus on our behalf. It is absolutely amazing that God the Word became flesh, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; He stooped to me and heard my cry” [Psalm 40:1].Why should the LORD of Lords be born for me? How can I not serve Him?

The Creed of St. Athanasius

“Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world; Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting; Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood. Who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ; One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God.”[i]

St. Andrew of Crete

“In his humility Christ entered the dark regions of our fallen world and he is glad that he became so humble for our sake, glad that he came and lived among us and shared in our nature in order to raise us up again to himself. And even though we are told that he has now ascended above the highest heavens – the proof, surely, of his power and godhead – his love for man will never rest until he has raised our earthbound nature from glory to glory, and made it one with his own in heaven.”[ii]

Collect for the Palm Sunday Procession                             

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.[iii]

  

Collect for Passion Sunday                        

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.[iv]

Collect for Mission                                          

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.[v]

Anima Christi[vi]

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

Body of Christ, save me.

Blood of Christ, inebriate me.

Water from the side of Christ, wash me.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me.

O good Jesus, hear me.

Within Thy wounds hide me.

Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.

From the malignant enemy, defend me.

In the hour of my death, call me.

And bid me come to Thee.

That with Thy saints I may praise Thee

Forever and ever. Amen

  

Anima Christi

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.

Corpus Christi, salva me.

Sanguis Christi, inebria me.

Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.

Passio Christi, conforta me.

O bone Jesu, exaudi me.

Intra tua vulnera absconde me.

Ne permittas me separari a te.

Ab hoste maligno defende me.

In hora mortis meae voca me.

Et iube me venire ad te,

Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te.

   In saecula saeculorum. Amen

St. Richard of Chichester 

“Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits thou hast given me, for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother, may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly, day by day.”[vii]

The Cross is the Abyss of Wonders[viii] 

The Cross is

the abyss of wonders,

the center of desires,

the school of virtues,

the throne of love,

the theater of joys,

and the place of sorrows.

It is the root of happiness, and the gate of heaven.

Of all things in heaven and earth it is the most singular.

It is the most exalted of all objects. It is a banner lifted up

for all nations, to it shall the Gentiles come,

His rest shall be glorious;

the dispersed of Judah shall be gathered to it

from the four corners of the earth.

If love be the weight

 of the soul,

and its object

the center,

all eyes and hearts

may convert and turn

unto this object.

Cleave unto this center.

The Cross is a tree

set on fire

with invisible flame,

that illuminates

all the world.

The flame is love:

the love in His bosom who died on it.

Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations, 17 c.  edit by Dom. Anselm ⁺ Obl OSB

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[i] The Book of Common Prayer, p. 865

[ii] http://www.universalis.com/20150329/readings.htm

[iii] BCP p. 99 &  272

[iv] BCP p. 219

[v] BCP p. 101

[vi] 14^th C

[vii] The Diocese of Chichester, The Church of England: file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/PrayerRichard.pdf

[viii] Thomas Traherne, 17^th C