Showing posts with label austin farrer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label austin farrer. Show all posts

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Gaudete!

 


Well here we are on sunny Advent III, Gaudete, Rejoice! And so we must, not least after three Masses, the last being in Spanish. Vaguely on topic, the diocese kindly fired off a Mexican deacon to the Missions and what a good man.

El Senor con ustedes? Y con tu espiritu, type of thing. Speaking of which, since when did a country having a border become Fascist? Since the Left decided to go hell for broke immigrant votes. Not that I'm complaining, though my legal Deacon might. He's all about El Senor, Trump, so we get on just fine. 

Regardless, here's Farrer by way of spiritual illumination:


JESUS gave his body and blood to his disciples in bread and wine. Amazed at such a token, and little understanding what they did, Peter, John and the rest reached out their hands and took their master and their God.  Whatever else they knew or did not know, they knew they were committed to him, body and soul; they were consenting that he should die for them, and that they, somehow, should live it out.  The cock had not crowed twice that night before Peter thrice denied, but still he knew he was committed to Christ, for Christ had given him his body and his blood.  Christ’s body and blood lived in him, and Christ forgave him; there was no breaking of the sacramental tie.  We are not worthy of Christ, but we are bound to Christ.  With all the sincerity of our minds let us renew the bond, and pray to live for him who has died for us.

 

Bless you all,

LSP

Thursday, December 14, 2023

A Short Advent Reflection

 



What a beautiful drive to Mission #2 for evening Mass as the sun tried to break through the clouds. "This," I thought gravely to myself, "is Texas." Mind like a steel trap, you see, but en lieu of anything beyond bears, climate change and impending civil war, here's Austin Farrer on the season, behold wisdom:


OUR journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgement.  As the bird rises from the earth to fly, and must some time return to the earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last.  But God does not wait for the  failure and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap.  He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us.  Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head?  It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master.  Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succour in his hands.  He offers us these things while there is yet time.  Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer’s love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire.

 

Touch the heart of the devouring fire. I love that.

Pax,

LSP

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

All Saints

 



Today marks the Solemnity of All Saints and we join them in the worship of God and holiness. St. Bernard of Clairvaux offers us this:


Why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this feast day mean anything to the saints? What do they care about earthly honors when their heavenly Father honors them by fulfilling the faithful promise of the Son? What does our commendation mean to them?

The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning.

Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins.

In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints. But our dispositions change. The Church of all the first followers of Christ awaits us, but we do nothing about it. The saints want us to be with them, and we are indifferent. The souls of the just await us, and we ignore them.

Come, brothers, let us at length spur ourselves on. We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our mind on the things of heaven. Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us.

We should not only want to be with the saints, we should also hope to possess their happiness. While we desire to be in their company, we must also earnestly seek to share in their glory. Do not imagine that there is anything harmful in such an ambition as this; there is no danger in setting our hearts on such glory.

When we commemorate the saints we are inflamed with another yearning: that Christ our life may also appear to us as he appeared to them and that we may one day share in his glory. Until then we see him, not as he is, but as he became for our sake. He is our head, crowned, not with glory, but with the thorns of our sins.

As members of that head, crowned with thorns, we should be ashamed to live in luxury; his purple robes are a mockery rather than an honor. When Christ comes again, his death shall no longer be proclaimed, and we shall know that we also have died, and that our life is hidden with him. The glorious head of the Church will appear and his glorified members will shine in splendor with him, when he forms this lowly body anew into such glory as belongs to himself, its head.

Therefore, we should aim at attaining this glory with a wholehearted and prudent desire. That we may rightly hope and strive for such blessedness, we must above all seek the prayers of the saints. Thus, what is beyond our own powers to obtain will be granted through their intercession.


But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning. Amen to that, and as Farrer reminds us, "the saints are our evidence." Yes indeed, that even we can be transformed by grace and the indwelling presence of Christ into holiness, and so reflect the features of our Lord and Savior.

Saints, pray for us,

LSP

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Purgatory

 



In a ferocious and possibly unsuccessful bid to escape from the brink of World War III, I looked up Austin Farrer on Purgatory. Many Anglicans and for all I know many of you don't like the doctrine, but it's always made sense to me.  

How could we not pass through purgation on our way to glorification? The chaff, famously, must be burned away.  Anyway, here's Farrer, see what you think:


I say, then, that the teaching of Christ, the nature of our freewill, and the way God deals with us all point in one direction: the loss of heaven is a real danger. Second. I observe that Christ teaches one thing with particular insistence. Men whose moral misery is disguised from them by comfort, pride or success, will find themselves after death a prey to that flame which can surely be nothing but the scorching truth. Third, I see that Christ speaks of the flame as everlasting, as a torment which does not lose its force, or die down. The sinner will vainly wait for it to exhaust itself, or hope to escape from it on the further side. But I do not see that I am forbidden to ask, what then? Cannot everlasting Mercy save from the everlasting fire, or let the irreconcilable perish in it?

The fate of ultimate impenitence is a mystery into which I am reluctant to look. If it overtakes any, I pray they may be few. But looking to myself and the hopes a Christian dares to entertain,  I find conscience and moral reason join forces with Catholic teaching, and forbid me to to claim exemption from the burning of that flame. If Dives needed to be stripped, and to suffer the truth of his condition, do not we also?

Perhaps before we suffer it, we may be assured of mercy; perhaps the sight of mercy will make the torment, when we see what a God we have, and how we have served him; what wounds we have inflicted on the souls of our fellows by our egotism and neglect.

Purgatory was rejected by our Reformers, as undermining the sufficiency of Christ's atonement; for it was taken to be the serving of a sentence by which the guilt of Christians was in some way worked off. Such an objection has no force against the teaching, that we have a pain to pass through, in being reconciled to truth and love. And we may as well call this pain purgatorial, having no other name to call it. It seems strange, indeed, that so practical and pressing a truth as that of purgatory should be dismissed, while so remote and impractical a doctrine as the absolute everlastingness of hell should be insisted on. (Saving Belief, P154-155)

 

Sadly, I'd say that the absolute everlastingness of hell becomes more apparent by the day, but Farrer was focused on Divine Mercy and the white hot, purifying light of God's truth. 

We must all pass through this, surely, on the way to sanctification and the green pastures and still waters of paradise. Such is the progress of conviction of sin, repentance, amendment of life, and absolution.

God bless you all,

LSP


Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Pater Noster

 



Jesus taught us to pray, Our Father, Pater Noster. Here's wisdom from Austin Farrer:


CHRIST taught us to pray for daily bread in saying the Pater Noster, and added some comments to the prayer. He taught that for the very reason that God is our Father and we his family, it is fitting that we should seek our bread from his hand. We say the Pater Noster in this sacrament, remembering how Christ went from the Last Supper straight to Gethsemane, and prayed to his Father there in the spirit of a true Son. Abba, Father, he said, asking for the wholesome bread of life if he could have it, but willing to receive the bitter cup of death and shame if it was his Father’s will. St. Paul says that it is the Spirit of Sonship, overflowing from Christ to us, which speaks in our hearts when we say Our Father. We kneel with Christ in Gethsemane to say that prayer, and even then it is not truly said unless Christ says it in us through the Holy Ghost.

 

St. Paul says that it is the Spirit of Sonship, overflowing from Christ to us, which speaks in our hearts when we say Our Father. We kneel with Christ in Gethsemane to say that prayer, and even then it is not truly said unless Christ says it in us through the Holy Ghost.

Amen to that,

LSP 

++++


And for all you Latin dogs:


PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

 

They say the Devil, like an English schoolboy, hates Latin. 




Tuesday, April 25, 2023

The Feast of St. Mark

 



It's the Feast of St. Mark today. Mark was close to St. Paul and St. Peter, and his Gospel is believed to be the earliest; he was martyred in Alexandria. The wicked Venetians stole his relics from that city in the early 9th century A.D. and adopted the Evangelist as their patron saint. Perhaps you've enjoyed the basilica built in his name.

Here's Austin Farrer, preaching in Trinity College chapel to students:


Happy is the man who learns from his own failures. He certainly won’t learn from any one else’s. Here I am on a safe ground, for you are all failures, are you not? when it comes to serving God. So there is no fear of my missing my target in any of you, and especially, perhaps, just at the end of a vacation. Vacations tend to be spiritual disappointments. It is humiliating how, when you get back into your families, childish faults of temper reassert themselves which you hoped you had outgrown; humiliating how, as soon as you lose the encouraging company of your Christian friends here, your religion languishes. You have not prayed nor worked nor controlled yourself as you hoped to do. God has given you much; you have not given anything worth mentioning to God. Well, St Mark went back from the work in Pamphylia (if he is indeed the same man), and in Gethsemane none of the disciples behaved with credit. It is by these desolating experiences that God teaches us to trust him, not ourselves. The more emptied out you are, the more hope there is of your learning to be a Christian. Now is the very moment—there will never be a better—for you to put your trust in the God who makes something from nothing, who raises the dead.

 

The more emptied out you are, the more hope there is of your learning to be a Christian. Now is the very moment—there will never be a better—for you to put your trust in the God who makes something from nothing, who raises the dead. 

Such wisdom and truth.

Pax et Bonum,

LSP

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Stations of the Cross

 



This is very strange. It's Thursday evening here in Texas and there hasn't been a storm following Stations of the Cross. Who knows, perhaps someone craftily paid off an installment of the hated Weather Tax to appease our idolatrous carbon deity. 

Perhaps, but that didn't detract from the power of this evening's devotion in which we prayed and meditated on our Lord's Passion and Crucifixion, all to the end of finding greater union with his sacrificial action; the same union which is given to us in the Sacrament of Altar.

I find this powerful, by Austin Farrer:


What, then, was done to this body? It was stripped, scourged, and nailed to a cross: stripped of all dignity and all possession, scourged with the stroke of penal justice, and nailed up like a dead thing while it was still alive. The body you receive in this sacrament accomplished its purpose by nailing to a tree. You are to become this body, you are to be nailed: nailed to Christ's sacrificial will. The nails that hold you are God's commandments, your rules of life, prayers, confessions, communions regularly observed. Let us honour the nails for Christ's sake, and pray that by the virtue of his passion they may hold fast.

 

Yes indeed,

God bless,

LSP

Friday, January 6, 2023

Epiphany

 



It's the Feast of the Epiphany today and here's Austin Farrer:


THE Magi took the lids from their urns and unfastened their caskets, when they presented the symbols of universal homage to our infant prince.  But when a woman came to anoint the king in his royal city, she shattered her alabaster jar, that she might pour the precious spikenard on his head.  There was a sympathy between her action and the approaching Passion: the perfume of man’s homage could not be offered to God, without breaking the veined alabaster, the body of the Son of Man.  Our incense may rise, like that of the Magi, from unbroken vessels, if we present our bodies a living sacrifice.  Yet a living sacrifice is also a sacrifice, and is made so by some participation in the shattering of the vase.  Christ, sacrificing himself, joins us with him in sacrificing him; Christ, sacrificing himself, sacrifices us, for he has made us parts of him.  We come to offer our homage to Christ, but his star has brought us, and the breaking of his mortal vase has furnished all the perfume of our offering.

 

God Bless,

LSP

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Sunday Message

 



I know, there's only so much hideous degeneracy dawgishness a person can take, so here's a short and uplifting Sunday message for Advent III from Austin Farrer:


JESUS gave his body and blood to his disciples in bread and wine. Amazed at such a token, and little understanding what they did, Peter, John and the rest reached out their hands and took their master and their God.  Whatever else they knew or did not know, they knew they were committed to him, body and soul; they were consenting that he should die for them, and that they, somehow, should live it out.  The cock had not crowed twice that night before Peter thrice denied, but still he knew he was committed to Christ, for Christ had given him his body and his blood.  Christ’s body and blood lived in him, and Christ forgave him; there was no breaking of the sacramental tie.  We are not worthy of Christ, but we are bound to Christ.  With all the sincerity of our minds let us renew the bond, and pray to live for him who has died for us.


God bless you all,

LSP

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

All Souls

 



It's the Solemnity of All Souls, Dies Irae, and we pray for the faithful departed. May they rest in peace and rise in glory, most especially our many absent brothers and sisters. Farrer, as always, raises the bar:

The arithmetic of death perplexes our brains. What can we do but throw ourselves upon the infinity of God? It is only to a finite mind that number is an obstacle, or multiplicity a distraction. Our mind is like a box of limited content, out of which one thing must be emptied before another can find a place. The universe of creatures is queuing for a turn of our attention, and no appreciable part of the queue will ever get a turn. But no queue forms before the throne of everlasting mercy, because the nature of an infinite mind is to be simply aware of everything that is. 

Everything is simply present to an infinite mind, because it exists; or rather, exists because it is present to that making mind. And though by some process of averaging and calculation I should compute the grains of sand, it would be like the arithmetic of the departed souls, an empty sum; I could not tell them as they are told in the infinity of God’s counsels, each one separately present as what it is, and simply because it is. 


O GOD, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful: grant to 
the souls of Thy servants and handmaidens the remission of 
all their sins: that, through pious supplications, they may obtain 
that pardon which they have always desired: Who livest and 
reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the 
Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.


Rest eternal grant unto them O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon them.

May they rest in peace,

LSP

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Ascension

 



Today's the great forgotten Feast of the Ascension, the closing act in the drama of salvation. Here's Austin Farrer via Anglican Way:


WE are told in an Old Testament tale, how an angel of God having appeared to man disappeared again by going up in the flame from the altar.  And in the same way Elijah, when he could no more be found, was believed to have gone up on the crests of flaming horses.  The flame which carried Christ to heaven was the flame of his own sacrifice.  Flame tends always upwards.  All his life long Christ’s love burnt towards the heart of heaven in a bright fire, until he was wholly consumed in it, and went up in that fire to God.  The fire is kindled on our altars, here Christ ascends in fire; the fire is kindled in the Christian heart, and we ascend.  He says to us, Lift up your hearts; and we reply, We lift them up unto the Lord.

 

The fire is kindled on our altars, here Christ ascends in fire; the fire is kindled in the Christian heart, and we ascend.  He says to us, Lift up your hearts; and we reply, We lift them up unto the Lord. I can't add to that.

Habemus ad Dominum,

LSP

Friday, May 6, 2022

Vesper Light

 



Sunlight gleamed through the window of this humble church, illuminating the temple. What a good way to end Evening Prayer, "Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

That in mind, here's some insight from Farrer:


From the first moment of its foundation, the Church was hard, clear, visible and firmly knit: nothing mossy about its edges. Its members professed one truth – they would not have risked death for religion, if they had not been convinced of the Gospel. They submitted their lives to the congregation, under the leadership of the ministers whom Christ’s Apostles had given them: if they were judged to have given scandal by their disloyal lives, they accepted penances from the Church, they fasted and wore mourning until they were readmitted to communion. They paid for the upkeep of the poor. They were present every Sunday at the Holy Sacrament: if they were absent, they were assumed to be sick: they were enquired after and the Holy Communion carried to them. Their heathen friends divorced their wives if they were tired of them: the Christians did not. Their heathen friends could make money in any profitable line: the Christians were forbidden a whole list of dishonest or indecent occupations. Their heathen friends rose in the government service: not so the Christians, because of the idolatrous oaths and other ceremonies attached to public office under Caesar. The lines were clear enough, sharp enough and costly enough, which silhouetted the living temple of God against a heathen sky.

This was the Church which Christ’s Apostles built for the honour of God, and if they did not know the mind of Christ, it is useless indeed for you to think that you will ever know it.


The lines were clear enough, sharp enough and costly enough, which silhouetted the living temple of God against a heathen sky. Yes indeed, and guinea on the monkey we're fast coming full circle to that very point.

God bless,

LSP

Thursday, January 13, 2022

What A Beautiful Day

 



Yes, the sun shone, big birds wheeled across the sky, woodpeckers did their thing in the pecan trees and the squirrels got, well, nasty. I guess they thought it was Spring, and it sure felt like it, T shirt weather. So, struck by the beauty of the moment I reflected on the Gospel for Sunday, the miracle at Cana, water into wine.

This struck me, by Farrer:


Christ attended a wedding.  What, then, was Christ’s concern – what is Christ’s concern – in the weddings of his friends?  We do not read that he laid down the law to them at that time, or told them their obligations – we read that he concerned himself with the supply of their wine.  It seemed a shame to him, if anything was lacking that could spread abroad delight.  The bride and bridegroom drank from the cup.  They passed it round, and their friends tasted the very flavour of their joy.  Christ would not bear to see the flow of happiness interrupted, for lack of wine in which to drink it.

Does this surprise you?  Did you not expect Jesus to be the servant of natural delight, the abettor of warm-hearted pleasure?  But have you forgotten what Christ is?  He is the desire of nations, he is the joy of all mankind: he came to take away the cold religion of duty, and to substitute the religion of delight.  We are to do our duty – yes, but we are to delight in it, for the love of our neighbour, and for the dear love of God.  There is nothing else but this, that we can hope for in heaven itself – nothing but to do good unalloyed by any meanness, and to do it with infinite delight.  And how shall we be able to do so?  By feasting on the vision of a face, whose eyes are the deep wells of happiness and love.

It is not surprising at all, then, that Christ should begin his ministry at a wedding: for a true marriage is a special favour of God’s grace, and a direct foretaste of heaven.  God’s glory is reflected, for those who truly love, in one another’s faces; they see the Creator shining through his handiwork, and the vision inspires them with a simple delight in doing one another good, and in furthering God’s will.  Those who are being married know what they want to do: and it is exactly what God desires them to do.  They do not, as the rest of us so often must, make themselves care about the will of God: they do care for it: for they care for one another.

 

I sent this to a churchman who writes books like we shoot, a lot, and he liked it too. "It is clear," he emailed magisterially, "that Jesus loved a good party—that was about 120 litres of the best :)" Well said!

Do not lose heart, punters, whatever the circumstance. Instead, rejoice in the power of the Lord who is joy in Himself and shares that perfection with us, His Bride, the Mystical Body of Christ.

Ad Gloriam,

LSP

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Advent Reflection

 



Here's an Advent reflection by Austin Farrer, from Crown of the Year:


Our journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgment.  As the bird rises from the Earth to fly, and must some time return to the Earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last.  But God does not wait for the failure of our power and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap.  He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us.  Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head?  It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master.  Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succor in his hands.  He offers us these things while there is yet time.  Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer’s love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire.

Advent brings Christmas, judgment runs out into mercy.  For the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God.  We are not, even, condemned by his severity and redeemed by his compassion; what judges us is what redeems us, the love of God.  What is it that will break our hearts on judgment day?  Is it not the vision, suddenly unrolled, of how he has loved the friends we have neglected, of how he has loved us, and we have not loved him in return; how, when we came before his altar, he gave us himself, and we gave him half-penitences, or resolutions too weak to commit our wills?  But while love thus judges us by being what it is, the same love redeems us by effecting what it does.  Love shares flesh and blood with us in this present world, that the eyes which look us through at last may find in us a better substance than our vanity.

Advent is a coming, not our coming to God, but his to us.  We cannot come to God, he is beyond our reach; but he can come to us, for we are not beneath his mercy.  Even in another life, as St. John sees it in his vision, we do not rise to God, but he descends to us, and dwells humanly among human creatures, in the glorious man, Jesus Christ.  And that will be his last coming; so we shall be his people, and he everlastingly our God, our God-with-us, our Emmanuel.  He will so come, but he is come already, he comes always: in our fellow-Christian (even in a child, says Christ), in his Word, invisibly in our souls, more visibly in this sacrament.  Opening ourselves to him, we call him in: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; O come, Emmanuel.


...we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire and judgement runs out into mercy. 

God bless you,

LSP 

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Sunday Sermon - Apocalypse


The Apocalypse, prophesied by our Savior. False Christs, wars and rumors of war, earthquakes, famine, "troubles." The Gospel preached to all nations as the faithful are beaten in the synagogues and handed over to councils and kings, to the secular authority. 

And then the abomination of desolation, the visible triumph of blasphemous pagan power in the holy place, followed by the great tribulation, the reign of Antichrist mercifully cut short by God and the return of Christ in glory.

You can read it all in Mark 13 and the other synoptics, but what are we to make of this, like children on a road trip we want to know, are we there yet? Stand back and reflect. Have Christ's words been fulfilled, are they being so and will they be, at some point in the future. The answer, surely, is yes to all three.

Christ's prophecy was partially and accurately fulfilled in the sack of Jerusalem, and the persecution of the Church. St. Paul, notoriously, was brought before a "ruler,"  Caesar himself, and blasphemous pagan power ruled supreme over the world and the rubble of the Temple. 

But Christ didn't return, so this is a type or prefigurement of greater things to come, the final battle between good and evil, of Christ and Antichrist. Are we there yet, we ask and the answer is no, the Abomination has not yet been set up, whether from a rebuilt Temple, the Vatican, Canterbury Cathedral(!) or anywhere else. Pagan, blasphemous power is not yet triumphant. Yet.

This means, in terms of the prophecy, that we're at the "beginning of sorrows," the rest is to come and note, as we draw inevitably closer to the date so too does evil increase and wax large. This will continue until it's evidently triumphant, the abomination will be set up with all signs and wonders so as to deceive the very elect. The mystery of iniquity at work. Woe, flee to the hills.

Then Christ returns. Great will be the fall of the anti-kingdom before the might and irresistible power of God, and the elect, God's chosen people, his faithful, will be gathered to him in glory as evil is thrown down, utterly, for evermore into the lake of fire.

Apocalypse, and a message of hope. God wins, the Devil and his apostate angels don't, so be strong in your faith, "hang tough" said one church person, rightly. But consider this (I didn't preach it and maybe should've):

The Synoptic "Little Apocalypse" can be paraphrased as a lesser or desultory persecution, the blasphemous abomination, the great persecution and the triumphant return of Christ. Leaving aside Danielic math (think half weeks and three days) does this present us with the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ? Yes, it does.

Brought before councils, beaten in the synagogues, the scourging, a lesser tribulation. Golgotha, the sacrilegious desolation, and the Tomb, witness the effect of the greater persecution only to be followed by the return of Christ.

We, as Christians, share in this, we live in Christ and he in us. The apocalypse must, then, play out in our lives and as it does, by the grace of God may we be raised to glory, even as evil is cast into the lake of fire.

Your Old Pal,

LSP


Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Midweek Message - The Trinity

 



This coming Sunday we celebrate the  Feast of the Trinity, glorifying God who has revealed himself as a trinity of persons in unity of substance; an infinitely loving communion into which we ourselves, in Christ and in the power of the Spirit, have been adopted:


THE disciples who were present at the Supper saw and heard Jesus Christ making eucharist to the Father over the bread and the cup.  They were witnesses of the intercourse between the Eternal Son and his Eternal Father.  Mortal ears and eyes at that moment perceived the movement of speech and love which passes in the heart of the Godhead; human minds entered into that converse of the Divine Persons which is the life and happiness of the Blessed Trinity.  Belief in the Trinity is not a distant speculation; the Trinity is that blessed family into which we are adopted.  God has asked us into his house, he has spread his table before us, he has set out bread and wine.  We are made one body with the Son of God, and in him converse with the Eternal Father, through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. (Austin Farrer)

 

We are made one body with the Son of God, and in him converse with the Eternal Father, through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. 

Reflect on the glory and power of that,

LSP

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Judgement Runs Out Into Mercy

 


I always post this short reflection in Advent because it's awesome. From my Godfather, Austin Farrer:

Our journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgement. As the bird rises from the earth to fly, and must some time return to the earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last. But God does not wait for the failure of our power and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap. He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us. Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head? It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master. Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succour in his hands. He offers us these things while there is yet time. Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer's love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire.

Advent brings Christmas, judgement runs out into mercy. For the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God. We are not, even, condemned by his severity and redeemed by his compassion; what judges us is what redeems us, the love of God. What is it that will break our hearts on judgement day? Is it not the vision, suddenly unrolled, of how he has loved the friends we have neglected, of how he has loved us, and we have not loved him in return ; how, when we came (as now) before his altar, he gave us himself, and we gave him half-penitences, or resolutions too weak to commit our wills? But while love thus judges us by being what it is, the same love redeems us by effecting what it does. Love shares flesh and blood with us in this present world, that the eyes which look us through at last may find in us a better substance than our vanity.

Beautiful and true.

God bless,

LSP

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Love

 

Love, says the Angelic Doctor compactly, consists in willing the good of another. God is this, in perfection, in himself (1 Jn. 1:18). We see the truth of revelation in the Trinity where Father, Son and Spirit live in an eternal dynamic of infinite love. But what are we to this? 

Nothing in comparison, though we're commanded to love God with all our heart, soul and mind. Where does this take us? To nothingness again, which paradoxically becomes something, namely our true selves. We see the thing casually; the person who forgets themselves in conversation is more entertaining than a faked-up fraud.

I found this helpful, by Peter Kreeft:


Nothing is ours by nature. Our very existence is sheer gift. Think for a moment about the fact that you were created, made out of nothing. If a sculptor gives a block of marble the gift of a fine shape, the shape is a gift, but the marble's existence is not. That is the marble's own. But nothing is our own because we were made out of nothing. Our very existence is a gift from God to no one, for we were not there before he created us. There is no receiver of the gift distinct from the gift itself. We are God's gifts. So the saints are right. If I am nothing, nothing that is mine is anything. Nothing is mine by nature. But one thing is mine by my free choice: the self I giveaway in love. That is the thing even God cannot do for me. It is my choice. Everything I say is mine, is not. But everything I say is yours is mine. When asked which of his many library books he thought he would have in heaven, C.S. Lewis replied, "Only the ones I gave away on earth and never got back." The same is true of our very self. It is like a ball in a game of catch: throw it and it will come back to you; hold onto it and that ends the game.

 

And Farrer as always is beautiful:


Even today, when we pray, the hand of God does somewhat put aside that accursed looking-glass, which each of us holds before him, and which shows each of us our own face. Only the day of judgment will strike the glass for ever from our hands, and leave us nowhere reflected but in the pupils of the eyes of God. And then we shall be cured of our self love, and shall love, without even the power of turning from it, the face that is lovely in itself, the face of God; and passing from the great Begetter to what is begotten by him, we shall see his likeness in his creatures, in angels and in blessed saints; returning at long last the love that has been lavished on us, and reflecting back the light with which we have been illuminated. To that blessed consummation, therefore may he lead all those for whom we pray, he who is love himself, who came to us at Bethlehem, and took us by the hand.

 

Love not hate,

LSP


Saturday, October 10, 2020

Rest in Peace

 

I know this jingoistic and shallow mind blog's mostly about the glory that was the British Empire, rodeo and the perfidy of the Left, but step back and consider this excerpt from a sermon preached by Austin Farrer at the end of World War II:

‘May they rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them’ - those millions among whom our friends are lost, those millions for whom we cannot choose but pray; because prayer is a sharing in the love of the heart of God, and the love of God is earnestly set towards the salvation of his spiritual creatures, by, through and out of the fire that purifies them. 

The arithmetic of death perplexes our brains. What can we do but throw ourselves upon the infinity of God? It is only to a finite mind that number is an obstacle, or multiplicity a distraction. Our mind is like a box of limited content, out of which one thing must be emptied before another can find a place. The universe of creatures is queuing for a turn of our attention, and no appreciable part of the queue will ever get a turn. But no queue forms before the throne of everlasting mercy, because the nature of an infinite mind is to be simply aware of everything that is. 

Everything is simply present to an infinite mind, because it exists; or rather, exists because it is present to that making mind. And though by some process of averaging and calculation I should compute the grains of sand, it would be like the arithmetic of the departed souls, an empty sum; I could not tell them as they are told in the infinity of God’s counsels, each one separately present as what it is, and simply because it is. 

The thought God gives to any of his creatures is not measured by the attention he can spare, but by the object for consideration they can supply. God is not divided; it is God, not a part of God, who applies himself to the falling sparrow, and to the crucified Lord. But there is more in the beloved Son than in the sparrow, to be observed and loved and saved by God. So every soul that has passed out of this visible world, as well as every soul remaining within it, is caught and held in the unwavering beam of divine care. And we may comfort ourselves for our own inability to tell the grains of sand, or to reckon the thousands of millions of the departed. 

And yet we cannot altogether escape so; for our religion is not a simple relation of every soul separately to God, it is a mystical body in which we are all members one of another. And in this mystical body it does not suffice that every soul should be embraced by the thoughts of God; it has also to be that every soul should, in its thought, embrace the other souls. For apart from this mutual embracing, it would be unintelligible why we should pray at all, either for the living or for the departed. Such prayer is nothing but the exercising of our membership in the body of Christ. God is not content to care for us each severally, unless he can also, by his Holy Spirit in each one of us, care through and in us for all the rest. Every one of us is to be a focus of that divine life of which the attractive power holds the body together in one. 

So even in the darkness and blindness of our present existence, our thought ranges abroad and spreads out towards the confines of the mystical Christ, remembering the whole Church of Christ, as well militant on earth as triumphant in heaven; invoking angels, archangels and all the spiritual host.

I came across it while preparing an obit and found it helpful, I hope you do too. Farrer was a genius and a holy man.

God bless,

LSP


Thursday, April 9, 2020

Maundy Thursday



On the night before he suffered, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. In doing so Christ draws his friends, his Apostles into communion with his own paschal sacrifice. Take, eat, this is my body given for you... this is my blood shed for you, given and shed upon the cross for our redemption. 

Jesus invites us too into this saving mystery, into union with his own sacrificial action on Calvary. In the words of Austin Farrer:

"Do the disciples understand the nature of the bond? Jesus has blessed his food, to be the body he will offer in his sacrifice; do they know that they are committed to membership in such a body as that?  A body flogged, broken, crucified - see, he crumbles the loaf before their eyes.  Do they perceive the new meaning in the ancient custom, the breaking of the bread?  Are they willing to be parts of such a body, are they willing that his body, with its sacrificial destiny, should be theirs?  
The disciples were not yet fully willing, but they came to be, and so we all must; for if we do not want to be given and surrendered to God, why touch religion at all?  By partaking of the sacrificial body, we are to be made capable of sacrifice, taken up, as we are, into the sacrificial being of Christ." (From This is my Body, 1958 Eucharist Congress)


Tonight, as we watch and pray with Jesus in the Garden before his betrayal, ask him to fill our hearts with his love. The same love given on the cross and commanded of us at the Last Supper, "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34-35) The same love which takes us up into the "sacrificial being" of Christ himself.


ALMIGHTY Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, did institute the Sacrament of his Body and Blood; Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him, who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal; the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

God bless,

LSP