But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Lent begins with the remembrance of our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness. Every Lent we hear the same old stories that have encouraged Christians since ancient days. A demon is cast out of a little girl; another demon attacks Jesus with lies about his motives; and soon we shall hear of Christ’s own Passion and how Satan entered into Judas to accomplish his dirty work. Satan means to wreak the work of God. There is one thing for sure – Satan is no Gnostic. He knows the worth, the weakness, the shame and the glory of the material world – especially this piece of matter we call our bodies. And he hates flesh.

God loves flesh. God became flesh. The best Satan can do is to steal flesh. I have suggested before that Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the Hannibal Lector movies are Satanic in the sense that they portray how he lives, and moves and has his being. The devil hides behind masks of flesh. That’s essentially what he did to Judas – the Bible says, “then Satan entered into Judas.” He took Judas by violence.

He hates flesh. He who led the angels in hymns to God; he who said in his heart that he would rise above his Creator; he who was perfect in beauty, walking upon stones of fire – he is a showman, a movie star, a phony, a fake, a counterfeit. Created as pure thought, “a thinking thought,” he stormed in and possessed Judas. All he could do, all he can ever do, is to mask himself in the human flesh he loathed.

But God the Father loves flesh. God the Son became Flesh. Mary assented: “Let it be!” she declared to another Angel. Jesus delights in the work of God. He taught us to pray for what God is already sending our way before we pray: God’s rule over the whole Creation, just as He rules over Heaven. One day his Kingdom will come irrevocability, once and for all. He will wipe every tear away. He will heal every broken heart. We will love one another. The material world, including our own bodies, will not be treated as husk to be shucked off and cast away. No, no, no! Far from that, in the Kingdom of God, you, body and all, as I have often said – will burst into full blossom!

Listen: your body is not your enemy but the body is a poor master of the person because of the wound of concupiscence. What is that? It is “the disordered desire to satisfy our sensual needs.” But what does that have to do with our bodies? Concupiscence is a wound quickly experienced in our flesh. One moment you are not hungry, and then suddenly you feel you are starving to death. You feel it in your body. Same thing with lust. Same thing with a sore throat or the flu. The body is a poor master of the person simply because it functions like a receiver of temptation. It is like a cell phone set on vibrate. You are working away all day long, you forget to eat and then your sugar level drops and before you know it you are vibrating. And then your body begins screaming, “feed me!”

“And afterward Jesus was hungry…”

How could Jesus be hungry? Because he was a real man of flesh and he depended upon the material world for his own life. But he is different from us because his body and his perfectly natural, good, blessed sensual needs were not ruling his life. Why not? Because his human faculties: his intelligence, his volitional life, his passions, his appetite – his instinctive human desires, his physical life, all orbited, like planets elegantly balanced around a center of gravity that holds. Do you know what that center is? That Center around which all Jesus’ human facilities orbit with such poise, grace, goodness and balance is his Love for his Father. His perfect Love for his Father is his Center. His perfect love for his Father is like the Sun in our solar system that gracefully orders the planets and provided just enough light and just enough heat to support life on this green earth. Jesus’ love for his Father orders everything in his life. And this is the end of all spiritual programs, of all spiritual direction, of all the liturgies and all the masses ever offered up and all sermons every preached: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all they soul, and with all they mind.”

The Bible narrates our sorry failures and our splendid efforts to love God. But it is our Lord’s own battle with the Tempter in the wilderness that is ever present in the collective consciousness of the Church. It is there in the wilderness that our Lord, like a Knight defending the honor of his Lord, his Father, recapitulated Adam’s temptation and reversed his Failure. The account that will be read from the Gospel this coming Sunday could have come only from lips of Jesus himself. He won the day there in the wilderness and we too may learn to fight our battles, not as all alone, but as brave soldiers in Christ’s Church.

Lent reminds you that you have been baptized and infused with heavenly virtues. You have another chance to own it and to love it and to grow and appropriate those virtues. You may have been baptized as a baby or baptized as an adult. It doesn’t matter – God by that very materialistic action has made you a well-equipped soldier. Jesus’ wilderness defeat of Satan was not effortless; it was not effortless for the Apostles and it will not be effortless for us. But we are an army of well-equipped soldiers of Christ. So here we are at the beginning of another Lent. This is springtime for the Church. You have been baptized! You are God’s offspring.

The Epistle for Quinquagesima says it:

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things…”

Put away childish things. Be an adult. Take responsibility. Husband your own heart. This evening as we approach the throne of grace, as we come to the altar of God to receive the body and blood of Christ our God – pray he will toughen our resolve to fight as Christ’s soldiers.

MASS SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK OF QUINQUAGESIMA (FEBRUARY 19, 2012)

20, Monday – Feria
21, Tuesday – Feria (Shrove Tuesday)
22, Wednesday – Ash Wednesday
23, Thursday – Feria
24, Friday – St Matthias

+ All Saints’ Men’s Group meets Feb. 21, Tuesday morning at 7:00 a.m.

+ Anyone wishing to make their confession please call, text or email Fr. Spencer. (434-409-3489)

+ The Men’s Group is preparing the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper beginning at 5:45 p.m. Suggested donations are $3/person up to $10/family. All proceeds will go to support our diocese’s Lenten project of building a school in Haiti.

+ Ash Wednesday will be celebrated at 7:30 a.m. Imposition of Ashes;
12:15 p.m. Holy Communion (Imposition of Ashes after the 12:15 p.m. Holy Communion); 6:30 p.m. Imposition of Ashes & Holy Communion.

+ Priscilla King is organizing a weekday Precept Bible Study for All Saints and friends. The class will be taught in the Undercroft. Please look over the questionnaire that was in the bulleting Sunday for the possibilities.

+ Daily Mass at 12:15 p.m.

+ No Agape or class this Wednesday

The season of Lent had a double origin; it was a period of penitential preparation for the Easter festival; and at the earliest time it was the period when the catechumens received their final training for baptism or confirmation. Following this, the present day fast of Lent is not only our approach to the glories of Easter but also it is a time of penitence, and of recalling one’s baptism with all that that involved. But the penitence is not to be purely personal and internal – a private penance for one’s own sins – it must also be corporate and external; the Church, through all her members acting together, doing penance for her own failings and for the sins of the world.

The Penitential Office & Imposition of Ashes 7:30 a.m.
Holy Communion 12:15 a.m.
The Penitential Office, Imposition of Ashes & Holy Communion 6:30 p.m.

The Holy Hot Pancake Supper begins at 5:45 p.m.!

Quinquagesima (February 19, 2012)

Processional Hymn:  “Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost” (#379)
Sequence Hymn:  “Te Deum laudamus” (#613/617)
Sermon Hymn: “O Thou who camest from above” (#463)
Communion Hymns:  “Now, my tongue, the myst’ry telling” (#199, pange lingua)
“Therefore we, before Him bending” (#200, tantum ergo)
Closing Hymn:  “Love divine all loves excelling (#479)

Anthem:  “O be joyful in the Lord”
Text: Psalm 100
Music: John Ireland (1879-1962)

Communion Motet:  “Tantum ergo”
Text: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Music: Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921) 
Translation: “So let us devoutly revere this great sacrament, and the old covenant may give way to the new rite. May faith grant assistance to the deficiency of our senses. Jubilant praise, glory, laud, honor, and benediction be to the Father and the Son. Equal praise be to Him that proceeds from the two.”

Choral Amen:  “Twofold Amen,” Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

The Gospel reading for this day from St. Luke chapter 18 tells the story of Jesus’ healing of a blind man. The image above is a mosaic from the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, a church originally dedicated in 504 ad.

MASS SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK OF SEXAGESIMA (FEBRUARY 12, 2012)

6, Monday – Feria
7, Tuesday – St. Valentine
8, Wednesday – Feria
9, Thursday – Feria
10, Friday – Feria

+ All Saints’ Men’s Group meets Feb. 14, Tuesday morning at 7:00 a.m.

+ Red Beans & Rice, Nut-free Waldorf Salad, & Flourless Chocolate Cake are on the menu for the Wednesday Agape Meal and Christian Ed beginning at 5:45 p.m. with dinner; classes for all age groups meet from 6:30 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.

+ Priscilla King is organizing a weekday Precept Bible study for All Saints and friends. The class will be taught in the Undercroft. Please look over the questionnaire that was in the bulleting Sunday for the possibilities.

+ Daily Mass at 12:15 p.m.

+ Choir Rehearsal is after the Agape on Wednesday

+ Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper will be February 21 starting at 5:45 p.m. in the Undercroft! The Men’s Group is doing all the work and the proceeds ($3 per person/ $10 per family) will go to support our diocese’s Lenten project of building a school in Haiti.

+Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent is Wednesday February 22 – will have three services:

7:30 a.m. The Imposition of Ashes
12:15 p.m. Holy Communion
6:30 p.m. The Imposition of Ashes and the Holy Communion

Valentine is the name of several martyred saints who lived in Rome. The only thing really known of the St. Valentine we memorialize on February 14 is that he was a martyred priest and he was buried on that date north of Rome and he was born February 16 around 269. He was not associated with romantic love until the fourteenth century in England in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules. In 269 St. Valentine was arrested by Roman officials for assisting martyrs during the persecution under Claudius II. When he refused to turn his back on Christ he was first beaten with clubs and then beheaded.

Sexagesima (February 12, 2012)

Processional Hymn: “O Word of God Incarnate” (#402)
Sequence Hymn: “Te Deum laudamus” (#613/617)
Sermon Hymn: “He who would valiant be” (#563)
Communion Hymns: “O God, unseen yet ever near” (#198, st. flavian)
“Come with us, O blessed Jesus” (#211)
Closing Hymn: “How firm a foundation” (#564)

Anthem: “Prevent us, O Lord”
Text: Prayer from the Litany of the Saints, 6th C.
Music: William Byrd (1540-1623)

Communion Motet: “Ave verum corpus”
Text: Fourteenth-century eucharistic hymn
Music: Peter Philips (1583-1625)
Translation: “Hail the true body, born of the Virgin Mary: You who truly suffered and were sacrificed on the cross for the sake of man. From whose pierced side flowed water and blood: Be a foretaste for us in the trial of death. O sweet, O gentle, O Jesu, son of Mary, have mercy on me.”

Choral Amen: “Twofold Amen,” Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)

Our anthem today is a setting by William Byrd of an ancient prayer that may date back to the sixth century and the time of Pope Gregory the Great. This prayer (with one verbal change) appears as a collect on page 49 in the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. In the 1662 BCP it is used as the final collect before the blessing in the service for the ordering of priests. It is in many editions of the English edition of the Prayerbook, included in the forms of prayer to be used at sea. It appears in the 1549 First Prayerbook of Edward VI, as the final collect in the Communion service, spoken just before the blessing. In the current Canadian version of the Book of Common Prayer, it appears as a collect in the “Office of Laying a Foundation Stone of a Church or Chapel.” In the Roman Catholic Church, the prayer is included in the lengthy Litany of the Saints, and some parishes use it every day during Lent. Here is the text of the prayer in its original form:

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our present prayerbook changes that first word “Prevent” to “Direct,” which is appropriate if not quite as vivid. In the sixteenth-century, the word “prevent” meant to go before. In the King James Bible, for example, Psalm 88:13 reads: “But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.”  In today’s anthem, the prayer is asking for God’s enabling and leading, not his obstructing. 

The Gospel reading for this day is the parable of the sower from St. Luke chapter 8. The image above is a twelfth-century stained-glass window from Canterbury Cathedral.

Frieda grew up in Ireland, a middle child in a very large family, a very poor family at a time when Ireland was at a low point economically. Her mother and father could not keep their family together, so Frieda was placed in an orphanage run by Roman Catholic nuns. Separated not only from her mother and father, but from her brothers and sisters as well, she learned to make a place in her young, green life for a profound grief that was there to stay. And yet Frieda was not a gloomy person. Of all the nurses, of all the doctors, of all the people at the hospital, Frieda was the one you would want to hang out with because she was funny and cheerful.

Several times she told me how at the orphanage she was fed and clothed and encouraged in her schoolwork, and she grew especially close to Jesus. But there were days she would awake in her dorm, surrounded by scores of girls just like her, with a deep longing for her family. She wanted to be close to them, but these sad feelings and thoughts made her long all the more and feel all the more distant from them.

Now this is where I learned something important from Nurse Frieda, to apply to my life and the lives of my parishioners. When her heart was breaking and she couldn’t take it anymore, as a child she would sneak out of her room and steal away into the orphanage chapel. She would pull back the frontal and crawl under the Altar and pull the frontal closed. She felt safe there and she would pray. And as she prayed to our Savior, she felt less and less sad and closer and closer to her family.

Why? Her mom and dad were good Catholics and they loved Jesus as well. They always talked about staying close to Jesus. Somehow over the weeks and months and years, little Frieda began to think of prayer as a rope, a connection that was tied to Jesus. It’s like Jesus is holding all these ropes that people all over the world and all over time are holding onto and prayer is like using that rope to pull in closer and closer and closer to Jesus. Therefore, this little girl reasoned, by drawing closer to Jesus she was also drawing closer to the people who were also praying and drawing closer to Jesus. The closer she drew to Jesus, the closer she drew to her mother and father and brothers and sisters. I think she’s exactly right! Frieda would pray until she fell asleep. When the nuns could not find Frieda they learned to go to the chapel and look under the Altar.

Our highest love belongs to Jesus and no one else will sooth our turbulent, violent heart, no one else will provide a haven of blessing and peace. We all need a home, a place of rest, and a shelter from the storm.