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All Saints Anglican Church, Charlottesville VA

The Anglican Province of America

Liturgical Piety

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How God Makes Christians II.1

A Theology of Horticulture I.I

We are all born as branches upon the same Vine, Adam, the father of us all, who disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. The Bible says that when Adam disobeyed God he died spiritually, he was deprived of the supernatural grace of God in the person of the Holy Spirit, and as we have seen, he suffered the four wounds of the fall. Adam and Eve were not created to die. They were created to love God with their whole heart, soul and mind. The human faculties Adam received at his creation – intellect, passion, and volition – were wounded and very nearly ungovernable after the fall. But governed or not, our faculties do not function as God intended apart from God’s disturbing and meddling grace. Not only can we not love God, we cannot love anything rightly without his help. By nature self-concern is never far off. We desire the good, but for the wrong reason and in the wrong manner. By virtue of our natural birth we are born as branches upon this dying Vine called Adam and though we receive from him true humanity, we also receive all the deadly consequences of the fall. Skillful funambulists may balance opposite weights in order to walk a tight rope, but the only outcome for us if we try to balance our natural humanity and the consequences of the fall will be our toppling headlong to death.

But the Good News is that there is another Vine, the Vine of the Church, the Body of Christ, the New Israel. The Church is the Vine because Christ planted this Vine. To be a member of the Church is to be a member of the New Israel, a member of Christ. The Vine of Christ is living; in fact the Vine of Christ is Life. Christ is the very root and head of this Vine and we partake of that Root and its life-giving fatness. In older days the sap of trees, plants, and vines was called “fat.” When my parents were children they used to go through the forest where they lived in North Carolina to gather what they called “fat wood” which was used to start fires in wood stoves and fireplaces. If they were lucky they found enough to sell some of it to their neighbors. Fat wood came from the long leaf pine and it was full of dried resin. Resin is a white gum that saturates the limb or root of the tree and it is so strong it smelled like turpentine. The virtue of fat wood is that it catches fire easily, and so it was used as kindling. Resin is the sap, which is the “life” of the vine or the tree. Now, in Romans 11:17, St. Paul writes that we have been grafted into God’s olive tree — which is the true Israel, Jesus Christ — and we now feed upon the “fatness” of that olive tree. In other words God’s olive tree is saturated with the life of God himself according to the logic of the imagery of sap or fatness. To be a member of the Vine of Christ is to have the privilege of feeding upon the life of God. So on the one hand we are born as branches upon the Vine of Adam and if we continue to feed upon him we are ultimately feeding upon death. On the other hand, we have the New Adam, the New Israel, Jesus Christ, who is full of life and the richness (fatness) of all the privileges God has given his Son.  Therefore the only question remaining is “How do we get ourselves attached to this new Vine of Christ?”

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Liturgical Piety II

Prayer as Athletics

In basketball season we get excited over our favorite university. The colors come out, we “Google” the schedule and our collective blood pressure goes up – things get very personal. One basketball coach refers to his school’s student body as the team’s sixth player. But the fact of the matter is that a university known for its basketball program is not one in which every single student is good at playing basketball. Or take a different example: Imagine a city that is celebrated for its love and production of the arts, an unabashedly “artsy city!” They will have artists’ studios, well-publicized exhibits, maybe a weekly paper dedicated to the arts, and perhaps a special week everyone looks forward to that they call “The Festival of the Arts!” An “artsy city” puts the arts on a pedestal; the citizens respect and support the arts. But an “artsy city” isn’t one in which all the citizens are artists. The citizens may feel a personal attachment to “our artists and what they do for us,” but they are not all artists. Now all this makes sense in the context of universities and cities, but I want to suggest that it makes sense for the Church as well – with a twist.

All Saints’ vocation is the worship God the Father, through God the Son, by God the Holy Spirit. The Mass is the center of our community life. Whether it is a Sunday Service filled with worshipers, song and color or a weekday Low Mass with only you and a priest, you and he are participating in the center, the very heart of the Body of Christ. From that beating heart the Life of God is pumped into the whole parish and through her God’s life enters the whole world. For all our families, our guilds, our groups, committees, and ministers, our choir, teachers, students and cooks – everyone and every mission – from the Altar to the Ironing Board in the Sacristy, work becomes prayer, labor is love offered up.

A good basketball team is bound together by coaching, discipline, training, and a shared identity of being the representative team for their university. A good Choir and good Acolytes are also bound together by good coaching, discipline, training, practice and a shared identity with their parish. And parishioners naturally refer to “our Choir” or “our Acolytes” – “our Team,” because we respect them for the work they put into their gift. We are thus joined to one another in a bond of affection and worship.

All gifts and graces are perfected in community, but some, like art, require long periods of solitude that interrupt community to develop proficiency and to craft a donation to be offered back to the community. Prayer, as in a parishioner who is gifted, is less likely to be plainly and publically experienced, though it may be sensed mysteriously. However, even though some Christians are exceptionally gifted in prayer, (and here is the twist) unlike all the other gifts, prayer is the vocation of every one of us without exception. So even if it is only you and the priest at a weekday Low Mass, at that time and in that place, you are our team! You are there in the pew to compete on behalf of this parish. Prayer, private or in the Mass, is an athletic event. Competition is unavoidable. What competes for your time, energy, and devotion? The proficient athlete will train and discipline herself to win and if she wins she receives, as St. Paul said, “a perishable crown” on behalf of her city or her university. But God’s athlete never loses in the Mass because Christ is her Prize! As she receives the Body and Blood of Christ, the imperishable Prize, she does so on behalf of her whole parish.

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Liturgical Piety I

Suggestions on How to Contemplate Worship

It is a good thing to pay attention to the Liturgy. But, no one does a perfect job. Our thoughts move here and there in the Divine Hour – here in the present but also into our past and into our future. While singing a hymn we might recall a kindness done to us by a stranger, or we may remember a thoughtless act that hurt someone; we may wonder what we will eat this afternoon or we might worry over an unfinished project at work. The bells call us back to worship. We are always here and out there. It is best not to be too hard on yourself when you become aware of your distraction. Simply, gently redirect your attention to the liturgy. Don’t fret over the distraction. Don’t be mean to yourself. Gently, even tenderly, bring your attention back to the moment, back to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The sermon is important, but so are the Hymns, the Anthems, the Propers and the Minor Propers. The Propers are the pieces of the Liturgy that change weekly – they are “proper” to the day: the Epistle, the Gospel, and the Collect. We are blessed to have a choir and cantors that sing the Minor Propers: the Introit, the Gradual and the Communion Proper. These also change weekly. They are called “minor” to distinguish them from the Propers that are always required in our Liturgy. The Minor Propers enrich the celebration of the Mass by recalling the principle themes and images of the liturgical day.

I personally appreciate the piety of taking notes during the sermon for the purpose of reflecting upon them during the week. This is just the sort of activity that may be part of your personal rule. But so as not to deconstruct the Liturgy or the sermon, remember that the Liturgy is a whole sacred event that has a total effect upon the Faithful. By total effect I mean that the Liturgy is a whole itself (not just one piece of it) and that it may shape our whole life and turn us repeatedly, weekly, daily towards God. Think of the kind of windup toy we used to play with as children. A tin soldier may march across the coffee table when wound up, but we always have to move it over and over again in the direction we want it to go to get it to the goal. Or if you don’t like that image, think of a mother who repeatedly helps her daughter think about her relationships, her goals and desires in life – but also reminds her of her father’s birthday and her grandmother’s need to hear from granddaughter. It is needful that the Liturgy (a gentle providence exuding a sweet, holy aroma) redirects our steps towards God.

Once more, it is the whole Liturgy that shapes us, not just the sermon. And by “whole” I mean the whole Liturgy and our whole person, all our senses responding to the sensual details of the Mass and not just our minds. So, if you are going to reflect upon the sermon during the week, keep your bulletin and take a hymnal home with you. Recall the Propers and Minor Propers. Sing the hymns if it is possible as you ponder and research the points you noted in the sermon. Recall the music – literally the sounds. Try to chant the Minor Propers on one note – it isn’t that hard. Do not just engage your mind, but all your senses. Recall the color of the vestments and the flowers. Smell the incense. Taste and smell the wine. Feel the Host upon your tongue or in the palm of your hand. Christianity is corporeal, profuse, rich, exuberant and intelligent! To take only the sermon or any other part of the Liturgy, in isolation from the whole, as your contemplation will deconstruct Common Prayer and potentially deconstruct life.

You will have to come back next Sunday (or during the week) to worship God in the Mass. Private piety will never take the place of the Common Prayer and Public Worship. But it is most beneficial to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the whole Liturgy during the week. May God the Father bless us in our adoration of God the Son, as God the Holy Spirit shapes us into the Father’s Liturgical Children in playful worship.