Diocese of New Jersey | Bishop Councell

Below is an excerpt from the 1950’s journal of a Catholic writer of Austrian and Japanese parentage. It represents, for me, a most wonderful introduction to Holy Week and its awesome mystery.I read it every year. I hope that will be a source of encouragement to us all to observe rightly the special liturgies of this week through which we contemplate “those mighty acts whereby [the God of our salvation] has given us life and immortality.

Holy Week is beginning again, and here I am, once more, feeling so unadjusted to it, so utterly inadequate. Not that “heart of stone” feeling, simply the sense of being completely out of proportion — something momentous, like the Niagara Falls is thundering down, right beside me, and there I stand, with a thimble in my hand, and I’m supposed to dip in and collect something, catch it up, assimilate it, react properly, goodness knows how. But if you hold a cup under a waterfall, it’s not only knocked right out of your hand, but empty to boot, the rushing, tumbling water simply rebounds. The only hope of scooping anything at all is to hold the cup up carefully at the very edge, under a lost thin trickle.

This is how it is with me. I’m standing as near as I can get to the cataract, the thunder and roar of the water is deafening. I can catch next to nothing and I know very well that one step nearer and I’ll be caught up or swept away. But maybe this helpless state of just standing aside, this overpowering sense of not being able to do anything about it is the only sort of adoration I’m allowed just now. One’s eyes closed, turned away — this, too, is one way of divining the immensity of this tremendous mystery, of paying reverence, at least, to something surpassing by far either comprehension or emotion. When I was young I used to fancy one could somehow match one’s tiny vessel to the onrush from above by dint of emotional wriggling and writhing.

From the journals of Ida Gorres, as quoted by Martin L. Smith, in his A Season for the Spirit.

+GEC

Day 33 of Lent: Friday, 3 April 2009

“Does God like you?” I asked a five-year-old little girl. She stifled a grin. She is a compassionate soul. “Yep,” she said easily, confidently, certainly. “How do you know?” “Because of the way he talks to me. He just likes me. I recognize it in his voice.” (Robert Bensen, Between the Dreaming and the Coming True)

Can you say, with a child’s assurance, that God likes you? Have you heard God’s voice? Can you recognize the affection in that voice for you?

I can say that I have heard God’s voice a few times in my life. Once I heard God say my name. It happened while I was on a pre-matriculation retreat during my first week at seminary. My class had been invited to spend the day at a convent. We were observing a rule of silence – something I never done before. I wandered around the grounds until I found a quiet spot where I could sit and pray. It was not a great mystical moment, but it was real. I was alone when I heard a voice say, “George.” It was just my name. But I heard such an unfathomable tenderness and such a merciful love in that voice, I knew it was our Lord. It’s the voice that I've hoped to hear ever since that day.

A woman said that if she were to walk into a crowded reception, she could tell if her husband were there, even if all she heard was the sound of him clearing his throat. She was confident of that because she knew him so well, had lived with him so long, and loved him so much. She went on to say that she yearned to be as confident about discerning God’s presence in her life. She decided that, in order to discern God’s presence, she would do well to deepen her relationship with God. That is, she intended to seek to God so well, live with God so long, and love God so much that she could hear God’s voice; even the sound of God clearing his throat.

I am mostly hard of hearing when it comes to these matters. By grace, however, we have lots of channels through which God can and does speak to us: in the Holy Scriptures, especially when they are read in the company of other believers; in the Blessed Sacrament; in the creation; in art and music and silence; and in the hearts of those who love us.

I pray that you may hear that voice in all of the crowded rooms of your life. Hearing it, may you also feel the love in that voice for you. And, feeling the love, may you trust the One who speaks and follow where He leads. It will be the way of the Cross, which is the way of life and peace.

+GEC

Day 32 of Lent: Thursday, 2 April 2009

The story is told about a priest who was visiting Ireland. One evening, as the priest walked along a country road, he came across an old man also out enjoying the twilight air. They walked and talked together until a sudden rain made them take shelter. When their conversation moved into silence, the old Irishman took out his little prayer book and began praying half aloud. The priest watched him a long while, then in a quiet whisper said, “You must be very close to God!” The old man smiled very deeply and answered, “Yes. He is very fond of me!” (From The Father is Very Fond of Me, by Edward J. Farrell)

I love that story. I love that old man’s faith, confidence and trust in our Lord. I want to know that Christ is very fond of me and to be able to share that with those around me in the same simple, direct and humble manner. Something that has helped me to grow toward that man’s faithfulness is a phrase, given to me by a spiritual director, years ago. She invited me to reflect on this phrase: “Behold the Lord, beholding you and smiling.”

Behold the Lord, beholding you and smiling, because he’s very fond of you. He is.

+GEC

Day 31 of Lent: Wednesday, 1 April 2009

I ask your prayers for the clergy of the Diocese of New Jersey as they gather at the cathedral tomorrow for the service of the Renewal of Ordination Vows and the Blessing of Oils.

This annual gathering is always celebrated (rightly, I think) during the week that precedes Holy Week. Although this is an exceedingly busy time for parish clergy, we usually have good attendance. I am always grateful to see all of those who take part, hoping that this liturgy, together some time for reflection and some good fellowship will help to support them in their ministries throughout Holy Week. I love to look into their faces as they renew their commitment to their ministry, under the pastoral direction of their bishop; and as they reaffirm their ordination promises to give themselves to study and prayer, to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, to be a faithful servant and a wholesome example to their people.

I worry about those clergy who never participate. For them and for all clergy and people it could be said that we are all looking for love. Some of us are looking for love in all the wrong places. In his book entitled Living the Truth, Alan Jones quotes Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen, who writes of the necessity of love for one’s life and ministry and who offers a strong caution against the acceptance of any substitute.

“When we find that we are not loved or are loved only for what we do or what we own, power in some form becomes a substitute, the means by which we seek the acceptance and security that love provides freely. Thus we seek to be noticed or needed, to be indispensable or in control.”

Too often I have seen in myself and in others what I would identify as some of the symptoms of a lack of a knowledge of how deeply we are loved by Jesus. Among them are: the need to be noticed or needed or indispensable or in control. None of these will help. All of them are distractions from and cheap or idolatrous substitutes for the love that loves us for who we are and not for what we do or for what we own.

The best way I know to avoid the childish things that draw us from the love of God is to pray like a grownup; that is, to pray as the saints do. One of the best prayers I have ever encountered is by Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–1417): “God, of your goodness, give me yourself, for you are enough for me. I can ask for nothing which is less which can pay you full worship. And if I ask anything which is less, I am always in want. Only in you do I have everything.”

Pray for the clergy, especially in the holy days ahead. Offer a word of encouragement. Remind them that they are upheld by the love God in Jesus Christ, in whom they have everything. Pray they may show forth the power of Christ’s love in all that they do. Thank them and thank God for them. Pray that the Lord, who has given them the will to make their vows of ordination, will also grant them grace and power to perform them.

+GEC

Day 30 of Lent: Tuesday, 31 March 2009

Last Sunday night we celebrated the Institution of the Reverend Peter A. French as Chaplain of the Episcopal Church at Princeton University. The Gospel appointed for that celebration was John 15: 9-15. That text includes the words of Jesus, “I have called you friends.” That may well be the most remarkable claim in the entire Gospel: “I have called you friends.”

Consider the cast of characters to whom that comment was addressed. Their limitations are relentlessly detailed in all of the gospels. They were completely human, as we are, and they did sin, as we do. Every now and then some one might have a good moment: Peter, say; or Andrew. But they were deeply flawed folks and decidedly slow learners. They were of limited imagination; they had tempers; they were sometimes testy and jealous of one another; they were often exasperated with and, more often, completely confused by Jesus.

In short, they just didn’t get it. Mostly, they were afraid. But these are Jesus’ friends. Even though they abandoned him at his hour of need, they were, still, the first ones he asked about when he rose again. When they saw him they were afraid, all over again. He told them not to be afraid, again. According to John, he showed them his wounds. And, at the end, Thomas had the best line in the entire script. He looked at the risen Christ and said something like this: “You died. You were arrested, beaten, and crucified. And we, whom you called friends, we all fled and left you for dead. You were really dead. And now you’re really alive. And you still love us. We’re still your friends. My Lord and my God!”

By way of comment on this theme of friendship with God, consider the following passage from a work entitled The Life of Moses, by St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 334–c. 394).

This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because we fear punishment, like slaves; not to do good because we expect repayment, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by enforcing some business deal. On the contrary, disregarding all those good things which we do hope for and which God has promised us, we regard falling from God’s friendship as the only thing dreadful, and we consider becoming God’s friend the only thing truly worthwhile.

In another passage, the Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) reflected on the power of Christ’s love to change his friend Peter.

Christ’s love for Peter was boundless in his way: in loving Peter he accomplished loving the person one sees. He did not say, ‘Peter must first change and become another person before I can love him again.’ No, he said exactly the opposite. He said, ‘Peter is Peter, and I love him; love, if anything, will help him to become another man.’ Therefore he did not break off the friendship in order perhaps to renew it again if Peter would have become another person; no, he preserved the friendship unchanged and in that way helped Peter to become another person. Do you think that Peter would have been won again without Christ’s faithful friendship? (Works of Love)

I think that late Lent and Holy Week in particular invite us to trust Jesus’ words in John 15:14: “I have called you friends.” I believe that there is a world of difference between observing the events of Holy Week as bystanders and experiencing those events as friends of Jesus who are deeply moved by his wondrous love. If I had to choose one hymn only to be sung during Holy Week, it would be Hymn 458, “My song is love unknown.” The words, by Samuel Crossman (1624–83) include two verses that speak of the friendship between Christ and the disciple.

But O my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend. (Verse 2)

This is my friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days would gladly spend. (Verse 7).

I can never make it through this hymn without tears. But who can hold back when we sing that He spent His life for us? And who would not gladly spend one’s life in praise and thanksgiving for all that He has done for us?

Years ago, while browsing through the pages of the Episcopal Church Annual, I discovered a church located in Allen, South Dakota. The name of the church is “Inestimable Gift.” More than any other time of the Christian year, this is the season when we recall that that is who Jesus is for us: an Inestimable Gift. And may we also recall that that is we are for Jesus: an Inestimable Gift. It my not be easy to say, but it is grace indeed to know it and live it together for the building up of the Church and for the blessing of the world.

+GEC

Day 29 of Lent: Monday, 30 March 2009

I once led a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On the night we were scheduled to leave for Tel Aviv, our plane taxied on to its proper position in line at JFK in New York. When we were cleared for takeoff the plane made its way down the runway, picking up speed. You could almost feel it when we reached the point when the pilot would push the engines to full throttle for takeoff. Except he didn’t. Right at the point of no return he cut back the engines and slammed on the brakes. We later learned that something was amiss, according to one or more of the cockpit instruments. Those in charge of such things determined that it was not safe to fly. We returned to the terminal and flew the next day.

I was put in mind of that incident yesterday as we observed the Fifth Sunday in Lent. Up until now the focus of our Lenten season has been on us, on our sins and on our need to repent. This side of the Kingdom those realities never disappear. But on the Fifth Sunday — which an earlier Book of Common Prayer referred to as “Passion” Sunday — it is Jesus and his saving work on the Cross that are the focus of the remainder of this holy season. This shifting of gears begins to prepare us for Holy Week. It is no longer “all about us.” It never was. The remainder of Lent and all of Holy Week is about what God has done in “those mighty acts” whereby we have been given life and immortality. (See the opening prayer in the Liturgy of the Palms, page 270 of the BCP.)

Yesterday we reach a kind of “point of no return” in the unfolding of Jesus’ mission. We heard these words (John 12:23; 27-28; 32-33):

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour?’

No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

He said this to indicate what kind of death he was to die.

Jesus, fully human, is troubled to reach this point of no return. But this hour is the hour for which he came. He does not slow down or brake. He goes to the Cross, where he will be lifted up, where he will draw everyone to himself and where God’s name will be glorified.

Glory to God forever.

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