George Herbert, in his poem “The Agonie”, says that mankind is driven to measure and to understand all manner of things:  mountains, seas, states, and kings.  The geography of the created order and the arrangements of mankind’s affairs work upon our curiosity, our imagination, and our desire for knowledge and order, and are subjects of perennial interest.  Herbert goes on, however, to say that there are two “vast, spacious things” which we ought to work to understand, but which mankind perennially neglects.  These are “Sinne and Love”.

I once had a parishioner complain that our faith and practice were too complex.  “I’m a simple man,” he said, “and I need the simple Gospel.” When I wanted to talk to him about it, he had no specifics.  I expect that he was expressing a bias toward some kind of Protestant “Bible service” that he had known growing up and to which he was simply sentimentally attached.  He just wasn’t used to the practice of the Catholic and Orthodox faith.  It was weird to him.

There’s nothing like a convert for zeal.  Perhaps best avoided at dinner parties and anytime being tiresome is… tiresome.  I know, because I was that guy when I came to the Catholic Faith in the Anglican Catholic Church.  I came from an evangelical background and was already well-versed in proof-texting the Scriptures and in argument.  I was in law school at the time, which probably made everything worse for those around me.

This Thursday is the great Feast of the Ascension.  We often don’t think much about the Ascension, but it is the necessary completion to the work of salvation done by Christ.  It changed everything.  Let’s consider this for a moment.

The story is told that St. Athanasius (in one of those intervals where he wasn’t banished or on the run) went about his diocese, and that everywhere he went, he asked the question, “How do you pray?”. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been asked a question like that, but I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not always a welcome question.  And I gather from talking with laymen and clergymen that it’s a question which many Christians have never had to answer.

Why go to church?  It’s a good question to ask, especially in light of all the alternatives on offer.  When I was a kid in Louisiana, there wasn’t a lot to do on Sundays.  We were a church-going family, but I had friends whose families weren’t, and they didn’t have a lot of options for Sunday.  Nothing was open on Sunday mornings except gas stations and grocery stores.  Later, restaurants would open, but most stores were closed all day on Sunday. 

I wasn’t born when the Allies won the Victory In Europe, or the Victory Over Japan, but I have known people who were alive then, and people who fought to bring about those great victories.  The best I can do is to try to enter into the spirit of the memorials of those victories, which isn’t always easy. 

We started Lent with the words of the Gospel for Quinquagesima (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday) still fresh.  It’s been a while, so a reminder is probably helpful.  In that Gospel, from Luke 18, Our Lord tells the disciples, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.  For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.”

Many people think of Christmas as the celebration of the Incarnation of Christ, but really that Feast is just a sequel to the real Feast of the Incarnation, which is the Annunciation. 

Let me tell you something about Lent.  Lent, seriously approached, is a drag.  It is a real pain to be thinking about whether it’s a Wednesday or Friday and so avoiding meat.  It’s a real pain to be constantly confronted by the desire for whatever it is that you’ve given up. Self examination? Depressing. The whole thing is just not any fun.

It has rightly been said that much of contemporary religion, and especially much of evangelical protestantism, is a religion of the mind.  Such systems are all about what you believe, and much less about what you do or avoid doing.  Many of them, in fact, teach that there is really nothing one can do to lose one’s salvation (“Once saved, always saved” was one of the mantras of my Baptist upbringing).

I’m very grateful to begin my work as Priest-in-Charge at St. Hilda’s.  I’ve been in and out of the parish as a visitor for many years and have seen it go through so many changes.