Fr. Tony’s
Letter to the Trinitarians
February 2018
Gentle Lent
“I will take away their heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26“To be a friend of God is to learn to be a friend of my own frailty, acceptingand affirming it, entrusting it to God. It is recognizing that the self Goddeals with is not some mysterious inner core, but my body.”--Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness (Cambridge MA: Cowley, 1995), p. 35.“God, let me know myself; let me know you.” --St. Augustine of Hippo
Many of us labor
under the burden of being raised with a common, but unhealthy and distorted,
theology that teaches the spirit is good and upward looking but the body and
flesh are wicked and turn us away from God.
Preachers often push such an idea by citing St. Paul’s claim that
following the “flesh” leads to death, but following the spirit leads to life,
or the words of Jesus in Gethsemane, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak.” But they take these ideas out of
context. They hold to “the outward form
of godliness, but deny its real power” (2 Timothy 3:5). Such a belief is actually a kind of heresy,
which G.K. Chesterton said was always reducing a complex truth into a partial
simple truth and then insisting on it as the whole picture.
Scripture
teaches a much more complex truth: God
made the world, and declared it “very good.”
God in Genesis 1 makes us in God’s image, and declares us “very good” as
well. The flesh that embodies us is not
wholly separable from our minds, our wills, or our breath. When Yahweh makes us in Genesis 2, he makes a
mud pie and then breathes his own breath into it to give us life. Our minds depend on our bodies, and our
bodies depend on our minds, in the forging of what we call our own
identities. Yet we are flawed, as seen
in the myth of the defection of Adam and Eve.
When Paul talks about the “flesh”
as in opposition to God, he basically is simply using a commonplace of Stoic
philosophy to contrast the changeable with the permanent. But he is not disparaging the reality that to
be human, a true creature of God, we must live in the flesh. Ezekiel teaches clearly that to get rid of
the flesh does not make us better, or more than human: it diminishes us; we become less than
human. A heart robbed of flesh is not
spirit, it is stone. It is not closer to
the living God, because it bows down to graven idol images.
Our vision of
what Lent is all about has all too often been distorted by the heresy of despising
the flesh, this very good creation of God.
It was merely about bewailing the sin and impurity we had fallen into
because of our damned flesh, and doing penance to try to seek God’s
forgiveness. Such a transactional idea
of atonement is part and parcel with the erroneous model of substitutionary
punishment that sees Jesus’ suffering on the cross as somehow standing in for
us, placating an angry and blood-thirsty Deity. So Lenten practice was all about the
“mortification of the flesh,” self-denial, and repeated and multiple acts of
contrition.
But the doctrine
of the Incarnation—of God taking on flesh (including mortality) as the means of
grace and hope of salvation—provides a broader, more comprehensive, and
healthier view, expressed by the traditional Marian antiphon sung at this time of
the year (Epiphany through February 2) after the Daily Office prayers: “Almighty
and Everlasting God: you have stooped to raise fallen humanity through the
child-bearing of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Grant that we who have seen your glory revealed in our human nature and
your love made perfect in our weakness may be daily renewed in your image and
conformed to the pattern of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Lenten devotions
here become a practice for accepting, not rejecting, our human nature, our
flesh. By small acts of self-denial, we
test our willingness and strength to overcome selfish pleasure-seeking. This is coupled with additional devotional
acts, whether extra worship and prayers, or intentional reading and study to
open our spiritual vistas. We add to
these confession and absolution:
intentional acts of admitting our failings and seeking to amend our
lives and find healing as well as forgiveness.
Finally, we intentionally increase or bring greater focus to our service
to others, particularly in alms-giving and charitable acts of mercy. These are by definition corporeal acts, acts
done in the flesh.
In all this, we
need to be very practical, very specific.
We need to ask God for the gift of incarnation in our own lives (“take
away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.”) I suggest, as a means to prepare for the
start of Lent on February 14, you give some thought to filling out the
following as a little guide for your own Lenten journey:
The virtue which
I seek to work on is: _______________
This might include: Wisdom, Fairness,
Temperance, Strength, Faith, Hope, Love.
The devotion or
worship I seek to add during these 5 weeks is:
________________
This might include the following: Attending 8:00 a.m. Morning or 5:00 p.m.
Evening prayer in the Church daily or two or three times a week, private
prayers morning and evening, increased Sunday attendance, walking the labyrinth
weekly, walking meditation while hiking or exercising, going to Stations of the
Cross at noon in the Church on Friday, or making confession to the priest on
Shrove Tuesday or on a Friday of Lent.
The act of
self-denial I choose is:
________________
This might include M-Sat giving up
alcohol or tobacco, meats, sweets, fats, or carbs, or fasting from gossip,
judging others, or insisting on one’s own way.
I will give
these extra alms for the poor or charitable service: ________________
Extra gifts to the charity of your choice,
or gifts to Trinity’s Almonry or Clergy Discretionary account (which all goes
to the poor).
Grace and
peace. –Fr. Tony+
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