More from Grafton's "My Life in Christ"

Grafton’s comment about the prodigal son comes at the end of his consideration of the “Parable of the Tares.” His diagnosis (of my current mindset) is both astute and accurate.

He writes: “The formation of Christian character is a slow process. Think what it ought to be. Our Christian life is a supernatural life. It has a supernatural end, a union with God in glory. Now a supernatural end can only be attained by supernatural means. No man, by the cultivation of a mere natural virtue and by principles of philosophy, can attain heaven. Christians are the adopted sons of God. They have been made partakers of the divine nature. They have been incorporated into Christ. It is promised that they should be filled with all the fulness of God. They are to go on from strength to strength and attain a perfection in Christ. But look at thyself, O soul. Why these cares? These little mortifying sins? These daily imperfections? These interior disquietudes? These faults of speech? These little irritations? This gloominess or despondency? Why is not thine interior always calm, quiet, peaceful, resting with God? Some of these faults may come from our own selves, but also it is true that the enemy hath done this. Hating us with malignant hatred, and plotting against us with a tremendous experience in the art of ruining souls, Satan attacks the Christian with little and subtle temptations. If he tempted them to commit great sins, he is aware they would repulse him. But if he can only get them to commit a number of little ones, these will harden into habit, or the poor soul be thrown into a state of despondency. But Satan, with all his craft and knowledge of man, is ignorant of grace, and grace continually baffles him. Let it ever be remembered that God is never discouraged with us, because He knows His own power. And all those spirits, despondency, melancholic feelings, come either from physical causes or from Satan.”

Disquieted, irritated, gloomy — busted, in our lingua franca. As my mom used to say, my biorhythms have been down. But it’s more insidious than just that. My eyes have been on self, but, as Grafton says, it’s time for my soul to look at itself. Who am I in Christ?

But he doesn’t leave it there. But God. What perspicuity: “Let it ever be remembered that God is never discouraged with us, because He knows His own power.” Whew. I need to just sit with that for awhile. Christ in me, the hope of glory.

We are “partakers of the divine nature.” The word often calls a favorite Communion hymn to mind, Winkworth’s translation of Franck:

“Sun, who all my life dost brighten,
light, who dost my soul enlighten,
joy, the sweetest heart e'er knoweth,
fount, whence all my being floweth,
at thy feet I cry, my Maker,
let me be a fit partaker
of this blessed food from heaven,
for our good, thy glory, given.”

So,

“Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness,
leave the gloomy haunts of sadness;
come into the daylight's splendour,
there with joy thy praises render
unto him whose grace unbounded
hath this wondrous banquet founded:
high o'er all the heavens he reigneth,
yet to dwell with thee he deigneth.”

My Life in Christ

"Christ in me, the hope of glory"

So I discovered Charles C. Grafton today. The other day, Margaret was telling me about a conversation she had had with her rector about how it’s curious that some theologians often can be saying the same thing, but somehow we have an affinity for one and not the other.

So true.

Grafton just immediately draws me in. In A Journey Godward of a Servant of Jesus Christ, his chapter XI, “My Life in Christ,” — despite making me chortle as I remembered Lionel and his “My Life in Kenya”! — is strikingly eloquent:

“EVERY life is full of the wonders of God's providential care. The great Love watches over us and leads the responsive soul onward. It turns our very falls into stepping-stones for our progress. Every soul in glory will look back on a providentially lighted way and a guiding Hand. There will arise from all the saints an eternal song of thanksgiving to Him Who redeemed us. How unwearied was the love that perpetually restored and renewed us! How great has been His goodness! And how great His mercy! How everlastingly progressive shall be the response of our love! Angels adoringly love Him, but can they love Him as we must, who have been saved by His Precious Blood? The saints in Glory adoringly praise Him for the thousand pardons that perfected them in grace. The Christian soul here in its time of struggle, while feeling its sinfulness, yet trusting in the merits of Christ, presses on to the mark of its high calling. Every soul is a marvellous monument of divine grace, and its secret is with the Lord.”

Don’t you want to read that again? Goodness. Such a beautiful depiction of life, which he describes in his first chapter as a “stumbling on towards God.” Such a beautiful depiction of God’s grace. In his exploration of grace, Grafton brings in the experience of the prodigal son: “The sense of his misery may set him thinking, but it is the thought of the Father's love that leads him home.” Our lives in Christ, God’s love leading us home. Oh, the wonder of it all.



Gentle Hearts Mirroring Celestial Fire

A banner day today: the second wedding anniversary of Margaret and Ethan!

Joy abounds.

I’ve been reading the poetry of Robert Bridges lately and have been contemplating “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” this morning — (does that not describe M?):

My eyes for beauty pine,
My soul for Goddès grace :
No other care nor hope is mine ;
To heaven I turn my face.

One splendour thence is shed
From all the stars above :
'Tis namèd when God’s name is said,
’Tis Love, ’tis heavenly Love.

And every gentle heart,
That burns with true desire,
Is lit from eyes that mirror part
Of that celestial fire.

and somehow I chanced (!) upon this beautiful anthem-setting of it by Elizabeth and Thomas Coxhead (a brother-sister duo).

And then I could hear in my head Bishop’s Richard Chartres marvelous, sonorous opening of his sermon at William and Catherine’s wedding: “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire” (St. Catherine of Siena). We should remind ourselves often of this weighty sermon which is especially appropriate for today.

Bridges writes of God’s love, spiritual love, but Chartres reminds us that a husband and wife’s love can be a “door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this: the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.”

Happy Anniversary to two “gentle hearts” with eyes to heaven that mirror the “celestial fire” of Heavenly Love.

Summertime's Soundtrack(s) and Fathers

Summertime…"I Love Beach Music”…

Summertime… In years past, we always used to blast Sonicflood’s “You Are My Refuge” as we reached our destination. (Don’t judge.)

Summertime...weddings…Rhosymedre or “Lovely.”
R. Vaughan-Williams’ setting is lovely, indeed. Texts to the tune include “My Song is Love Unknown” and “Our Father, by Whose Name.” The latter, written by F. Bland Tucker for the Hymnal 1940, was not familiar to me, but certainly adds a new dimension to our meditations as we listen, whether at weddings or other services.

“Our Father, by whose name
All fatherhood is known,
Who dost in love proclaim
Each family Thine own,
Bless Thou all parents, guarding well,
With constant love as sentinel,
The homes in which Thy people dwell.

O Christ, Thyself a child
Within an earthly home,
With heart still undefiled,
Thou didst to manhood come;
Our children bless, in every place,
That they may all behold Thy face,
And knowing Thee may grow in grace.

O Spirit, who dost bind
Our hearts in unity,
Who teaches us to find
The love from self set free,
In all our hearts such love increase,
That every home, by this release,
May be dwelling place of peace.”

Summertime…Father’s Day…
So thankful for my Dad, who looked and looks to our Heavenly Father as his pattern, who proclaims His love and loves constantly, whose goal it is to grow in grace, who puts others first, who strove to make our home a place of peace…

A Prayer Before Communion (Jeremy Taylor)

“O most blessed, most glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus; Thou that waterest the furrows of the earth and refreshest her weariness, and makest it very plenteous, behold, O God, my desert and unfruitful soul; I have already a parched ground; give me a land of rivers of waters; my soul is dry but not thirsty; it hath no water nor it desires none; I have been like a dead man to all the desires of heaven. I am earnest and concerned in the things of the world; but very indifferent, or rather not been greedy of Thy word, or longed for Thy sacraments; the worst of Thy followers came running after Thee for loaves though they cared not for the miracle; but Thou offerest me loaves and miracles together, and I have cared for neither: Thou offerest me Thyself and all Thy infinite sweetnesses, I have needed even the compulsion of laws to drive me to Thee; and then indeed I lost the sweetness of Thy presence, and reaped no fruit. These things, O God, are not well; they are infinitely amiss. But Thou that providest meat, Thou also givest appetite; for the desire and the meat, the necessity and the relief are all from Thee.”
(from The Worthy Communicant; Or, a Discourse of the Nature, Effects, and Blessings consequent to the Worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper, And of all the Duties required in Order to a Worthy Preparation: Together with the Cases of Conscience occurring in the Duty of Him that Ministers, and of Him that Communicates; As also Devotions Fitted to Every Part of the Ministration, 1667)

… dry but not thirsty … going along not even desiring the water … not even cognizant …
grateful for this today