I’ve spent much of the afternoon pondering a Broderick’s suggestion that Black people—and I think more specifically, Black bodies—are anti-sacramental in the white imagination. Much to the chagrin of my boss, who caught me staring off into space. It is, to use Broderick’s word, an enthralling thought. And his suggestion came just after I listened to an episode of The Liturgists Podcast that played with the idea of sacramentality beyond the 7 recognized sacraments.
dangerous unselfishness
"Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....
Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother."
'poem VI'
O saints, if I am even eligible for this prayer,
though less than worthy of this dear desire,
and if your prayers have influence in Heaven,
let my place there be lower than your own.
I know how you longed, here where you lived
as exiles, for the presence of the essential
Being and Maker and Knower of all things.
But because of my unruliness, or some erring
virtue in me never rightly schooled,
some error clear and dear, my life
has not taught me your desire for flight:
dismattered, pure, and free. I long
instead for the Heaven of creatures, of seasons,
of day and night. Heaven enough for me
would be this world as I know it, but redeemed
of our abuse of it and one another. It would be
the Heaven of knowing again. There is no marrying
in Heaven, and I submit; even so, I would like
to know my wife again, both of us young again,
and I remembering always how I loved her
when she was old. I would like to know
my children again, all my family, all my dear ones,
to see, to hear, to hold, more carefully
than before, to study them lingeringly as one
studies old verses, committing them to heart
forever. I would like again to know my friends,
my old companions, men and women, horses
and dogs, in all the ages of our lives, here
in this place that I have watched over all my life
in all its moods and seasons, never enough.
I will be leaving how many beauties overlooked?
A painful Heaven this would be, for I would know
by it how far I have fallen short. I have not
paid enough attention, I have not been grateful
enough. And yet this pain would be the measure
of my love. In eternity’s once and now, pain would
place me surely in the Heaven of my earthly love.
— Wendell Berry, from ‘Leavings’
The Gospel According to St. [REDACTED]
“This is my part.” Even though he was sleepy and bleary-eyed without his glasses, Benji wanted to read the Lessons. We were praying the Morning Office earlier today. Or at least, we were trying to. We got to the Gospel lesson and started fumbling around, somewhat baffled. My copy of the Revised English Bible left off at John 7:52 and picked up again at 8:12, missing precisely the passage that the lectionary assigned for today. I had vague childhood memories of a disputed section somewhere in the Gospels, but I had written over any specifics long ago. We forewent the Gospel lesson and moved on with our prayers. But I wanted to go back and look at the passage more closely.
on louis weil's 'a theology of worship'
we should not misunderstand “lex orandi, lex credendi” as reflecting any causal or directional relationship. the very lack of a conjunction nods at the ubiquity of the via media. the phrase does not indicate a strict ritualism in which the orthoprax performance of the liturgy is identical with piety. but neither does it reflect a purely expressive mode of worship as we see epitomized in the charismatic evangelical traditions. the lex orandi does not create the lex credendi any more than the lex credendi precedes the lex orandi. the relationship, as i understand it, is one of embodiment. the orthopraxy of the liturgy and the orthodoxy of the creed stand together mutually constituting each other, the one manifesting the other in its complementary realm. this resonates with the catechismal definition of a sacrament: “an outward and physical sign [and would add ‘conduit’] of an inward and spiritual grace.” as such, while a common liturgy necessitates some interpretive work to make the liturgy intelligible to a given context, extreme care should be taken in altering the substance of the lex orandi, because it cannot be altered without also impacting its inward manifestation in the creeds.
lex orandi, lex credendi
“Fundamentalism is not taught in the [Anglican] liturgy. The function of the Church as the interpreter of Scripture is set forth, both in words in the ordination rites and in liturgical action in the way the Bible is used and preached in the Sunday liturgies. The statements of the catechism go further than the lex orandi, but they are consonant with it and form the basis for the Episcopal Church’s position outlined there. God did not dictate the Bible, but inspired its human authors without overruling their human limitations. The Bible is not self-explanatory; it is interpreted by the Church.” – p. 292
“But this volume is not a work of systematic theology. It is a reflection on theology prima, and it will leave many ambiguities. The ambiguities exist, not because the liturgy and its theology are confused—although a good case can be made that its theology of confirmation in confused at present and has been for centuries—but because the theology of the liturgy is not really a system and therefore cannot be systematized in different ways by different schools of academic theologians without being betrayed.” – p. 302
from the final chapter of the late Leonel L. Mitchell’s Praying Shapes Believing: A Theological Commentary on The Book of Common Prayer