Lent Week 2

Each week in Lent we are reading one of the writings from Christopher Webber's book A Time to Turn.


You can join the discussion each week at one of three times:
Sunday 9:15 am; Wednesday 6:15 pm; Thursday 1:00 pm

A reading from a meditation on God’s love by Elizabeth Rowe

 

O Lord God, permit a worthless creature to plead a little with you.  What honor will my destruction bring you? What profit, what triumph to the Almighty will my perdition be?  Mercy is your brightest attribute; this gives you all your loveliness, and completes your beauty.  By names of kindness and indulgence you have chosen to reveal yourself to us, by titles of the most tender meaning you have made yourself known to my soul: title which you do not yet disdain, but are still compassionate, and ready to pardon.

But that you have or will forgive me, O my God, aggravates my guilt.  And will you indeed forgive me?  Will you remit the gloomy score, and restore the privilege I have forfeited?  Wondrous love! Astonishing benignity!  Let me never live to repeat my ingratitude; let me never live to break my penitent vows; let me died before that unhappy moment arrives.

Almighty Love, the theme of every heavenly song! Infinite Grace, the wonder of angels! Forgive a mortal tongue that attempts thy praise; and yet should we be silent, the mute creation would find a voice to upbraid us.

But, oh, in what language shall I speak? With what circumstance shall I begin? Shall I roll back the volumes of eternity, and begin with the glorious design that determined our redemption before the birth of Time, before the confines of Creation were fixed?  Infinite years before the day, Or heavens began to roll? 

Shall I speak in general of all the nations of the redeemed? Or to excite my own gratitude, shall I consider myself, my worthless self, included, by an eternal decree, among the number of those who should hear of a Redeemer’s name and be marked out a partaker of that immense privilege?  Before the foundations of the hills were laid the gracious design was formed, and the blessed plan of it schemed out before the curtains of the sky were spread.

Lord! What are we? What am I? what is all the human race, to be so regarded? O narrow thoughts, and narrower words! Here confess your defects.  These are heights not to be reached by you.  Adorable measures of infinite clemency! Unsearchable riches of grace! With what astonishment do I survey you!  I am swallowed and lost in the glorious immensity.  All hail, you divine mysteries! You glorious paths of the unsearchable Deity: let me adore though I can never express you.

Yet should I be silent, heaven and earth, no hell itself, would reproach me; the damned themselves would call me ungrateful, should I fail to celebrate that grace, whose loss they are for ever lamenting, a loss that leaves them for ever desperate and undone.  ‘Tis this grace which tunes the harps of heaven, and yields them an immortal subject of harmony and praise.  The spirits of just men made perfect fix their contemplations here; they adore the glorious mystery, and while they sing the wonders of redeeming love, they subscribe sublime and living honors to the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb for ever. And infinitely worthy are you, O Lord, to receive the grateful homage.  Who shall not praise and magnify your name? who shall deny the tribute of your glory? 

But alas! What can mortals add to you?  What can nothingness and vanity give? We murmur from the dust, and attempt your praise from the depths of misery.  Yet you condescend to hear and listen to our broken accents; amid the hallelujahs of angels our groans ascend to you, our complaints reach you; from the height of your happiness and from the exaltations of eternal glory, you have a regard to us, poor wretched humanity!  You receive our homage with delight, our praises mingle with the harmony of angels, nor interrupt the sacred concord.  Those natives of heaven whose morning stars sing together in their heavenly beatitudes, nor disdain to let the children of earth and mortality join with them in celebrating the honors of Jesus, their Lord and ours.  To him be every tongue devoted, and let every creature for ever praise God.  Amen.

Who shall not praise God? What is grace?  For what do we praise God?  How can we praise God enough?

Elizabeth Rowe (1674-1737) was encouraged to write by Bishop Thomas Ken of Bath and Wells and published several biblical character sketches.  Her devotional prose was not published until after her death.  The fervor of her language embarrassed her editor, who modified language that he considered too extravagant.

From A Time to Turn by Christopher Webber

Lent - Week One

Each week in Lent we are reading a piece from an Anglican theologian or writer and discussing it.  The pieces are taken from Christipher Webber's book A Time to Turn.
If you want to discuss this week's piece come to one of the discussion sessions:
Sunday - 9:15 am; Tuesday - 6:15 pm; Thursday - 1:00 pm

A reading on sin from a sermon on John Donne on the text, “For my iniquities overwhelm me; like a heavy burden they are too much for me to bear”  (Psalm 38:4)

I cannot excuse my sins because of the example of my father, nor can I excuse them because of the times, or because of the ill disposition that rules society now, and do ill because everybody else does so.  To say there is a rot, therefore the sheep must perish, corruptions in religion have crept in and work in every corner and therefore God’s sheep, simple souls, must be content to admit the infection of this rot; that there is a murrain, and therefore cattle must die; superstition practiced in many places, and therefore the strong servants of God must come to sacrifice their obedience to it, or their blood for it.  There is no such rot, no such murrain, no such corruption of the times as can lay a necessity, or can afford an excuse to those who are corrupted with the times.  It is not such a peace as takes away honor that secures a nation, nor such a peace as takes away zeal that secures a conscience, so neither is it an observation of what others do or are inclined to do but what truth and integrity you decline from that needs to be considered.

It is not the sin of your father, not the sin of the times, not the sin of your own years, that you should say in your old age, in excuse of your covetousness, I have lived temperately, continently, all my life and therefore may be allowed one sin for my ease in my old age.  Or that you should say in your youth, I will retire in my old age and live contentedly then with a little, but now, how vain it would be to attempt to keep out the tide or quench the heat and impetuous violence of youth.  For if you think it enough to say, I have only lived as others have live, you will find some examples to die by also, and die as other old men and women, old in years and old in sins, have died also: negligently or fearfully, without any sense a tall, or all their sense turned into fearful apprehension and desperation.

They are not such sins as those of that age need to commit, nor such sins as those of your calling or your profession cannot avoid; so that you should say, I shall not be believed to understand my profession, as well as others, if I do not live by it as well as others do.  Is there no way to be a carpenter, except that after he has been made warm by the chips, and baked, and roasted by it, it is necessary to make an idol of the wood, and worship?  Is there no way to be a silversmith without needing to make shrines for Diana of the Ephesians as Demetrius did? No way to be a lawyer without serving the passion of the client?  No way to be a preacher without sowing pillows under great men’s elbows?  It is not the sin of your calling that oppresses you.  God has instituted callings for the conservation of order in general, not for the justification of disorders in any particular.  For those who justify their faults by their calling, have not yet received that calling from above, which is where they must be justified and sanctified on the way and glorified in the end.  There is no lawful calling in which you may not be honest.  

You cannot excuse yourself by the unjust command of your superior; nor the ill example of your pastor, whose life counter-preaches his doctrine, for that shall aggravate his, but not excuse your sin; nor the influence of stars, or such a working of a necessary and inevitable and unconditioned decrees of God as may obstruct a religious walking in this life, or a happy resting in the life to come.  It is none of these, not the sin of your Father, not the sin of the present times, not the sin of your years and age nor of your calling, nor of the magistrate, nor of your pastor, nor of destiny, nor of decrees, but it is your sin, your own sin.

What is sin?  What are the sins we commit? How do we try to excuse our sin?

John Donne (1571 -1631) was an unsuccessful lawyer who was urged to seek ordination by the king and was made dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Although he is better known today for his poetry, his sermons, prayers, and meditations are among the great monuments of the English language.

Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday - the beginning of Lent.  As a part of the services today the priest says:


"I invite you therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination an drepentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and mediation on God's holy Word.  And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer."


Repentance means to turn around - it is easy for us to follow things that catch our attention or that seem important and to suddenly realize that we have gone far from the place (or the person) we want to be.


We can use the days of Lent to stop, take a look around us, and decide if we are where and who we want to be and if not to repent, to turn around and to head back to where we really want to be.


"I invite you therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent,"

What were you expecting?

It's seemed like the every conversation the last few weeks has included the topic of the weather.  That is understandable - this is not what we expect for winter in Buffalo.

That got me thinking about expectations - what we expect, and how we react when things are different from our expectations. 

And that got me thinking about what we expect from God.  How do we expect God to act.  How do we expect God to enter our lives - and what happens when God acts differently then we expect - do we even notice?

Just food for thought as we wonder where the snow is this year.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is coming - as a matter of fact it is coming on Saturday.  We know that because the Christmas pageant was Sunday.  Here's a picture from our crack photographer, Charlie Hibschweiler.   The youth group created the pageant.  What would the Hogwarts Christmas Pageant look like?  Now we know - check out the video on St. Paul's web-site

Here's the new Christmas banner - hung in the church - thank you Jason, Brian, Brie and Kate for getting it up, looking good and not hurting yourselves in the process.

Hope to see you and your families at Christmas services -

Christmas Eve Services are at 4pm, 7pm & 11 pm
Christmas Day Service is at 9 am

January 1 the service is at 9 am

If you are travelling, be safe.

Have a Merry Christmas

Happy Thanksgiving

It is in fact that time of year - as hard as I'm finding it to believe.

I hope that all of you have safe travel and a happy thanksgiving.

We all have so much to be thankful for - it's good to take some time and stop and remember it.

Moving Quickly into fall

I can't believe how quickly fall has not only come - but has moved on.

Fall events have happened one on another. 

We did Sunday School kick-off and youth group kick-off with hot dogs on September 11.

We had a Ministry Fair on September 18.

We blessed pets on October 2.

We've gone to the UB game.

We are having a fall food festival and a Halloween Party.

This is a busy place - please let me know if there is something else that you would like to have happen - hold on tight, Advent and Christmas will be here before you know it.