a penitential prayer of the blessed lancelot andrewes

"I will confess my sins,
and the sins of my fathers,
for I have transgressed and trespassed against
Thee, O Lord,
and walked contrary unto Thee.
Set not, O Lord, set not my misdeeds
before Thee,
nor my life in the light of Thy countenance,
but pardon the iniquity of Thy servant,
according to Thy great mercy;
as Thou hast been merciful to him from a child,
and even until now.

I have sinned, what shall I do unto Thee,
O Thou Preserver of men?
Why hast Thou set me as a mark against Thee,
so that I am a burden to myself?
Oh, pardon my transgression,
and take away mine iniquity.
Deliver me from going down to the pit,
for Thou hast found a ransom.

Have mercy on me, Son of David;
Lord, help me.
Yea, Lord, even the dogs eat of the crumbs
which fall from their master's table.
Have patience with me, Lord,
yet I have not wherewith to pay,
I confess to Thee;
forgive me the whole debt, I beseech Thee.

How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord?
for ever?
How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?
How long shall I seek counsel in my soul,
and be so vexed in my heart day and night?
How long shall mine enemies triumph over me?
Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
lighten mine eyes that I sleep not in death,
lest mine enemy say I have prevailed against him,
for if I be cast down, they that trouble me
will rejoice at it.
But my trust is in Thy mercy." Amen.

edward bouverie pusey

Good Jesu,
too late have I loved thee,
nor ever yet have I wholly followed thee;
make me now at last wholly to love thee,
and out of the fullness of thine infinite love
give me all the love I might have had, had I always loved thee.
O dearest Lord, too late have I loved thee, too late have I loved thee,
too late is it always, not always to have loved thee wholly.
Now, too, I cannot love thee as I would.
O dearest Lord, who art love,
give me thine own love,
that therewith I may wholly love thee. Amen.

archbishop williams

One of the things I am most grateful for, in light of the outcome of the Primates' Meeting, is the attitude of Archbishop Williams. He does not seem to have thrown in his lot with the Activists, despite his generally being considered a theological liberal. We ought to remind ourselves of who it was that chaired and mediated at the Primates' Meeting, namely Rowan Cantuar. And that he was able to put aside his personal views and preferences for the sake of fairness (and in recognition of the genuine work of the Holy Spirit in the exercise of Episcopal prerogatives) seems to have required a good deal of Christian charity and humility on his part. I am thankful to God for what I take to be the Godly use of Apostolic authority by Archbishop Williams.

ecce agnus dei

I wonder whether there is any warrant, either in the rubrics, or the canons, to include the injunction before the Communion:

Priest
Behold the Lamb of God.
Behold him who takes away the sin of the world.
Happy are they who are called to his supper.

People
Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
but only say the word, and I shall be healed.

Does anyone know? I have definitely heard it used before, but I'm not sure that it is strictly licit. I hope it is, because I think it is a wholesome bidding and prayer.

penitential context for daily prayer during lent

Considerations

1 Consider that a few years ago you were not in the world at all, that you were nothing. Where was your soul then? The world had already lasted so long and you were not known.

2 God has raised you from this nothingness and made you what you are, purely out of his goodness. He had no need of you.

3 Consider what nature God has given you; the highest in the visible world, capable of eternal life and perfect union with Him.

Spiritual Acts and Resolutions

1 Humble yourself

Humble yourself before God, saying in your heart with the psalmist:

My lifetime is as nothing in your sight. What is man, that you should be mindful of him? (Psalm 39.5; 8.4)

My soul, I was in the depths of nothingness and would still be there had not God drawn me out. If I were still there, what could I have done?

2 Give thanks to God

My good and great Creator, how much I owe you! In your mercy you decided to raise me from my nothingness to make me what I am. What can I possibly do to give you worthy praise or thank you enough for your immeasurable goodness?

3 Acknowledge your sinfulness

My Creator, instead of uniting myself to you in loving service, my disordered desires have made me a rebel and I have cut myself off from you. I have preferred sin and dishonored you, forgetting that you are my Creator.

4 Kneel down in worship

Know, my soul, that the Lord is God: it is he that has made us and we are his.

5 Resolve anew

From now on I will no longer put myself first: by myself I am nothing. What have I to glory in? I am dust and ashes, and even less than that! What have I to be proud of? In order to humble myself I will take the necessary steps, bear with humiliation, and change my life. I shall follow my Savior, honor the nature he has given me, align myself with his will, and, in obedience, accept the guidance of my spiritual director.

(From A Manual of Anglo-Catholic Devotion)

the most rev'd frank tracy griswold

pray for the holy father

VATICAN CITY, Feb. 24 - Pope John Paul II underwent surgery today to ease his breathing after he suffered a relapse of the flu and respiratory trouble, the Vatican said.

The chief Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the half-hour tracheotomy procedure at a Rome hospital was successful. The surgery involves cutting a hole in the windpipe to allow for a breathing tube to be inserted.

Read the whole article.

O God, the shepherd and ruler of all the faithful,
look down favorably upon your servant John Paul,
whom you have been pleased to appoint pastor over your Church;
grant, we bessech you, that he may benefit both by word and example
those over whom he is set,
and thus attain life eternal,
together with the flock committed to his care.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

May our Lord Jesus Christ,
present with us now in his risen power,
enter into the body and spirit of John Paul,
take from him all that harms and hinders him,
and fill him with healing and peace. Amen.

st. polycarp and us: my sermon at matins yesterday

“Fourscore and six years have I served Him, and he has done me no harm. How then can I curse my King that saved me.”

In the name of the + Father….

So spoke St. Polycarp to the men who arrested him and urged him to apostacize and save his life, according to a letter from the church at Smyrna. St. Polycarp bore witness to the gospel of our Lord and King by imitating the Savior’s total self-offering. The martyrology of St. Polycarp describes how his killers meant to burn him to death, but seeing that the flames would not consume him: “they commanded an executioner to go near and pierce him through with a dagger. And on his doing this, there came forth a dove, and a great quantity of blood, so that the fire was extinguished.” After St. Polycarp died, his body was pushed into the fire and burned. And when it was burned, according to the letter of the church at Smyrna, “we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps.”

Stop and think about this for a moment: We here today, you and I, claim to be members of the same Body that gathered the precious bones of the holy Polycarp, we claim membership in the Catholic Church. The Lord has granted us to celebrate the anniversary of St. Polycarp’s martyrdom. And we, the living members of the Body, what is sometimes called the Church Militant, are those yet to walk in the steps of the holy martyrs; we are those for whom the commemoration of the death of St. Polycarp was meant to be “the exercising and the preparation” so that we might, when the time comes, bear witness to the gospel of our King who saved us.

Lent is perhaps the most appropriate time to consider our exercise and our preparation. This morning’s reading from Jeremiah reminds us of our call, as the Church: the firm but gentle call of the Bridegroom, our spouse, who loves us and submitted himself to death for us, a call which we repeatedly ignore. In the words of Jeremiah, we continually treat our whoredom lightly. Archbishop Michael Ramsey spoke of ancient Israel being summed-up or epitomized in the body of the crucified Messiah. He also spoke of the Church being born of the water and the blood, flowing from the side of Christ. There is therefore a sense in which Israel and the Church are one and the same thing, for both find their identity in the Body of Jesus. I take this as warrant for reading the prophecy of Jeremiah as directed at us, at the Church: “Return, O faithless children, says the LORD, for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

May we spend the rest of Lent contemplating our faithlessness as members of the Body. May we mark the injunctions from Holy Matrimony to mutual submission, and submit ourselves to Him who submitted Himself to death for us, and who calls us patiently to return to Him, confident in His promise that he will bring us even to Zion, to the presence of God, that at the end our witness may be counted with the witness of all the saints who have gone before us as more precious than the most exquisite jewels, more purified than gold, in union with the witness of the glory of God in the cross of our Lord, to whom be glory, honor, majesty, and an everlasting throne, from generation to generation. Amen.

a lenten wittgensteinianism

The Christian religion is only for the man who needs infinite help, solely, that is, for the man who experiences infinite torment.

The whole planet can suffer no greater torment than a single soul.

The Christian faith -- as I see it -- is a man's refuge in this ultimate torment. Anyone in such torment who has the gift of opening his heart, rather than contracting it, accepts the means of salvation in his heart.

Someone who in this way penitently opens his heart to God in confession lays it open for other men too. In doing this he loses the dignity that goes with his personal prestige and becomes like a child. That means without official position, dignity or disparity from others. A man can bare himself before others only out of a particular kind of love. A love which acknoweldges, as it were, that we are all wicked children.

We could also say: Hate between men comes from our cutting ourselves off from each other. Because we don't want anyone else to look inside us, since it's not a pretty sight in there.

Of course, you must continue to feel ashamed of what's inside you, but not ashamed of yourself before your fellow-men.

No greater torment can be experienced than One human being can experience. For if a man feels lost, that is the ultimate torment.

(Ludwig Wittgenstein in Culture and Value)

the man who, as much as any, brought me seriously to consider the claims of the catholic faith

I read: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." -- And it is true: I cannot call him Lord; because that says nothing to me. I could call him "the paragon', 'God' even -- or rather, I can understand it when he is called thus; but I cannot utter the word 'Lord' with meaning. Because I do not believe that he will come to judge me; because that says nothing to me. And it could say something to me, only if I lived completely differently.

What inclines even me to believe in Christ's Resurrection? It is as though I play with the thought. -- If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like any other man. He is dead and decomposed. In that case he is a teacher like any other and can no longer help; and once more we are orphaned and alone. So we have to content ourselves with wisdom and speculation. We are in a sort of hell where we can do nothing but dream, roofed in, as it were, and cut off from heaven. But if I am to be REALLY saved, -- what I need is certainty -- not wisdom, dreams or speculation -- and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what is needed by my heart, my soul, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, that has to be saved, not my abstract mind. Perhaps we can say: Only love can believe the Resurrection. Or: It is love that believes the Resurrection. We might say: Redeeming love believes even in the Resurrection; holds fast even to the Resrurrection. What combats doubt is, as it were, redemption. Holding fast to this must be holding fast to that belief. So what that means is: first you must be redeemed and hold on to your redemption (keep hold of your redemption) -- then you will see that you are holding fast to this belief. So this can come about only if you no longer rest your weight on the earth but suspend yourself from heaven. Then everything will be different and it will be "no wonder" if you can do things that you cannot do now. (A man who is suspended looks the same as one who is standing, but the interplay of forces within him is nevertheless quite different, so that he can act quite differently than a standing man.)

(Ludwig Wittgenstein in Culture and Value)