We hear Saint Paul today teaching us to be imitators of God, as beloved children. If we takes that the slightest bit seriously, then we are immediately drawn to a great pause. Paul wants us to imitate God?!? That’s quite a big ask. Usually we are urged to imitate the Saints. And as difficult sounding as that might be, the Saints are at least human! They are like us, and we are like them. But we are not like God.

We can go right down the list: God is Eternal, and we are not. God is Incomprehensible, and we are not. God is outside the conditions of time and space. God is Perfect, and perfect in all attributes with which we speak of Him: perfect beauty, perfect truth, perfect goodness. God is not merely holy – He is Himself Holiness. God is not merely loving – He is Himself Love. He is the source of all, the lover of all, the sustainer of all. So, sure, let’s imitate Him.

Let us bear in mind words I preached last Sunday: Lent is the season especially to focus on holy lives, and the holiness which must be part of every Christian’s experience, because as Saint Paul teaches in his epistle to the Hebrews, “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” This is what Saint Paul is after: imitating the holiness of God. Or simply: that we are to walk in holiness. Walk in love, holy love, the holy love of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross: walk as Christ loved us, and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Holiness is the life we are called to live. Our lives must not be polluted by sexual immortality, or impurity of any kind. There ought be no filthiness, foolish talk, or crude joking, Paul says. Rather, let us always offer our thanks to the God we adore. We are to walk as children of the light, always seeking to discern what is pleasing to the Lord, and then doing those things as a habit. And we are to expose works of darkness around us, works of darkness we come upon, we are to expose, but bringing in the light of Christ. We are to follow God’s commandments – to love God with everything that we are, and to love our neighbor as ourself, that and all the other commandments of God. We are to pray daily, worship regularly, study Scripture as we are able, and perform works of mercy. All of these sorts of things come up when the subject is a life of holiness.

Yet holiness is also an attitude, a disposition, a posture or stance before God. We develop this attitude through being in right relationship with God, and here I mean having the right understanding of our relationship with God. Our relationship with God, from His side, is continuous. He is always keeping us in existence, moment to moment. And because He is Creator and we are creature, and He is perfect Creator, then He always has a perfect love for His creatures, a perfect love for us at all times. And as I said before, God is Eternal, God is Incomprehensible, God is perfect. He dwells in Light inaccessible, and dwells outside the conditions of time and space. When we think of Him, acknowledging Who He is ought to take our breath away. Our God is an awesome God.

This is where holiness emerges. We adore God, we behold Him, and then we look at ourselves. The sight of God comes first, then the sight of self, and all holiness springs from these two sights. To see God clearly and to see self clearly, we are drawn into holiness through the true vision of both God and self, and God and His people. We perceive the difference between God and us, and this difference is immense: He is Creator, we are creature, and each of us is one of countless creatures all created by the Divine Maker. Yet being like nothing, we are loved by God Who is the Maker, Creator, and Sustainer of all.

And holiness springs from knowing how prone to temptation we can be: temptation from the flesh, the world, and the Devil and his demons. Jesus provides us with necessary caution and wisdom in the spiritual life. Yes, by the grace of Christ unclean spirits go out of a person, and they are the better – the much better – for it. Yet rather than celebrate good times, we must have caution, our Lord insists. We must have caution and not let our guard down, because the demon is surely to return, and return with more unholy demons. The unseen warfare of the spiritual life requires constant vigilance.

And so we ask our Almighty and awesome God to stretch forth the right hand of His Majesty. We ask Him to be our defence against all our enemies. We ask His protection, we ask the protection of our Guardian Angel – that by His grace we are able to avoid immortality, impurity, filthiness, and foolishness. We ask the strength to reject the invitations of those walking in darkness – invitations to join them in seemingly benign revelry. We ask that by God’s grace our house is guarded by the blood of the Lamb – the blood of Jesus Christ, Who gives Himself to us always as holy Sacrifice that we are drawn to participate in His ever-living Sacrifice as He lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

This Lent on Friday evenings I am offering a teaching series called “The Wonder of Prayer.” It explores key facets of the prayer life. Last night was the third session.

The audio of the talk is above. The two parts of this second session are

* What is Prayer? (a review)

* The Threefold Regula — the Rule of the Church

* Penitence and Petition

We review prayer as such as well as the threefold Regula (the Rule of the Church). Then we look at the four characteristics of true prayer—reviewing Adoration and Thanksgiving and introducing Penitence and Petition.

What is Prayer?

Combining the doctrines of prayer by S. John of Damascus and Father Martin Thornton yields a composite definition of prayer:

Prayer is spiritual activity: our lifting up of the heart and mind to the living God – anything we do which is conditioned by conscious relationship with Him, a relationship which is continuous, whether or not it is recognized or articulated.

PENITENCE AND PETITION

1. Julian of NorwichRevelations of Divine Love, chapter 5

We need to have in our knowing the littleness of creatures and to hold as naught (“nothing”) all-things that are made, so that we can love our God Who is unmade. For this is the cause as to why we are not at east in our heart and soul: that we seek here rest in those things that are so little, in which there is no rest, and do not know that our God is Almighty, all-wise, and all-good. For He is the true Rest. God wills Himself to be known, and it pleases Him that we rest in Him. This is the cause why no soul can rest: it cannot rest until it is made nought as to all things that are made. When we willingly see ourselves as nought, and that this is how we love God and see Him as all in all, and we are able to receive true spiritual rest from God and in God.

2. Julian of Norwich

God, of Thy goodness, give me Thyself:for Thou art enough to me,and I may ask nothing that is lessthat may be full worship to Thee;and if I ask anything that is less,ever me be in want – for only in Thee I have all.

3. Confession of Sin from the Book of Common Prayer

Let us humbly confess our sins unto Almighty God.

Silence may be kept.

Almighty God,Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,maker of all things, judge of all men:We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness,which we from time to time most grievously have committed,by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine Majesty,provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.We do earnestly repent,and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings;the remembrance of them is grievous unto us,the burden of them is intolerable.Have mercy upon us,have mercy upon us, most merciful Father;for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake,forgive us all that is past;and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life,to the honor and glory of thy Name;through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Evenings With Bede is a homily podcast. The episodes are taken from the Sunday solemn Plainsong Evensong services of Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach, Fla., where I am Rector.

SEASON TWO is devoted to understanding the Song of Songs with the Venerable S. Bede as teacher, and yours truly as interpreter. We will go verse by verse through the entirety of the Song of Songs.

The format is a short passage from the Song of Songs, then comes commentary from the Bede, and finally an interpretive homily by yours truly expounding upon both. The audio for all three is found above. The text of the two passages is found below.

A Lesson from the Song of Songs, 1.15

Behold, you are beautiful, my friend; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are those of doves. Behold, You are beautiful, my love, and comely. Your couch is full of flowers. The beams of our houses are of cedar, our paneled ceilings of cypress wood.

A Lesson from a Treatise by the Venerable S. Bede

Thus far, the Church has been receiving from her Redeemer gifts that she invokes as tokens of love. Then He responds to her by way of reward: “Behold, you are beautiful, my friend; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are those of doves.” It is as if He said, “Behold, you are beautiful in the pure works with which you live soberly and justly and piously in this world; behold, you are beautiful in the simplicity of heart with which you apply yourself to good deeds for the purpose of eternity alone, awaiting the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God. Your eyes are those of doves, the eyes of your heart are simple and pure and utterly free from all duplicity of deceiving or pretending; behold, they are greatly blessed because such eyes as these will see God.” And again as if He said, “Your eyes are as those of doves because your spiritual senses are endowed with understanding”; for since the Holy Spirit descended upon the Lord in the form of a dove, rightly are the spiritual senses and gifts signified by the terms “doves” or “those of doves.” Again, Christ’s friend has the eyes of a dove because every soul that truly loves Him inwardly in not like a bird of prey aroused by any craving for external things, nor does she contemplate any harm that she might inflict upon living things; for they say that the dove is gentle by nature and contemplates everything that happens with a heart that is simple, meek, and humble.

If you find this edifying, please consider (if you haven’t already) becoming a paid subscriber. Your support goes directly to supporting the ministry of Akenside Institute for English Spirituality, a project I started 12 years ago to help to rebuild the Anglican tradition.

Our patron, Saint Paul, has a word today about true holiness. And we also hear the curious story Jesus and the Canaanite woman, about which we will speak about in a moment. Paul teaches that God called us to a lift of holiness. That holiness is characteristic of our prayer life, indeed how we walk, so as to please God. Indeed, as David says in our Psalm: that we lift up our soul to God, in Whom we put our trust. Our lives ought be different than regular lives of non-Christians. So we will get into that more.

I completed my sermon last Sunday with these words: Let us say unto the Lord: Lord, Thou art my hope, and my stronghold. And how do we say this but in prayer? Prayer is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God, taught S. John of Damascus, 8th century Church Father. Let us truly pray, by lifting our heart and mind to God this whole season of Lent. This is what makes Lent a holy season: that our prayer is more intense, that our prayer is more robust, that our prayer is regular, which is to say, daily. End of those words.

So Lent is the season especially to focus on holy lives, and the holiness which must be part of every Christian’s experience, because as Saint Paul teaches in his epistle to the Hebrews, “Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

This is one of the lessons our Lord seeks to teach us through the Gospel account from Saint Matthew. The thing to immediately notice in passage is the tension evident between the disciples and Our Lord Jesus. “Send her away, for she is crying after us,” they implore Jesus. But Jesus does not send her away, but rather listens to her, talks with her, and eventually praises her great faith, so much so that we are left with the impression that it was her great faith that healed her daughter from the demon, indeed exorcised her of the demon.

The next thing to notice is the dialogue between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. After the disciples attempted unsuccessfully to command Jesus to send her away, He says “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before Him – she knelt, that is, she worshiped – and she said, “Lord, help me. And He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus answers, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” It sounds on a plain reading that Jesus is being unloving at first and is trying to exclude the woman. But if that we the case, it would violate basic doctrine about Jesus, that His very nature is love and that His Mission from the beginning is always for the salvation of all peoples. So what is going on here?

It is not Our Lord who is being taught about compassion and love, but rather the disciples and their hardened hearts, and by extension, us and our hardened hearts. Both of the seemingly inflammatory statements by Jesus—the first, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and the second, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs”—reflect the exclusionary attitude of the Jewish religion of Jesus’s day, as well as the centuries prior. The Jews had been looking for a political messiah to restore political power to them and allow them to complete the rebuilding of the Temple and thereby overthrow their occupiers, the Romans. The last thing they wanted was a Messiah for all peoples Whose very showing of divine power was to die on the tree of the Cross—and be a voluntary failure according not to the illumined eyes of the heart, but rather according to the closed and blind eyes of the world. But it was always the plan of Jesus to show the world what it means to be God by the way He died as a human being.

In other words, Jesus used this moment with the Canaanite woman to teach not her but the disciples words He had taught to Isaiah centuries before: “Foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, to love the Name of the Lord, and to be His servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath, and does not profane it, and hold fast My covenant—these I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer.”

And this is what holiness means: God is at work in all people, with no exceptions. He was at work in the prostitute Rahab in our first reading, so much so that through her faith, Joshua led the sons of Israel through the Jordan into the promised land. He was at work in the Canaanite woman, so much so that through her faith not only was her daughter healed, but it was used by Jesus to teach all Christians about real faith. Recognizing that God is at work in all people mean our heart and mind are holy, that they are partaking of the living water springing up into life eternal, indeed participating in the celestial water which is above the heavens. Such a heart and mind have been applied to lofty and exalted things, and able, as Saint Paul teaches, to regard no one from a human point of view, even to put on the mind of Christ, which we all are called to do – to love as Christ loves. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

This Lent on Friday evenings I am offering a teaching series called “The Wonder of Prayer.” It will explore the many facets of the prayer life. Last night was the first session.

The audio of the talk is above. The two parts of this second session are

* What is Prayer? (a review)

* The Rule (Pattern) of Prayer

* Adoration and Thanksgiving

The first part reviews the basic definitions of prayer from S. John of Damascus and Father Martin Thornton. The second part looks at two characteristics of true prayer: Adoration and Thanksgiving.

What is Prayer?

1. “Prayer is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God.”

(S. John of Damascus, d. 749, Greek Church Father)

2. Prayer is our spiritual activity: anything we do which is conditioned by relationship with the living God.

Prayer is continuous relationship with God, whether or not that relationship is recognized or articulated.

(Martin Thornton, d. 1986, Anglican priest and confessor)

Putting those two together yields:

Prayer is spiritual activity: our lifting up of the heart and mind to the living God – anything we do which is conditioned by conscious relationship with Him, a relationship which is continuous, whether or not it is recognized or articulated.

ADORATION AND THANKSGIVING

From the Anaphora of Saint Basil the Great(Eucharistic Prayer D from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, in traditional idiom)

All remain standing for the SURSUM CORDA

Celebrant The Lord be with you.

People And with thy spirit.

Celebrant Lift up your hearts.

People We lift them up unto the Lord.

Celebrant Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.

People It is meet and right so to do.

The Celebrant continues

O Master, the One Who Is, Lord God, Father Almighty, Who Art to be worshiped, it is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, to glorify Thee, O Father, and to give thanks unto Thee, for Thou alone art God, living and true, dwelling in Light inaccessible from before all time and for ever. Fountain of life and Source of all goodness, Thou hast made all things and didst fill them with Thy blessing, creating them to rejoice in the splendor of Thy radiance. Countless throngs of angels stand before Thee to serve Thee night and day; and, beholding the glory of Thy presence, they offer Thee unceasing praise. Joining with them, and giving voice to every creature under heaven, we praise Thee, and glorify Thy Name, saying,

Celebrant and People say or sing the SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts: Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.Glory be to Thee, O Lord Most High.Blessed ✠ is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

All kneel. The Celebrant continues

We acclaim Thee, holy Lord, glorious in power, Whose mighty works reveal Thy wisdom and love. Thou hast formed us in thine own image, giving the whole world into our care, that in obedience unto Thee, our Maker, we might rule and serve all Thy creatures. When our disobedience took us far from Thee, Thou didst not abandon us to the power of death, but in Thy mercy Thou didst come to our help, that in seeking Thee we might find Thee. Again and again Thou didst call us into covenant with Thee, and through the prophets Thou didst teach us to hope for salvation.

Thou didst so love the world, O Father, that in the fullness of time Thou didst send Thine Only-Begotten Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, He lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor He proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy. That Thy purpose might be fulfilled, He gave himself up unto death; and rising from the grave He destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

And that we might live no longer unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us and rose again, He sent the Holy Spirit, His own first gift for those who believe, to complete His work in the world, bringing to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

[INSTITUTION NARRATIVE, and then]. . . And now, O Father, we celebrate this memorial of our redemption. Recalling Christ’s Death and His Descent among the dead, proclaiming His Resurrection and Ascension to Thy Right Hand, awaiting His Coming in glory, and offering unto Thee, from the gifts which Thou hast given us, this Bread and this Cup, we praise Thee and we bless Thee.

The conclusion of my sermon for last Sunday had these words: In the profound account given us of love in the example of Jesus Christ, we may well feel overwhelmed at our great lack of it, as we come to fathom the depths of our need, and measure ourselves by Our Lord’s perfect pattern. Our great relief now, in Lent, and all our days is to look to Christ in prayer; in prayer with regard to every particular of our daily short-comings; and what we derive from dwelling on the fact of our vices and sins, and thus our falling short of Christ’s expectation of us, is the assurance, that if we are faithful in Him and genuine in our desire to follow Him, to put off our old man and put on the new garments of Christ, if we are like the blind man who simply cried out to Jesus and said, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” He will hear us.

This is why Jesus entered into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. He did this not for Himself, for He is the Sinless One. He did this for us, that we would always know that He hears us in prayer. After all, Jesus is God. And in being God, He made a clear-cut decision to go into the wilderness for a very definite purpose. Jesus took on the Devil in the wilderness because He sought the Devil out. There was no question as to who would win this battle. Christ had already won the war, because He is God and the Devil is not. The Devil had lost long ago, had lost to Archangel Michael and his holy Angels fighting under their general, Jesus Christ. The Devil and his angels were thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

This is what Moses described in Genesis chapter 1, verse 4: “God separated the light from the darkness,” the darkness that was over the face of the deep abyss of hell. The word “darkness” in Genesis 1 refers to the unholy angels of the Devil, and the Devil himself. They were separated from God’s grace by their own demonic pride, and now cover the face of the deep abyss of hell. Hence the Devil appears already in Genesis 2 to Eve and Adam, already the face of darkness, of temptation. Christ had already won the battle against the Devil, and so His entering into the wilderness was to show His disciples, to show us, that Jesus Christ conquers. And so do we, if we imitate the Archangel Michael and fight the devil under the banner of Jesus Christ.

We do this in our prayer. The battle is unseen warfare in our heart. Our weapons are the weapons of righteousness as Saint Paul teaches in the Epistle: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God. We must have these weapons of Christ. Without them, we stand no chance against the temptations of the Devil. These weapons of righteousness are weapons of Christ’s light. With these weapons, the darkness of the unseen warfare is brought into the light of Christ. These weapons of righteousness are Christ’s grace, by which we are able to triumph over every evil. We are able to wield these weapons if we no longer live to ourselves, but unto Him Who died for us and rose again. Without Christ, the weapons are too heavy for our frail bodies of little strength. With Christ, He lifts them, He wields them, because Christ is our strength and our shield.

We possess these weapons as the fruit of faith in Christ. We know He will use them through us because we know that Christ always hears us if we call to Him in faith, in love, in zeal, out of our yearning for Him: His presence, His peace, His power. We know He hears us because in keeping His words and keeping His commandments, Christ dwells in us – for He taught this very thing, and taught it many times. And because He dwells in us, we dwell in His defense, under the defense of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty.

Let us say unto the Lord: Lord, Thou art my hope, and my stronghold. And how do we say this but in prayer? Prayer is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God, taught S. John of Damascus, 8th century Church Father. Let us truly pray, by lifting our heart and mind to God this whole season of Lent. This is what makes Lent a holy season: that our prayer is more intense, that our prayer is more robust, that our prayer is regular, which is to say, daily. Let us this Lent read and meditate upon God’s holy Word more than we usually do. Let us this Lent worship in the Liturgy more often than we usually do. By increasing the intensity of our prayer and the frequency of our prayer, we allow Jesus Christ to join us in our hearts, and to win the battle against the Devil and his dragon-like angels: because our God is an awesome God, He is Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

This Lent on Friday evenings I am offering a teaching series called “The Wonder of Prayer.” It will explore the many facets of the prayer life. Last night was the first session.

The audio of the talk is above. The two parts of the first session are

* Images of Prayer

* What is Prayer?

The first part is an exploration of various icons that illustrate dimensions or kinds of prayer, and in the second part I share basic definitions of prayer from S. John of Damascus and Father Martin Thornton.

Images of Prayer

What is Prayer?

1. “Prayer is the lifting up of the heart and mind to God.”

(S. John of Damascus, d. 749, Greek Church Father)

2. Prayer is continuous relationship with God, whether or not that relationship is recognized or articulated.

Prayer is spiritual activity: anything we do which is conditioned by our relationship with the living God.

(Martin Thornton, d. 1986, Anglican priest and confessor)

The Liturgy for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the western Church, happens in a unique way in my parish. We only celebrate Matins and Evensong, and do not celebrate a Eucharist.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that the absense of Holy Communion helps to create a sense of stark relief and contrast. This is very helpful to bring about and induce a shift to Lent which is experiential.

The second is that the appointed Scripture readings for Ash Wednesday in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer are excellent, and fit together perfectly for not only Ash Wednesday but for the whole of Lent. These readings are:

* Jonah 3-4:11 — Jonah’s proclaiming to the Ninevites

* Hebrews 12:1-14 — S. Paul’s teaching on Christ’s perserverance and discipline

* Luke 18:9-14 — Our Lord’s Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

The audio above includes the three readings and is followed by my my sermon. The sermon was offered extemporaneously, and thus there is no prepared text for you to read.

If you want to skip the readings and go straightway to the preaching, that starts just after the 9-minute mark.

May your Lent be blessed and holy, my friends!

Evenings With Bede is a homily podcast. The episodes are taken from the Sunday solemn Plainsong Evensong services of Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach, Fla., where I am Rector.

SEASON TWO is devoted to understanding the Song of Songs with the Venerable S. Bede as teacher, and yours truly as interpreter. We will go verse by verse through the entirety of the Song of Songs.

The format is a short passage from the Song of Songs, then comes commentary from the Bede, and finally an interpretive homily by yours truly expounding upon both. The audio for all three is found above. The text of the two passages is found below.

A Lesson from the Song of Songs, 1.12

While the King was on His dining couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My Beloved is to me a bundle of myrrh that shall lie between my breasts. My Bloved is to me a grape-cluster from Cyprus in the vineyards of Engaddi.

A Lesson from a Treatise by the Venerable S. Bede

Because after the death of our Mediator and Saviour there soon follows the glory of the Resurrection, the Bride rightly says, “My Beloved is to me a grape-cluster from Cyprus in the vineyards of Engaddi.” Surely the meaning of this little verse according to the surface of the letter is this: “Just as the island of Cyprus produces grape-clusters that are larger than those from other lands, and just as those that grow in the Judean city that is called Engaddi are nobler than those from other vineyards, inasmuch as the liquid that comes from them is not wine but balsam, that much dearer to me is my Beloved than all those to whom I am joined in love, so that no creature can separate me from His affection.” But typologically, in the same way that myrrh on account of its bitterness signifies the sorrow of the Lord’s Passion, in which He took both myrrh and wine to drink from the soldiers and was anointed with myrrh by the disciples when they laid Him in the tomb, just so, as we have already said, it is not unseemly for a grape-cluster to indicate the joy of His Resurrection. For wine gladdens the human heart (Ps. 104:15). Therefore the Lord, Who had been a bundle of myrrh in His Passion, became a grape-cluster of Cyprus at the Resurrection. Accordingly, He lies between the Bride’s breasts because He has turned into a grape-cluster of the vineyard, which is the reason that holy Church never puts the memory of the Lord’s death away from her heart, since the One Who died for her trespasses also rose from death for her justification (Rom 4:25) and gave her an example of being raised after the anguish of death, so that she might follow in His footsteps.

If you find this edifying, please consider (if you haven’t already) becoming a paid subscriber. Your support goes directly to supporting the ministry of Akenside Institute for English Spirituality, a project I started 12 years ago to help to rebuild the Anglican tradition.

Last Sunday’s sermon finished with these words: In addition to the liturgical life and the Sacraments, the Church has always taught of the necessity of examining our conscience, and doing so regularly. Preparing for Lent is a time to examine our conscience. It is a time to take inventory about ourselves. It is a time to take inventory about our habits, and whether we have unholy habits, unholy vices, that keep us from being good soil. To borrow from Saint John: If we say we have no vices, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our vices, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our vices, and cleanse us from the unrighteousness of our vices.

Today, on the Sunday before Lent, the Church sets before us the subject of charity, the older translation of the more modern word “love.” “Charity” is the English translation of the Latin word, caritas, which means “love,” that is, the sacrificial love demonstrated by Christ and embodied by Him. The Church brings before the subject of charity, or love, to remind us that all works of repentance, of turning to God, can be of no avail unless they begin and end in the love of God. On Sunday last we had the account of St. Paul’s apostolic labours, but in the Epistle for today, he tells us of how little avail all our works and labours must be without charity.

It has been said that the thirteenth chapter of Saint Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians is the most important chapter of the Bible. The reason such a high claim is made about this chapter, which is our Epistle reading today, is that it teaches us two fundamental things. The first is that it teaches profoundly about Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. And the second is that it teaches us how to respond to Christ’s blessed Passion and precious Death. In understanding Paul’s holy doctrine of love, we know more about Christ and we know more about ourselves – more about our Saviour and about being His disciples—more about our King and about what it means to be crowned—about the Perfect Love of Jesus to which we aspire to imitate in our lives every day.

We know that Paul’s doctrine of love teaches about Jesus Christ and Him crucified because, as Paul says of love, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” This describes perfectly our Lord, Who bore all our sins on the Cross, believed all that His Father had given Him, hoped for the salvation of all, and endured spitting, mocking, torture, and disbelief in Him all while keeping in Himself the peace which passes all understanding. In support of this, we have Saint John, who said, “God is love.” The Father is love, the Son is love, the Holy Ghost is love. And we know that Jesus is Himself the perfect pattern of love again from Saint John, who records our Lord says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” We are His friends, because all that Jesus heard from His Father He has made known to us.

As Paul’s doctrine teaches us about Jesus, his doctrine teaches us about ourselves as disciples of Jesus. How easily this is seen by remembering our Lord’s commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and … that Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” We are to love the Father and we are to love our neighbor. In both cases we are to imitate our Lord’s love for the Father and our Lord’s love for every human being. No matter what words we say, without love we are nothing. No matter what wisdom and knowledge we might have, without love we are nothing. No matter what we do, even if we give our body to be burned, if we do not have love, are nothing. This is simply to say with with love we have life in the Holy Spirit, but without love we are spiritually dead, as if we never knew of Jesus, nor He us. Jesus told the five foolish virgins “I do not know you” and shut the door to them because they did not have love and perform acts of mercy, acts of love, in their life.

It is true that with the profound account given us of love in the example of Jesus Christ, we may well feel overwhelmed at our great lack of it, as we come to fathom the depths of our need, and measure ourselves by Our Lord’s perfect pattern. Our great relief now, in Lent, and all our days is to look to Christ in prayer; in prayer with regard to every particular of our daily short-comings; and what we derive from dwelling on the fact of our vices and sins, and thus our falling short of Christ’s expectation of us, is the assurance, that if we are faithful in Him and genuine in our desire to follow Him, to put off our old man and put on the new garments of Christ, if we are like the blind man who simply cried out to Jesus and said, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,” He will hear us. Jesus Christ has taught us that all our doings without love, without charity, are worth nothing; hence we ask God to send His Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts the gift of Christ’s mercy, the gift of divine love, which is the true bond of peace and all virtues—indeed that the Holy Ghost give us the gift of Christ in our hearts, that we may continue to conceive in our hearts the Eternal Word of the Father, Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the same Father and the same Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.