Patristic Quote of the Day

Now, notice here that my words are exact: the seed of a man, mortal and corruptible, begets and gives birth through a woman to sons who are mortal and corruptible; the immortal and incorruptible Word of the immortal and incorruptible God, however, begets and gives birth to immortal and incorruptible children, after having been born of the virgin by the Holy Spirit. - St. Symeon the New Theologian, *On the Mystical Life* pp. 59-60

Weekend Stuff

Lauren showed up yesterday in the a.m. We ended up visiting for a while, then she headed to Metro to spend some time with her sister and to catch up with her former teachers. Jo, Cindi and I joined her for lunch at La Fonda's, and then a trip over to Office Depot to harass David for not having his phone on him. Then in the evening we built a fire, roasted hotdogs, and made smores (no, I didn't have any) - Dean and Lauren, David, Bekah, Jo, Dave, Cindi and I. The wind was blowing like crazy yesterday and the fire had a hard time of it! Then we played some cards in the middle of which Cindi and I went to a wedding rehearsal. Dean was definitely NOT the winner of the second game. And neither was Jo. It amazes me how often Bekah manages to go out on the last hand. She's going to have to teach me her trick one of these days.

Today has been a quiet day so far. Cindi and Lauren went for a bike ride and to check out Jo and Dave's set up for the Craft Fair at our local grocery. Wedding for Tom and Darlene is coming up at 1 and then the reception, then confession at 5 and the Eucharist at 6. We'll close off the day by joining Tim and Lynn and the kids for dinner at Bully's.

Tomorrow just the usual round: Divine Services and Bible Study and Catechism Service. Yup, just our Lord with His forgiveness and His body and blood and His life-giving Spirit and His words that sustain us in faith and give us a hope beyond all the joys of this life. What a life we live, people loved by God! Our God blesses us with all the little things and all the big things along the way too. How joyous it is to be His guest in this world, and to know that He has prepared for us a home - a home without any goodbyes ever again. Glory to Him forever!

A New Outfit

Bekah bought this for her buddy today. I happen to think it looks smashing, but Lucy can't understand why she can't just shake it off!

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

The Symbols must be used and they must be taught so that they bring about a uniformity of conviction, that they create a climate of opinion which neither acts as a restraint upon conscientious and reverent inquiry nor encourages an irresponsible nose-thumbing iconoclasm which holds confessional loyalty up to ridicule or which regards it as a reflection upon the adequacy of the Sacred Scriptures. -- Piepkorn, *The Sacred Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions* p. 96

Patristic Quote of the Day

Enter with a humbled heart into the house of God and you have entered with a gift. St. Augustine, *On the Psalms* Psalm 95

Good Read

Now here's a fellow I'd like to meet someday!

Sauer

A Von Schenk Joy

"They had three speakers: Gustave Wiegel of Woodstock, Rome's great theologian in America, Alexander Schmemann (whom I consider the most brilliant of all the theologians I have met) representing the Russian Orthodox Church, and I. Gustave Wiegel and I got into a little hassle. There was a question and answer period after the three lectures, and the question directed at me was: 'What is the Church?' I answered: 'According to St. Paul it is the Eucharistic community, under the direction of the ordained minister of the church, to manifest the total presence of Christ.' This was not original with me; St. Paul would agree with that definition, so would the ancient Church Fathers. But Wiegel protested, 'It is the Kahal Yisrael' ('Congregation of Israel'). Dr. Walther would have answered, 'It is the Missouri Synod, because they preach and teach pure doctrine.'" - *Lively Stones* pp. 117, 118

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

He is risen, not for Himself but for our sake, that His resurrection may be made ours, that we may also rise in Him, and not remain in death and the grave, but with Him may celebrate in the body an everlasting Easter. - Blessed Martin Luther, Sermons from the Year 1533.

Patristic Quote of the Day

For Christ is one, in whom every nation that believes, and every tongue that confesses, is gathered unto God. -- St. Ignatius of Antioch, to the Mangesians, Chapter 10

The Measure of Love

Our men's study group this morning studied the new obedience article in the Augsburg Confession. Doug asked a very good question about the measure of love. Has the Church ever offered guidance on this? We talked about the measure of love being precisely how we treat our enemies, the people who are most unkind to us and take advantage of us. Praying for them, speaking well of them, seeking God's blessing on their lives. And forgiving them as often as they ask - our Lord's famous seven times in a day. Such love is only possible for us in union with Christ, for He is that Love and His Spirit pours it into us. He is the one who loved His enemies, and prayed for those who drove the nails, and sought to bring the blessing of eternal life to our whole race. We are freed in Him to grow in that love day by day, and God continues to set before us wonderful opportunities to practice it. What is the measure of love? The man hanging upon the tree, bloodied and battered, and seeking only to draw all people to God. "We love, because He first loved us." Grant us, Lord, to grow in Your love, for we know that this alone is LIFE!

At long last...

...rain. It was pouring when I returned from Maryville about half past noon. It has rained off and on during the day. What a grace of God: "Thou visitest the earth and waterest it, thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water." (Aufdemberge's setting, learned 25 years ago and more at Bronxville, ringing in my ears).

But even when it is welcome and the earth has been aching for it, thirsting for it, it brings the spirit down. And that despite the fact that I love to hear it pounding on the roof and spilling out of the gutters and hitting the windows. When Goldberry's washing day comes, it seems a perfect day for melancholy thoughts and sitting about, telling old stories and thinking of the past.

For me, the memory that always stirs is sometime in my childhood. Our little house at 2719 Munson Street in Wheaton, MD. My oldest brother (then high school drop out, now college professor!) had left for a stint in the Coast Guard, the other children were all at school, but I was too young to go to school. I remember it was mid morning and the back door open, off my parent's bedroom. I laid on the bed. The doves had been singing their mournful song, and then the rain came. In sheets. It fell and fell and you could hear its music. There was just that and the sound of the iron (an odd click every now again) as mom as banished the wrinkles from all our clothes at the ironing board next to the bed. I don't remember the time of the year, but I remember the sadness. It still comes when the rain falls like that. Silence and rainfall. And a sense of loss.

Boring Personal Stuff

Doctor's appointment yesterday. Told me blood pressure was too high and that I need to exercise. How rude. If I wanted to hear that, I'd just have to "listen" to the look my wife gives me all the time.

But the good news was the blood work. LDL - 59; HDL - 85; Total: 185. And this after eating low-carb Atkins diet for almost seven years. Kind of a myth-buster, eh? Now the triglycerides were high - 207 - and I suspect that's related to enjoying first article gifts too much and to that nasty thing the doctor said about exercise. Sigh. So I guess I need to get off the puter and go for a run. Aw, shucks, it's raining. Guess I'll have to WAIT a bit before that run! ;)

Ack! I've been tagged!

Lutheran Lucciola has tagged me for seven true things.  Hers were of personal nature and so I'll follow that lead and leave the deep truths for another day:

1.  Lucy is not only beautiful but a bandit, who will swipe any food left within reach (and she's not opposed to climbing on the table if there's no one to stop her and she can find a chair to give her a leg up).

2.  Cindi recently cut her hair, and it looks smashing.

3.  Lauren and Dean live too far away from both sets of parents.

4.  David Weedon has the gift of making people laugh - and I mean lots.

5.  Rebekah has discovered the joy of tennis - and an aptitude for it as well.

6.  Nothing brightens my day like a talk with my sis.

7.  There is too little music in most people's lives; mine too.

Now, who else to tag?  What about my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my dear friend Anastasia.  

Patristic Quote of the Day

[in honor of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who is commemorated with joy this day]:

They even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayers, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins and which the Father in His goodness raised up again.  Consequently, since they reject God's good gifts, they are doomed in their disputatiousness. - St. Ignatius of Antioch, Smyrneans 7

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

How strange!  Every day we ask and desire the saints to care for our necessities, and St. Paul teaches us (Rom xii.13) to distribute to theirs!  -- Blessed Martin Luther, Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, 1525

Yeah!

We're doing the happy dance (not a pretty sight, but rather vigorous!).  Lauren and Dean are headed home this weekend!!!

Dreaded thought:  what are people killing outside these days?  I wonder how much we'll see Dean!  Well, as I told him, as long as our modern Nimrod doesn't show ME what he hunted down, I'll be content.  

Day Off

My usual day off is Friday.  But I've missed more than enough of those this year, so I am taking tomorrow off.  Have a number of personal matters that need attending to, and will likely neither blog nor work on anything related to church.  And I will enjoy it.  :)

God willing, will be back on Wednesday!

On the Complications of Reading Luther

Luther was an amazing man.  But you're not done with him when you've read his early stuff.  You're certainly not done with him when you've read his diatribes against Rome.  He had another battle to face and that was just as important:  his words of criticism against Zwingli and his ilk.  You're really not done with him until he's battled through on both fronts.  Then you get his mature thought, and it seems to hold fairly constant until his death.

So when you read him, note the dates.  Through till 1517-18, you've still got an essentially Roman Catholic Luther.  Move to the 1520-24 and you've got the anti-Romanist Luther.  It took the battles after 1524 to make Luther realize how much Rome itself served as bulwark against a rampant spiritualization of the Holy Sacraments.  By the time you to the Catechisms (1528 and beyond) you've got a Luther who has contended against both dangers, and presents a more balanced picture of his thought.  

This method of reading Luther is far from novel.  It is, in a sense, sanctioned in his intro to the collected Latin works.  He warns that the papal leaven was rife in him for many years.  

What is truly curious and delightful is when a thought expressed in the early years carries through all the intervening years.  I'd suggest THAT's a key point in Luther.  A much unexamined point in the great Reformer would be his take on the communion of saints, which remains essentially unchanged from the great document on the Eucharist in 1519 to his writings on John in 1528 to his writings on the Church in 1539.  It is a thought sadly missing in much of Lutheranism today.  

Finished!

Whew!  At long last, the updating of Starck's classic book of prayer has been shipped off to CPH - a month and a half before it was due, no less.  Hopefully they'll be happy with it, and other folks will be blessed with those beautiful words that have filled my days for the last year.  Starck's Prayer Book gives the lie to the notion that Lutherans taught simply a legal fiction about justification, and that there was no concern for mystical union.  It also is replete with very rich prayer to each person of the Blessed Trinity, acknowledgment of the holy angels, and a powerful confession of human impotence and God's all supplying grace.  

The Can't Agree

over which one is the REAL mistress of the house: