Poetry for Advent I

A little Chesterton, and a lot of Betjeman to nourish the soul this Adventide:

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

...

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Gerhard and Walther

(New Church Year, new series):

Whoever has God has all goodness, for all goodness is in God. Whoever does not have God has nothing good, for without God there is no good.—Gerhard, Schola Pietatis, p. 34.

Whoever in the old Church Year was outwitted by his flesh, the world, or Satan, losing the Savior who had dwelt in his heart, should be encouraged. He may have spent last year without peace and rest, without light  and comfort, and without power and hope, oppressed by the feeling of displeasure from his God. But a new year has dawned, and Jesus is returning, bringing with Him a fresh supply of grace.—C. F. W. Walther, God Grant It, p. 11. 

Patristic Quote of the Day

Hence Christ demonstrates that there is significant reward for the wealthy who can practice self-denial. He also said that this had to be the work of God, that he might show that great grace is needed for anyone who is going to achieve it.—St. John Chrysostom, Homily 63 on St. Matthew

Catechesis: LC Shorter Preface

This sermon has been undertaken for the instruction of children and uneducated people. Hence from ancient times it has been called, in Greek, a “catechism”—that is, instruction for children. Its contents represent the minimum of knowledge required of a Christian. (By which he means: the texts of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father).—LC Preface 1, 2

An Absolutely Beautiful Liturgy for Advent I: Ad Te Levavi

....this morning at St. Paul’s: Divine Service

From today’s Hymn of the Day

Here a maid was found with Child,

Yet remained a Virgin mild.

In her womb this truth was shown:

God was there upon His throne.

A few pics from around the house...

 ...

Gitty-up

 Oliver enjoying this crazy horse I got when I was his age: 2 or 3. So the horse is 57 or 58. Yes, my parents got their money out of that sucker. I showed the kids a pic of him and me back when I first got him. Lydia: “So he used to be all red.” He’s lost a bit of paint!

Remembering a Friend: +Paul Timothy McCain

I woke up thanksgiving morning and when I glanced at my phone my heart sank. I’d gotten a text from my boss and friend, Jeff Schwarz, that our mutual friend Pr. Paul McCain had suddenly passed away the night before.

I don’t even remember when or how Paul and I became friends, but it was a long time ago. For years we were both avid bloggers and frequently commented on each other’s blogs and interacted on different blogs as well. We didn’t always agree, by any stretch, but we had a strong mutual respect and, I think I may rightly say, an affection that grew deeper with the passing of the years. 

Yes, sometimes in his on-line persona, Paul could be a bit...how to say this...overbearing? Yes, maybe that’s the word. He was fiercely loyal to his CPH and an uncompromising Lutheran, and didn’t tolerate well criticism of either. He was very proud of the great work that CPH has accomplished in his many years there, and indeed justly so. But his loyalty could lead to a sharp edge in some of his online interactions if he even suspected you were criticizing his beloved publishing house!

Over the years, I have any number of times suggested to folks put off by that sharp edge: “Look, THAT’S just not the actual Paul. Not really. Go to lunch with him and you’ll find a different man.” That soft southern accent that he never lost; his laughter and wit; his marked gentleness, his clear kindness, his joy in the grace of God, his ebullient delight in Lutheran theology and particularly in the Book of Concord. I don’t think he ever tired of talking about Lutheran theology! He and I even blogged together on the Book of Concord for a while, moving article by article through the Confessions. That’s the Paul I will remember and treasure. 

One day I was doing some recording at CPH for a project, and Paul asked me if I’d seen the latest: Matt Carver’s lovely Lutheran Prayer Companion. He knew it was dear to my heart (I’d praised the original German on my blog a time or two) and when I told him that I had not, he literally grabbed his personal copy off his desk and without hesitation gave it to me. He said he’d pick up another. As I type this, it sits right beside me, where I use it most every morning and evening. I remember his delight in the way the Our Father prayers spread across the days of the week in this volume. Saturday on Deliver us from Evil, includes: “O my God, this last day of the week reminds me that my life has an end and I will have to leave it. Therefore, when the day and hour of my death shall come, grant that I may be done with all the sorrows of this life; fall peacefully asleep, trusting in the bloody merit of Jesus; and leaving this valley of tears enter into Your eternal joy and heavenly rest.” I will treasure this prayer book always as a remembrance my friend.

And that’s not the only one. I can’t even number or remember the various books he’d sent me across the years. Anything he thought might prove a blessing. I do remember that last year he sent me several of the latest volumes of Luther’s works (AE) with more of Luther’s sermons. His comment was: “I know you will read them, and put them to use to bless the church.” 

It was only a month ago that his gentle side shone brightly to me quite personally. He became aware in a conversation that yours truly had deeply hurt someone who came to me for prayer for a sibling with cancer at the Synodical Convention and, distracted with preparations for the opening service, I’d been a bit brusk and dismissive. Paul told the person that wasn’t the Weedon he knew. And he took the risk of letting me know all about this in the most gentle and kind way. “Dear Brother in Christ, Will, a dear friend and cherished brother” and then he told me what had been said to him, “I just wanted you to know and I thought...I am going to fail my friend if I do not let him know. I would want one of my friends to let me know.” He thought (and rightly so!) that I’d want to repair the relationship. This led to an email exchange with the person, with me confessing having totally missed the gift that that person was to me from God in that moment: a beautiful reminder about what truly matters, people, their sorrows, and connecting them to Christ, and to stop focusing on the stuff that doesn’t (preparations for a big worship service). I confessed that I had blown it. I asked this person’s forgiveness and it was most graciously given. And I’d never have even known or remembered any of this, without Paul, the peace-maker.

I wrote Paul to let him know and thank him again for clueing me in. It was the last really personal exchange we had. He wrote: “Bless you, brother. I knew you would want me to make you aware of this lingering hurt to which you then could apply the salve of the liberating Gospel.... You know, Will, there are not many people I would reach out to this way to let them know, but I know your heart and I knew you would want to know.” I wrote back: “We know each other, my brother. We may not often see each other, but we know each other.” His response? What else??? “This is most certainly true.”

Rest eternal grant to Your servant, Paul, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him! And bring the comfort that only Your victory over death and the grave can bring to his family and all who mourn his passing. 

Glory to God for all things!

Glory to God for all things!

St. John Chrysostom’s dying words, for in Christ we have the opportunity to offer a perpetual sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father in the Holy Spirit in times of sorrow and grief, in times of joy and laughter, in every time in between. 

“We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting...The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee, the Father of an infinite Majesty; Thine adorable, true, and only Son; also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.” 

A blessed thanksgiving to one and all, from the Weedons

Twenty-six Years

That’s how long it’s been since my mom died. Hard to fathom. I remember as a kid thinking how impossible it would be to live without her, and telling God that I think I could do it if she lived at least till I was 40 (she’d be 90 then). Well, she didn’t make it that long. 

Given what we’ve learned about “type three diabetes” (i.e., Alzheimer's) in the years since, I get so upset just thinking about how her mind was starved there at the end and no amount of sugar was going to solve the problem. 

Crippled by polio when she was three, she knew a ton of suffering in her life. Yet she always remained cheerful and was our family’s rock. Before her mind started to go, she was an inveterate tease—as all the inlaws will attest. And there’s no question she’s the one from whom I get my reclusiveness (let’s be honest: introvert is too mild to describe the aversion to going out). Miss you, Mom! I think so often about what it might be like to welcome you and daddy to our home. Can’t wait to see you again!

Luther and Lewis

The sun, moon, stars, clouds, air, earth, and water are no longer so pure, and beautiful, and lovely as they were. But on that day all things will be made new and will once more be beautiful as St. Paul says in Romans viii.—Martin Luther, Sermon, 1537

To the Materialist things like nations, classes, civilizations must be more important than individuals, because individuals live only seventy-odd years each and the group may last for centuries. But to the Christian, individuals are more important, for they live eternally; and races, civilizations and the like, are in comparison the creatures of a day.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 294. 

Patristic Quote of the Day

What then did Christ say? “How difficult it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” He was not criticizing money itself but the wills of those who are taken captive by it. If it will be difficult for the rich, how much more so for the avaricious!—St. John Chrysostom, Homily 63 on St. Matthew

Catechesis: Ap XXVIII ECCLESIASTICAL POWER

In the Confession we nevertheless added the extent to which it is legitimate for them to create traditions, namely, that they must not be necessary acts of worship but a means for preserving order in the church, for the sake of peace. These must not ensnare consciences, as though they were commanding necessary acts of worship. This is what Paul teaches when he says, “Stand fast in the freedom with which Christ has set you free, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”—Ap XXVIII:15

One of my yearly tasks

Is polishing the three antique brass pieces we have (all from my mom’s family) come Thanksgiving each year. The candlesticks always sat on the organ in the parlor of my grandparent’s home when I was growing up; the beautiful box was a wedding gift from Cousin Loretta, because she knew I’d treasure the family piece. Usually I dread the task because I’ve always done it with brasso which stinks to high heaven and makes a mess. Today, I looked up a “natural” way to polish brass and I tried two methods: first salt and lemon juice, and then polish; second, vinegar, salt, and flour that is allowed to sit on for 10 minutes and then rinse and buff to a shine. All I can say is: goodbye brasso! 

Luther and Lewis

Tribulation we esteem a precious thing and glory in it, for we know that sorrow helps to teach us patience, and patience brings us experience, and experience teaches us to hop, and hope does not put us to shame.—Martin Luther, Christmas Eve Sermon 1522

One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anything, I think he has become something less than human.... Christianity claims to give an account of facts—to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, once and the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must have you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it may be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives no help at all.—C. S. Lewis, Business of Heaven, p. 293.

Patristic Quote of the Day

For Christ did not answer him [the young man] as expected, but simply pointed him to the law. This is not because the law is perfection, for “no one is justified by the law,” as it is written, but because the life lived according to the law is a kind of introduction to eternal life, briefly acquainting trainees to the things above.—St. Cyril of Alexandria, Fragment 218

Catechesis: Ap XXVIII ECCLESIASTICAL POWER

We like the old division of power into the power of the order and the power of the jurisdiction. Therefore a bishop has the power of order, namely, the ministry of the Word and sacraments. He also has the power of jurisdiction. Therefore a bishop has the power to excommunicate those who are guilty of public offenses or to absolve them if they are converted and ask for absolution.—Ap XXVIII:13

Luther and Lewis

And what is [the Christians’] offence? Their greatest sin is that they believe in Christ and praise and glorify the unspeakable grace which God has shown in Him to all the world, namely, that He alone can redeem us from sin and death and make us just and blessed, that they believe that human reason cannot of its own free will, its own might and good works prepare itself to receive the grace of God, much less merit eternal life.—Martin Luther, Exposition of 1 Peter

When it succeeds, I think the performers [musicians] are the most enviable of all men; privileged while mortals to honour God like angels, and for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labour, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity that they would have had before the Fall.—C. S. Lewis, The Business of Heaven, p. 292.

Patristic Quote of the Day

And after all this hard work your life comes to an end. Look at what you suffer in this wretched life that you so love. And do you think that you will always live and never die? Temples, rocks, marble, all reinforced by iron and lead, still fall. And  a person thinks that he will never die? Learn therefore, brothers, to seek eternal life, when you will not endure such things but will reign with God forever.—St. Augustine, Sermon 84 on St. Matthew