Sunday of All Saints

In unison of faith,
let us spiritually celebrate
the universal festival
of all them that have
been pleasing unto God
from ages past,
even the venerable order
of Patriarchs,
the assembly of Prophets,
the adornment
of the Apostles,
the gathering of Martyrs,
the boast of Ascetics,
the memory of all the Saints;
for they intercede unceasingly
that peace be granted
to the world,
and great mercy
to our souls.

--Great Vespers of the Sunday of All Saints, Pentecostarion

The Paschal cycle concludes this day on the Octave of Pentecost. As throughout Eastertide I follow here the Eastern calendar. My sympathies are entirely with the Eastern Churches in the matter the Trinity and issues of pneumatology, finding the west, well, weak in practice and devotion, its formularies notwithstanding. What you get in most Protestant-flavored churches is essentially Christo-monism (my term for it). I remember a Catholic co-worker who visited her fiancé's Presbyterian church and wondering what happened to the Father and the Holy Spirit. If, on the other hand, one's whole existence is caught up in the life of the Most Holy Trinity, it seems silly to choose one Sunday to emphasize or talk about it. Less talk, more living.

Unlike most clergy, I am not reluctant to talk about the Trinity, however. I preached on the Trinity two Sundays ago.

We may now have a collective sigh as we relax into the "long green season."

[At St Cuddy's we actually stayed red through much of the summer, celebrating a Liturgy of the Spirit all the way through August. In September we switched to a Creation Liturgy. The current bishop has disallowed our experiments but it was wonderful back in the day.]

--the BB

"The only witness I feel capable of offering"

I believe Wormwood's Doxy has it just right on orthopraxis (right doing).* She looks into the Great Commission and reaches all the sensible conclusions.

She comments that "my movement towards theological orthodoxy has not convinced me that I need to convert nonbelievers or those of other faiths to Christianity. I'll never ask anyone if they've accepted Jesus as their personal savior, because I find that question highly intrusive."

As someone who has accepted Jesus as his personal Savior long ago when I was formed to frame things that way, I also find it a highly intrusive question, one that (1) violates another person's sacred space and (2) is simultaneously so narrow and so vague as to be meaningless. To answer either "Yes" or "No" tells us very little.

She also writes: "But Jesus didn't say we were to make 'Christians' of the whole world. He wouldn't even have known what that word meant. He said 'disciples'...." That is a very different commission than the usual take on replicating oneself and one's own narrow definitions. Doxy movingly leads us into service and giving ourselves for the life of the world. Her interpretation seems, to me, to emanate the Spirit of Christ.

Here's to lives that shine with the divine mystery.

* I know. There I go with the big college-level words again. Churchy jargon, to boot. Very pretentious. All puffed up and proud. But it's such a nice contrast to "orthodoxy," how can I resist? [I know, right glory and right deeds are not actually separable; cut me some slack.]

--the BB