Ciao.

But in the background is the lingering disappointment: death.  This life, no matter how good it gets, will end.  There is no evading it.  It will end.

For one who believes this life is all there is, I suppose trying to live one’s best life now is the thing that most matters.  But if there is, as I believe, another life coming — a life before God; where one must face God, then it seems to me that it is vastly more important that one prepares not to live a good life, but to die a good death.  Life ends in death.  The goal then, I suggest, is to do all one can to get ready to die a good death.

Does this seem morbid?  I think not.  The best death ever died was the death of our Lord.  His life continually aimed at this end.  But that did not keep him from joy or laughter or friends.

The purpose of this life is to get ready to die.  A good death.  That is a good thing.

When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, knowing that the merits of Mary and the saints are all from him; and for their company, their example, and their prayers throughout my earthly life I will give everlasting thanks. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my own. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of “justification by faith alone,” although I will thank God that he led me to know ever more fully the great truth that much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced, whatever strength I have received from the company of the saints, whatever understanding I have attained of God and his ways—these and all other gifts I have received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will, with Dysmas, look to Christ and Christ alone.

Then I hope to hear him say, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” as I hope with all my being—because, although looking to him alone, I am not alone—he will say to all.

HT to Internet Monk for the passage

“…..therefore it is not to be marveled at if Gregory [the Great] profess that he honoureth the first four Councils as the Four Gospels; and that whosoever admitteth them not, though he seem to be a stone elect and precious, yet he lieth beside the foundation and out of the building. Of this sort there are only six; the First (Nicea I) defining the Son of God to be coessential, coeternal and coequal with the Father. The Second (Constantinople I, 391) defining that the Holy Ghost is truly God, coessential, coeternal and coequal with the Father and the Son. The Third (Ephesus 431), the unity of Christ’s person. The Fourth (Chalcedon 451), the distinction and diversity of His natures, in and after the personal union. The Fifth (Constantinople II, 553), condemning some remains of Nestorianism, more fully explaining things stumbled at in the Council of Chalcedon…. And the Sixth (Constantinople III, 680-1), defining and clearing the distinction of operations, actions, powers and wills in Christ, according to the diversity of His natures. These were all the lawful General Councils (lawful I say both in their beginning, and proceeding, and continuance) that ever were holden in the Christian Church touching matters of faith.

For the Seventh, which is Nicea II, was not called about any question of faith, but of manners; in which our adversaries confess that there may be something inconveniently prescribed, and so as to be the occasion of great and grievous evils; and surely that is our conceit of the Seventh General Council, Nicea II; for howsoever it condemn the religious adoration and worshipping of pictures and seem to allow no other use of them but that which is historical, yet in permitting men by outward signs of reverence and respect towards the pictures of saints to express their love towards them, and the desire they have of enjoying their happy society, and in condemning so bitterly such as upon dislike of abuses wished there might be no pictures in the Church at all, it may seem to have given some occasion and have opened up the way unto that grow idolatry which afterwards entered into the Church.”

Commenting on Field Peter Toon writes:

But what is clear is that like his famous contemporaries ( Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes) and many divines to follow them, he had a great respect for the first Four Councils, highly regarded the next two, and was cautious about the Seventh. This has been the basic Anglican position and remains so, I think!

]]> http://guitarpriest.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/field-on-the-councils/feed/ 0 guitarpriest http://guitarpriest.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/anglicanism-and-the-first-for-ecumenical-councils/ http://guitarpriest.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/anglicanism-and-the-first-for-ecumenical-councils/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:01:35 +0000 guitarpriest http://guitarpriest.wordpress.com/?p=35 ]]> Lancelot Andrewes’ famous aphorism has shaped Anglican identity for over four centuries:

One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four
general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period– the
centuries, that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of
our faith.

One question often raised in response to Andrewes’ statements, “Why only the first four councils? Why not the seven ecumenical councils?”

Early Anglican divines argued (rightly) that the essential dogmas of the Trinity and Incarnation were hammered out in the first four councils.  The last three (five, six and seven) do not add anything to these dogmas, instead, they anathematize certain doctrines and practices in light of the consensus achieved in the first four. So councils one through four are more foundational to the development of doctrine than councils five through seven are.

More later…

Today’s Collect:

Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of the imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead – often not recognizing fully what they were doing – was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without ground for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another – doubtless very different – St. Benedict.

At first, I only used it to pray the morning office in place of my former practice using the BCP.   Lately I have been praying morning, noon and evening prayer (vespers). Instead of one office combined with reading large portions of scripture, I have been doing the shorter offices in CCP but doing them more often.

I am finding more consistency and more attentiveness to God through the day as I do this.  I guess Benedict and all this monkish guys from the past new what they were talking about when they encouraged prayers to be sort but happen many times in the day,