Magdi Allam, baptized by Pope Benedict at the Easter Vigil, movingly recounts the path of his conversion from Islam to Christian faith in a letter published by Zenit.
Welcome to the household of God, Magdi Christiano, our brother in Christ. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.
Christ Accepting the Office of Redeemer (William Blake, Boston Museum of Fine Arts)
In one of the most moving passages of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, God the Son descends to Eden to pronounce judgment upon our foreparents (a judgment which he before creation promised the Father to bear himself). This descent of the Son recalls the theophanies of God in the Old Testament, theophanies that many of the Church Fathers and many since them have considered appearances of God the Son before his incarnation.
After pronouncing judgment on Adam and Eve, the judge then clothes the judged, the Creator clothes his errant and sinning creatures, in a passage that wondrously weaves divine compassion and the servanthood that Jesus assumes in washing his disciples’ feet:
So judg’d he Man, both Judge and Saviour sent,
And th’ instant stroke of Death denounc’t that day
Remov’d farr off; then pittying how they stood
Before him naked to the aire, that now
Must suffer change, disdain’d not to begin
Thenceforth the Form of servant to assume,
As when he wash’d his servants feet, so now
As Father of his Familie he clad
Thir nakedness with Skins of Beasts, or slain,
Or as the Snake with youthful Coate repaid;
And thought not much to cloath his Enemies;
Nor hee thir outward onely with Skins
Of Beasts, but inward nakedness, much more
Opprobrious, with his Robe of righteousness,
Arraying cover’d from his Fathers sight.
It never fails to move me to tears, and I shall think of it tonight at the liturgy of the pedilavium.
Christ Washing the Feet of his Disciples (Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1655, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
The Collect
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Epistle
Hebrews 9:11-15, 24-28
When Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.
For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
The Gospel
John 13:21-35
At supper with his friends, Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples– the one whom Jesus loved– was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The Collect
O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel
John 12:37-50
Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. This was to fulfil the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
‘Lord, who has believed our message,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’
And so they could not believe, because Isaiah also said,
‘He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’
Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him. Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.
Then Jesus cried aloud: ‘Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.’
The Collect
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel
John 12:1-11
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, 11since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.
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About a year ago, I came across these YouTube video clips of a performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo, favola in musica. Written for the annual festival in Mantua, L’Orfeo was first performed in the ducal palace in Mantua in 1607 and first published in Venice in 1609. L’Orfeo is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, work in the form that we know as opera.
I was deeply impressed by these clips, so much so that I ordered a DVD of this performance (just check Amazon for the details, if you are so moved). Jordi Savall, whom I have admired and listened to for some time, is a master of the viol da gamba and a magnificent director of music (it is he who has the dramatic entrance at the beginning of the following video clip). This performance is impressively dramatic, and Monteverdi’s music is splendid.
(By the way, the musicians are playing early Baroque instruments, including lutes, the Renaissance harp, and the theorbo.)
Our youngest daughter, only ten years old, loves the opera and – after several weeks of watching it at least once weekly – still asks to watch it occasionally.
From a theological standpoint – and I write knowing that this non-classicist (with no expertise in Renaissance poetry, either) treads ground best walked upon by those with the expertise to do so – the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice bears witness to a desire deep in the human psyche to remain united with those whom we love, to escape the clutches of everlasting death and to share the immortality that only gods possess. (The opera’s libretto includes, as Orfeo descends into Hades, a quotation from Dante’s L’Inferno, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”, a testimony to that cross-pollinization of the pagan and the Christian that characterized much of the European Renaissance.)
This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (1 Timothy 10)
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tomb. (Prayer Book burial office, 1979)
To such a degree of temerity has this our senseless age advanced, that there is scarcely anything in Christianity itself which is not either called into doubt in private, or made matter of controversy in public. So much so, that even those doctrines and rites, which many ages back, and from the very beginning of the Church, have everywhere been received, at last in these our days come into hazard and are assailed, just as if we were the first Christians, and all our ancestors had assumed and borne the mere name of Christ, and nothing more…Forsooth in these full late times, it seems new lights are boasted of, new and greater gifts of the Holy Spirit are pretended; and therefore new forms in the use of all ecclesiastical administrations are daily framed and commonly adopted…Hence these tears, hence so many horrible schisms in the Church.
Bishop William Beveridge (1637-1708), Preface to his Codex Canonum Ecclesiae vindicatus ac illustratus (1678), quoted in Judith Pinnington, Anglicans and Orthodox: Unity and Subversion 1559-1725.
‘More than a via media’ suggests that Anglicanism is more than a mere pragmatic compromise. Rather, it views Anglicanism as a Communion in which the Catholic tradition and the insights of the Reformation inform and enrich one another – in which the Catholic tradition heeds the Reformation protest, and the Reformation attends to the Catholic tradition.
That is how the weblog, “More than a via media: reflections & musings of a postliberal Anglican” describes Anglicanism.
The last few weeks the weblogger there, Brian Crowe, has posted several insightful entries on the Anglican Catechism in Outline as a means of catechesis and re-catechesis in the Church. Check him out.
This letter really has me thinking.
No, it isn’t something from Pilgrim’s Progress (or from Thackeray) – though Lord knows there are and have been Anglican and Episcopalian clergy aplenty who would have fit in rather comfortably as bishops, rectors and curates of Bunyan’s Vanity Fair.
Searching for a suitable image of a photograph or a painting of Bishop Edward King, I came upon this webpage of Vanity Fair prints of various British clergymen and religious leaders of the late 19th century.
Enjoy perusing them.
One thing I noted was that Dr Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, was styled “the Very Revd”. I like that, for a variety of reasons. What I cannot discover is whether the Chief Rabbi (now of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth), who currently is Sir Jonathan Sacks, is still styled “the Very Revd”.
