Zeal vs. Love

About a week ago I began going back through my blog affixing labels to each post in hopes of categorizing my thoughts according to the list you see off to the right and I began to realize something. My blog has changed drastically in the past two years. Or rather, I have changed drastically in the past two years and it is exemplified in my blog.

As I read back over the older posts I thought to myself, "wow, I use to be such a 'good' Christian." I thought about how the nature of my posts has changed and how it reflects the nature of my spiritual life. I found myself thinking or rather realizing that the critical turning point seems to be seminary. Yes, it seems I have concluded that I was a 'better' Christian before coming to seminary.

I don't want to get into why this is, or exactly what I mean by this just yet (these posts will be forthcoming...maybe). I also don't want to blog about how I got this way or if I think seminary life had a part to play in it or not.

I just say all this to bring up that over the past weeks since I've had this realization I've prayed every day something similar to: "Lord, bring back my zeal for you."

Tonight as I was laying in bed (I got up to write this) I had a different prayer. "Lord, bring back the love that I once had." In saying this it came to my mind that love can cause zeal and often does, but zeal seldom causes love. Zeal can exist on it's own without causing one to love, but Love shifts one's entire paradigm and causes one to be zealous for that which he or she loves.

So this is my new prayer. "Lord bring back and even increase the love I once had for you, for others, and for your church."



"O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen."
- Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian

Lent I

Today for my devotions I was reading a community reader that our seminary puts out each season and the entry really spoke to me. I would like to share that entry here. I don't want to appear pompous by posting the work I did, but I really liked today's reading. Yes, it has my favorite quote from one of my favorite fathers of the church but God really spoke to me through it today so I thought I would share it. Here is today's (Feb. 22) entry:

Opening Prayer:
Almighty Father, who didst inspire Simon Peter, first among the apostles, to confess Jesus as Messiah and Son of the living God: Keep thy Church steadfast upon the rock of this faith, that in unity and peace we may proclaim the one truth and follow the one Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
- BCP 187

Luke 9:18-27 NRSV
Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God." He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."

Reading:
Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil – only let me get to Jesus Christ! Not the wide bounds of earth nor the kingdoms of this world will avail me anything. I would rather die and get to Jesus Christ, than reign over the ends of the earth, That is whom I am looking for – the One who died for us. That is whom I want – the One who rose for us…What I want is God’s bread, which is the flesh of Christ, who came from David’s line; and for drink I want his blood: an immortal love feast indeed!
- St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans 5:3-6:2; 7:3


Prayer of Response:
Holy Father, you know our hearts and our desires. You know that often we fail in our pursuit of you. Though we are frail, give us strength. Though we fall, lift us up. Though we fall short all too often, empower us for the journey on which you have called us. Help us to live as those who have gone before us, willing to give our life and our all for the cross of Christ. Help us to bear the holy cross. Amen.

I promise not to continue to post the whole entries from the reader and to share more of my thoughts through this lenten season.


Blessings to you all,

Ben

Ash Wednesday - Lent Begins

"O Lord and Master of my Life, take form me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of Chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed are Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen"

- Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.

I have the language skills of a third grader!

I know that I joke a lot about my poor writing skills but the other day in my Greek class I found out just how poor a grasp of the English language I have.

I don't know why, but for some reason my professor was talking about the number of vowels in English and he said something like "We all know how many vowels we have in English." I confidently thought to myself: A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. After someone said "five" and someone else said "six" (presumably counting Y) someone from the front of the room said "seven." Five and six I can accept, but when I heard seven I began to mock the student in my mind (which I do with regularity when stupid things are said) until my professor repeated "seven" as if it was correct.

He then reminded us that "W" can serve as a vowel in the English language and the whole class except a couple of us seemed to accept it as gospel truth.

He then went on to explain that in words like "snow" the W serves as a vowel.

How on earth could I have graduated high school and college without ever hearing this? Was my education that poor? Are my Greek prof. and the rest of my class crazy?

I can sort of understand not hearing this in college, maybe they thought it was fundamental and I should have learned it in... oh I don't know...Kindergarten!! But to go through elementary school and high school and not hear this (if it is indeed true) is absurd. I even excelled in elementary school and high school, I seriously don't understand and thus I have come to this conclusion:

I don't believe it. I don't believe that "W" can serve as a vowel. I don't care how many people tell me it can, or how many English professors speak against me, right now I refuse to accept it.

I'm fine with Y, but W I will not tolerate. Am I the only one who has never heard this? I guess either way it doesn't matter because I'm just refusing to accept it. It is simply not true!

So this isn't theological and it's really not that interesting, but I had to vent somewhere and it's my blog so deal with it or else maybe I'll just refuse to accept that you exist.

Ben

St. Valentine'(s) Day

This is not one of those "hey i'm lonely and single so I'll rant against Valentine's Day" posts. I just started wondering who exactly St. Valentine was and so I thought I'd share my research here. Note this is not a defense for or argument against the celebration of St. Valentine's Day, it is merely a short post on who St. Valentine was.

Since most of us follow the western church calendar and most of our holidays are based on this it seems to me that the logical place to start would be New Advent as they are the Catholic online encyclopedia. New Advent seems to assert that traditionally there were three saint Valentines that were venerated on the 14th of February. These saints were:
- a Priest in Rome,
- Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni, in Italy I think)
- one from Africa with not much else known about him.

According to New Advent these three men were all martyrs with the first two suffering for the cross in the third century and the third suffered with friends but we dont' know when.


After pursuing the western tradition I decided to turn my attention to the eastern church. Although the eastern church does not celebrate (to my knowledge) St. Valentine on the 14th of Februrary most of the saints (especially the early ones) are celebrated by both East and West and often just have different dates.

I started my search on the Orthodox Wiki site and then continued my search on the Orthodox Church in America site. Orthodox Wiki turned up next to nothing but the OCA website had quite an interesting take on St. Valentine. The St. Valentine that they reference is the one that was the Bishop of Interammna.

Here is a quick synopsis of his story:

St. Valentine had the gift of healing and cured many "maladies." As St. Valentine's name spread through the city he began to convert many people. One such person was the son of a prefect in the city. Since the city was pagan (as was much of the world) the prefect was angered and demaned that St. Valentine reject his faith and worship idols. Refusing to reject his faith landed St. Valentine in prison where his disciples visited him daily. Upon hearing of these visits the prefect ordered St. Valentine to be beheaded. After the beheading St. Valentine's disciples buried his body in Interammna converting many on their way. Hearing the news of these most recent conversions the prefect ordered the three main disciples of St. Valentine to be beheaded as well. St. Valentine is celebrated on July 30th of the eastern calendar.


I continued to do some research to see if I could find any more about the other Valentines and using Orthodox Search I turned up a result form the Antiochean Orthodox Church website that related the story of St. Valentine a Priest in Rome (our first Valentine).


Here is a synopsis of the story of this St. Valentine:

In the third century Emporer Claudius, thinking that marriage was bad for the armies, decreed that no more marriages should take place. St. Valentine ignored this decree because of it's unjustness and continued to marry people. St. Valentine was caught marrying people and was sentenced to death.


I was unable to find anything on St. Valentine of Africa. But I didn't really spend a ton of time on this short project.


So there you have the matrydom of two St. Valentines. Both of them are cannonized by the Church and both died in love of Christ and love for his people. It seems to me that knowing the saint-story behind two of the three Valentines commemorated today in the western calendar puts a new spin on Valentines Day. I'm not saying that the holiday as now celebrated is a Christian one and I'm not saying that there isn't history in the celebration of February 14th as a pagan holiday. I am, however, asserting that our memory of these men, our forefathers and our brothers in Christ who were martyred should shape our thinking about Valentine's Day. It should at least make us think what it means to be somebody's "Valentine."


Lord, let the memory of these saints of the church encourage us in holy love for You and for Your Church. If you so call us may our blood be spilled like these men for the sake of the faith. Amen.


Blessings to you all in Christ,

Ben


Sources:
New Advent
Antiochian Orthodox Church
Orthodox Church in America Search Valentine in the search box and then click on the "life of the saint" when you see "Hieromartyr Valentine the Bishop of Interamna, Terni in Italy"

Oh my goodness!!

Was my first reaction to this.

Then i came to my senses and realized that if it was a real game it would be awesome. It would be even cooler if it was denominationally based or maybe create your own religion.

I found the link on my friend: Jo's blog.


Fear not a real post should be coming soon.