Sanctuary of Divine Providence
Birmingham, Alabama
  • Welcome
  • Divine Providence
  • The Church of Antioch
  • Sanctuary of Divine Providence
  • Theodore Feldmann
  • Pastoral Care/Presentations
  • Contact
  • Blog

What Good is it to Me?

6/3/2023

0 Comments

 
What good is it to me?
Most Rev. Theodore Feldmann, as published in the newsletter of the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch.


    “What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself?  And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace?  What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.”   Meister Eckhart  (1260-1328) 1​

    I read this quote from Dominican preacher and theologian, Meister Eckhart, way back in 1986 when I read Original Blessing by theologian, Matthew Fox.  I found it powerful then and it has become one of my guiding lights on the spiritual journey, especially at Christmas, because I believe that Christmas should not be about just one baby once a year, but also about all of us.  In the sentence just before this quote begins, Eckhart suggests that we are all called to be “mothers of God.”  I certainly do believe that.  And I think the answer to his question, “what good is it to me,” is obvious:  Not much good at all, unless we begin to embrace what he is saying.     
    Western Christianity has spent a good deal of its energy focusing on what Fox calls “fall/redemption theology,” the concept that we (and even the planet itself) are tainted with original sin and need to be redeemed.  Jesus came to, as my Sunday School teachers used to say, “die to save us from our sins.”     
    But I have come more and more to the conclusion that Jesus’ message is about how we live now, not about some big pay off in the life to come.   We are to be born and are called to give birth in, “our own time and place.”  Now is the only time we get.  If we are going to find the sacred; if we are going to live our lives “abundantly,” as Jesus says, then where else can we do that but now?   
    Holy Week and Easter are one of my favorite times of the year.  As one parishioner said to me after a rousing Easter, “You’re an alleluia kind of guy.”  Yes indeed.  But, Easter must live in the context of Holy Week and the Triduum.  I may be an alleluia guy but I am also a darkness and silence guy.  So I would like to take this quote from the great Eckhart and apply it to the Triduum and pose some questions:
    What good is it to me if Jesus enters into the tomb and I do not also enter mine?  What good is it to me if Jesus dies and rises and I do not also die and rise?  And, is it possible that we can do this throughout our lives, “unceasingly?”  And what good is it to me?  It is very good.    
    Resurrection is not the same thing as resuscitation.  Bret Myers, makes that point this way:

    “Being resuscitated brings us back to a life of the old fears, anxieties, and spiritual failings of the past. Being resurrected takes us to a new life…To be resurrected into a life of perfect love is to know the peace that Christ gives to us…a peace not of this world, but of a world in which love -unconditional love - is the only thing that matters.” 2    
    In the Easter stories, Jesus was resurrected.  He was different.  He appeared to people in very different and powerfully symbolic ways.  He was transformed, one could even say, new born.

    “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
    Luke 24: 1-5
    Good question.  And when an angel is asking, you better pay attention.  Why do we so often look for new life in places where there isn’t much on offer?  Why do we repeat the insanity of expecting different answers from people and institutions that have no real intention of growing or changing?  Why do we let people and events in our long gone past occupy so much space in our lives now?  When we are seeking new life, are we willing to enter the tomb and the experience of the tomb and then let go of past hurts that are holding us back from real forgiveness and growth?  I, for one, will admit that I am holding on to old hurts and betrayals that are taking up way too much space in my brain that would be better used for something new.
    The Triduum at its most powerful is about walking with Jesus in his own betrayal, death, and resurrection…and ours.  And that includes an Easter where we leave the past in our tombs and look up into the morning sun of a new day.

    I think the wonderful author, Madeleine L’Engle, is on to something, as she often is:

    “…when we try to control our lives totally with the self we think we know, the result is that growth in self-awareness is inhibited.  Faith, on the other hand, consists in the awareness that I am more than I know.” 3
    And elsewhere in the same book:
    “How many of us really want life, life more abundant, life which does not promise any fringe benefits or early retirement plans?  Life which does not promise the absence of pain, or which is not vulnerable and open to hurt?  How many of us dare to open ourselves to that truth which would make us free?” 4
    Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  John 12:24
    We are part of an evolving universe and it is entirely natural that we, too, are called to evolve, to let old things die and allow new things to be born.  We carry with us the lessons learned from what we have been.  Let them germinate.  What we are to become has yet to be revealed.  Easter, among other things, is a time to “dare,” as L’Engle would say, to leave the tomb and be born again.  And again.


1.    Meditations with Meister Eckhart, Bear and Co. Santa Fe, NM, 81.2.    Bret Myers on April 9, 2015,  progressive christianity.org
3.    Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water:  Reflections on Faith and Art,             Wheaton IL, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1980, 162.
4.    L’Engle, 48.

Copyright, Theodore Feldmann, 2023.


0 Comments

To be a Pilgrim

6/3/2023

0 Comments

 
“To Be a Pilgrim”    Most Rev. Theodore Feldmann
(This article was written for the Church of Antioch newsletter before the death of Queen Elizabeth II.




    I’m a royalty watcher.   It’s not tabloid gossip about the Windsors that fascinates me.  Rather, I am a student of history and the Windsors are not the only royals.  There are other royal families, the Dutch and the Scandinavians for example, all related to each other.  Other royal houses exist but are no longer in power such as the German Hohenzollerns and the Austro-Hungarian Habsburgs.  Did you know, for example, that Otto von Habsburg, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian crowns, became a respected member of the European Parliament and that his father, Karl, the last emperor, is being considered for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church?
    Being royal is not something you choose.  It chooses you. The lives of these people are deeply intertwined with a complicated history over which they often have little real control.   They have to move with the times while maintaining a respect for tradition.  It can be tricky.  Those still on their thrones are survivors and that throne can be wobbly.  It’s not all carriages and palaces.
    About a year ago, I watched the memorial service held by Queen Elizabeth II, for her husband, Prince Phillip, who died during the height of the COVID pandemic, his funeral attended by only about 25 people.  Elizabeth wanted to pay greater tribute to him with a great state memorial service.  As she arrived, at 95, in Westminster Abbey, was she wondering whether her next visit there would be in a coffin?  Surely she was reflecting on the many events she attended there over the years, including her wedding and her coronation, with Phillip at her side.
    The trumpet fanfares and robust singing of the first hymn were a high point and a statement about a prince and the rest of us (I’ve altered words for greater inclusivity):


Those who would valiant be ‘gainst all disaster,
let them in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make them once relent
their first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.


Those who beset us round with dismal stories,
do but themselves confound, our strength the more is.
No foes shall stay our might, though we with giants fight;
we will make good our right to be a pilgrim.


Since, Lord, thou dost defend us with thy Spirit,
we know we at the end shall life inherit.
Then fancies flee away; I’ll fear not what they say,
I’ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.


    The hymn is an English folk tune arranged by the great composer, Ralph Vaughn Williams.  The text is based on the writings of John Bunyan, from his epic work on the Christian journey, Pilgrim’s Progress.
    Prince Phillip was not one of my favorite royals.  But his life could not have been easy, a man of that era always in the shadow of his wife, seeking a purpose of his own.  The tributes suggested that he had accomplished that goal.
    It’s not easy to be an independent catholic.  People question whether we are “real.”  Sometimes, so do we.  We might feel as if we are in exile; that having the clout of Rome or Canterbury or Utrecht on our side might provide some greater sense of validation.  There can be discouragement.  There are dismal stories that could be told.   
      Though we remain “family,” a lot of us already know what it’s like to battle with giants like Rome.  That’s one reason we are independent and that takes courage.  Isn’t it possible that our strength to persist, to labor night and day, might just “confound” those who speak words of discouragement?  Isn’t it possible that all of it has made us stronger?


    We are all pilgrims.  Your recent stories of your own journeys to the Church of Antioch made that so very clear.  To engage fully in our pilgrimage is all any of us can do.  Each decision we prayerfully make shapes the journey.
    I ask you:  Did you choose independent catholicism or did it choose you?  Can we trust that the Spirit will indeed defend us, no matter what “they” say?  Are we willing, each in our own way, to claim the right…to be a pilgrim?  Because in the end, as “the Master” made clear, that is all that is expected of us.  Prince or not, in the eyes of God we are already royal people.


“Every human person is an aristocrat.  Every human person is noble and of royal blood.” 1  Meister Eckhart, c. 1260 – c. 1328
  1. Fox, Matthew.  Original Blessing,  Bear and Company, Santa             Fe, NM, 1983.








Copyright, Theodore Feldmann, 2022.
0 Comments

    Theodore Feldmann

    A biography of Bishop Theodore is found elsewhere in the website.

    Archives

    June 2023

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly