LENT 2014 - ST PAUL'S BALLARAT : 1st SUNDAY LENTEN REFLECTION ON MATTHEW 4: 1-11

Sunset vista at The Nine Mile, Broken Hill.
Photo by Brigid O'Carroll Walsh

T.S. Eliot

 Picture from here

In all my years, one this does not change.
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.
Second, you neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote in the southern tropics.
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you.
The desert is in the heart of your brother.
The Rock

The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
Murder in the Cathedral 

 

Picture from here 

 

Lent is a time of testing and trials, as well as of renewal, conversion, and grace.

In this first week of Lent, we are called to go into the desert within and face the perennial struggle between good and evil; light and darkeness; etc. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot - 'The desert is in our hearts'.

1. We will always be tempted as Jesus was tempted.  He was tempted to abandon his chosen mission, to be powerful, and to rely not on God but on his status.  But Jesus said not to disobedience, pleasure, power and possession; and yes to love of God and service to others.  In an increasingly secular and materialistic world, we are often tempted to think that we don't need God.  Let us re-affirm our need for God to-day and turn to him in all we do and say.
2. Our temptations may be different, but the reality is the same.  Allures other than the Christian way will prove seductive.  And sometimes our desires lead us into temptation.  What should we do?
3. What are some of the temptations we often face?  How do we respond to them?  Do we choose God over pleasure, power and possessions?  Is God our greatest good?  Can we ask for the grace and strength to be faithful to God to-day, each day, every day?

Let us look into our hears this week and pray for the grace to face up to the perennial struggle between good and evil.  Let us pray for the courage to stand firm like Jesus during times of temptation so that we can choose God over pleasure, power and possessions.  On our own we can do nothing.  Enabled by God's grace we shall do bravely.

And so we pray ...

 Lord, you promise not to tempt us beyond what we can bear.

 Give us grace to-day when we face the struggle within and give us courage to overcome temptations and remain steadfast in our love for you and in our mission to bear witness to your love in our world.

AMEN

From 

Father Constantine Osuchukwu

Parish Priest,

Saint Paul's Anglican Church,

Bakery Hill, Ballarat

When will we ever learn? The War Prayer by Mark Twain - and thoughts of christian pacifism

On a hat tip from Waging NonViolence, I went to this site.  I post below Mark Twain's War Prayer.

Further Reading and Viewing:

The War Prayer



The War Prayer



The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism (Christian Peace Shelf Series)



Through the Desert Goes Our Journey
Video trailer here



Testament of Youth



Vera Brittain: A Life



TESTAMENT OF FRIENDSHIP (VIRAGO CLASSIC NON-FICTION)


Testament of Experience



One Voice: Pacifist Writings from the Second World War



Ordinary Courage by Donna Mulhearn

Further reading:

Peace Pledge Union

Pac Chrisit Australia

Pace e Bene Ausralia

Quaker Peace Testimony

Writings on Christian Nonresistance and Pacifism from Anabaptist-Mennonite Sources

Bonhoeffer Peace Collectives: A Movement of 'costly grace' to end war

Reading, Memory, Impact

Boris Pasternak's house at Peredelkino, Russia

Over at Miscellaneous Mum, she is talking about Reflections on readerly first impressions. She begins with this quote:

A couple of months ago, I became depressed by the realization that I'd forgotten pretty much everything I've ever read

Nick Hornby

Miss Eagle has posted a comment on that post which, as you can see, is about her relationship with the novel by Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago. Dr Zhivago is a great novel - for its sweep of a crucial phase in Russia's history but also its incorporation of the spiritual part of the Russian personality and Russian life. Miss Eagle, as a seventeen year old, was impacted by this novel and can still recall great chunks of it. So this impact can be shared, Miss Eagle sets out below the opening segment of the novel - the boy on his mother's grave:

On they went, singing 'Eternal Memory', and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.

Passers-by made way for the procession, counted the wreaths and crossed themselves. Some joined in out of curiosity and asked: 'Who is being buried?' -'Zhivago,' they were told. - "Oh, I see. That explains it.' - 'It isn't him. It's his wife.' - 'Well, it comes to the same thing. May she rest in peace. It's a fine funeral.'

The last moments flashed past, counted, irrevocable. 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the earth and everything that dwells there.' The priest scattered earth in the form of a cross over the body of Marya Nikolayevna. They sang 'The souls of the just'. Then a fearful bustle began. The coffin was closed, nailed and lowered into the ground. Clods of earth drummed on the lid like rain as the grave was filled hurriedly by four spades. A mound grew up on it and a ten-year-old boy climbed on top.

Only the numb and unfeeling condition which comes to people at the end of a big funeral could account for some of the mourners' thinking that he wished to make an address over his mother's grave.

He raised his head and, from his vantage point, absently surveyed the bare autumn landscape and the domes of the monastery. His snub-nosed face was contorted. He stretched out his neck. If a wolf cub had done this it would have been obvious that it was about to howl. The boy covered his face with his hands and burst into sobs. The wind bearing down on him lashed his hands and face with cold gusts of rain. A man in black with tightly-fitting sleeves went up to the grave. This was Nikolay Nikolayevich Vedenyapin, the dead woman's brother and the uncle of the weeping boy; he was a priest who had been unfrocked at his own request.

He went up to the boy and led him out of the graveyard.

Readings in the mystical way

As you will have noted, dear Reader, Miss Eagle waxes lyrical on the treasures of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. The beauty and joy of the Library's collection is that it is free. You can read it on-line. Most - but not quite all - is copyright free. To encourage you, dear Reader, the list below is under CCEL's subject heading of Mysticism.

Albert, the Great, Saint (1193?-1280): On Cleaving to God
Anonymous: Theologia Germanica
Anonymous (14th c. English): Cloud of Unknowing
Baker, Augustine: Holy Wisdom: or, Directions for the prayer of contemplation: extracted out of more than forty treatises by the Ven. F. Augustine Baker
Boehme, Jakob (1575-1624): Way to Christ
Cassian, John (360-435): Conferences of John Cassian
Catherine of Genoa, St.: Life and Doctrine of Saint Catherine of Genoa
Catherine of Siena, St. (1347-1380): Dialog of Catherine of Siena
de Caussade, Jean-Pierre, S.J. (d. 1751): Abandonment to Divine Providence
Dionysius, the Pseudo-Areopagite (b. c. 500): Celestial Hierarchy
Dionysius the Areopagite, Works (1897): Mystical Theology; Works [Latin]
Eckhart, Johannes (c. 1260-1327): Meister Eckhart's Sermons / first time translated into English by Claud Field
Emmerich, Anne Catherine (1774-1824): Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Fenelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715): Spiritual Progress
Gardner, Edmund Garratt (1869-1935); Cell of Self-Knowledge: Seven Early English Mystical Treatises
Guyon, Madame Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe (1647-1717): Short and Easy Method of Prayer; Song of Songs of Solomon / Explanations and Reflections having Reference to the Interior Life
Herbert, George (1593-1633): Priest to the Temple, or, The Country Parson his Character and Rule of Holy Life
Hilton, Walter (d. 1396): Scale (or Ladder) of Perfection; Song of Angels
Inge, William Ralph (1860-1954): Light, Life, and Love
John of the Cross, St. (1542-1591): Ascent of Mount Carmel; Dark Night of the Soul; Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-c. 1413): Revelations of Divine Love
Lawrence, Brother (Nicholas Herman, c. 1605-1691): Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of Holy Life
Molinos, Miguel de (1628-1696): Spiritual guide which disentangles the soul / by Michael de Molinos ; edited with an introduction by Kathleen Lyttelton and a note by H. Scott Holland
Rolle of Hampole, Richard (c. 1290-c. 1349): Fire of Love; Incendium Amoris [Latin]
Rolt, Clarence Edwin: Dionysius the Areopagite: On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology.
Ruysbroeck, John of, St. (1293-1381): Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
Singh, Sadhu Sundar: Wisdom of the Sadhu
Suso, Henry (c. 1296-1366): Little Book of Eternal Wisdom
Tauler, John (c. 1300-1361): Inner Way
Teresa of Avila, St. (Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, 1515-1582): Interior Castle or The Mansions; Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of The Order of Our Lady of Carmel; Way of Perfection
Therese, of Lisieux, St. (1873-1897): Poems of St. Teresa, Carmelite of Lisieux, known as the 'Little Flower of Jesus'
Thomas a Kempis (c. 1380-1471): Imitation of Christ
Underhill, Evelyn (1875-1941): Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
Winkworth, Catherine (1827-1878): History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler with Twenty-Five of his Sermons

A crucial meditation

St. Brigid's Cross

...Misner walked away from the pulpit, to the rear wall of the church. There he stretched, reaching up until he was able to unhook the cross that hung there. He carried it then, past the empty choir stall, past the organ where Kate sat, the chair where Pulliam was, on to the podium and held it before him for all to see – if only they would. See what was certainly the first sign any human anywhere had made: the vertical line; the horizontal one. Even as children, they drew it with their fingers in snow, sand or mud; they laid it down as sticks in dirt; arranged it from bones on frozen tundra and broad savannas; as pebbles on riverbanks; scratched it on cave walls and outcroppings from Nome to South Africa. Algonquin and Laplanders, Zulu and Druids – all had a finger memory of this original mark. The circle was not first, nor was the parallel or the triangle. It was this mark, this, that lay underneath every other. This mark, rendered in the placement of facial features. This mark of a standing human figure poised to embrace. Remove it, as Pulliam had done, and Christianity was like any and every religion in the world: a population of supplicants begging respite from begrudging authority; harried believers ducking fate or dodging everyday evil; the weak negotiating a doomed trek through the wilderness; the sighted ripped of light and thrown into the perpetual dark of choicelessness. Without this sign, the believer’s life was confined to praising God and taking the hits. The praise was credit, the hits were interest due on a debt that could never be paid. Or, as Pulliam put it, no one knew when he had “graduated”. But with it, in the religion in which this sign was paramount and foundational, well life was a whole other matter.
from Paradise by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Alfred A Knopf, NY, 1998, pp 145-147

Season of the Soul: Lent 3

Lenten Theme:
What is a fool for Christ

Fool Prayer

by Beth McLean

inspired by the Ash Wednesday Liturgy

from A Prayer Book for Australia.

Lord, make me a ‘fool’ for you.
Jesus, who has shown us how to really forgive,

who has travelled to death and back for our sake.

I pray that you will show me

how to forgive wholeheartedly and unreservedly.

How to love unconditionally.

How to show your love to others.

Transform me.

Readings:

Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm 63:1-9

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:31-35

To-day's reading of the Good News of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ tells of the Jesus sending a message to Herod, his prophetic visit to Jerusalem, and his brooding over Jerusalem.

On that very day some Pharisees came, saying to Him, “Get out and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill You.”

And He said to them, “Go, tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.’

Nevertheless I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say,

‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’”(NKJV)

The picture of the broody hen comes from Irenic Thoughts. For a commentary on to-day's gospel passage go to this post by Rev Frank Logue of King of Peace Episcopal Church, Kingsland, Georgia, USA.

Seasons of the Soul: Lent and George Herbert

George Herbert Memorial Plaque -

St Andrew's Bemerton.

The Great Season of Preparation - LENT - is upon the Body of Christ. And - serendipitously - Miss Eagle has discovered a wonderful Lenten treasure over at CCEL. This treasure is the work, an archive, of the beloved George Herbert. George Herbert is one of the greats of the metaphysical poets. Here is another source of George Herbert material.

Dear Reader, if you have a deep treasure of Lenten reading that you would like to to have remembered on To the Desert, please email Miss Eagle off the sidebar.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library: CCEL

If Miss Eagle had to vote for a favourite website, she would vote for CCEL - Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Miss Eagle has been visiting CCEL since 1998 when she first got internet access. She has been able to download and print out material which is not readily available.

Over the years, CCEL has become more and more professional and sophisticated. Read their mission statement here. The CCEL has built up the Library over the years using editions of valuable Christian material which was not under copyright protection. Countless hours of volunteer labour have been invested in the transcription of the literary treasure of Christ's Church. Please visit CCEL and enjoy its pleasures and treasures.

Desert books

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON AUSTRALIAN DESERTS
By Ian Robinson March 2005

Title in bold is the place to start. Where a book has #, it denotes an explicitly Christian viewpoint, for those who want to start from there.


1. Explorers and Travellers
Shephard, Mark. (1999). THE SIMPSON DESERT. Richmond SA, Corkwood Press. A superb survey of the Simpson including black and white history, environment and how to travel.

Beadell, Len. (1976). BEATING AROUND THE BUSH. Adelaide, Rigby.
One of Len Beadell’s series about making the “Bomb Roads” with the Gunbarrel Road Construction Party during the 50’s and 60’s. There are other similar books.

Brock, Daniel. G. (1975). TO THE DESERT WITH STURT- a Diary of the 1844 Expedition. Adelaide, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. #
Daniel Brock, a Methodist, was not named in Sturt’s journals of this expedition, so low in the hierarchy was he. This journal he kept for his mother.

Kelly, Kieran. (2003). TANAMI - on Foot Across Australia's Desert Heart. Sydney, Macmillan.
A Sydney stockbroker’s personal struggle across the Tanami Desert, to walk where no white man had ever walked.

Peasley, W. J. (1983). THE LAST OF THE NOMADS. Fremantle Australia, Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
An account of the rescue of the last two nomads to leave the western deserts in 1977.

Rothwell, Nicholas. ( 2003). WINGS OF THE KITE HAWK. Sydney, Picador.
A famous Australian journalist writes on many levels about his experiences in Inland Australia, including explorers, great characters, sense of place and spirituality

Williams, Diana. (2001). HORIZON IS WHERE HEAVEN AND EARTH MEET. Sydney, Bantam Press, Random House Publishers. #
An autobiography, from her career in New York banking to her long and happy marriage with Ron Williams, an aboriginal elder and evangelist.


2. Artists and Sense of Place
Haynes, Rosslyn. D. (1998). SEEKING THE CENTRE. Cambridge and Melbourne, Cambridge University Press. A cultural history about attitudes to the desert, with extensive coverage of explorers, artists, writers and film.

Cameron, John. (Ed) (2003). CHANGING PLACES – Re-imagining Australia. Sydney, Longueville Books.
Fascinating collections of writers explore what it means to have a sense of place.

Malouf, David. (1998). A SPIRIT OF PLAY - the Making of Australian Consciousness. Sydney, ABC Books. The 1998 Boyer Lectures by this famous author from both Queensland and Lebanon heritage.

3. Theological Thinkers
Brown, Cavan. (1991). PILGRIM THROUGH THIS BARREN LAND. Sutherland, NSW, Albatross. # Brown served as a patrol minister in the Pilbara for seven years.

RAINBOW SPIRIT THEOLOGY: towards an Australian Aboriginal theology Publisher: Blackburn, Vic.: HarperCollinsReligious, 1997 #
A group of elders reflect on the meeting point of Christian and aboriginal spirituality.

Lane, Belden. C. (1998). THE SOLACE OF FIERCE LANDSCAPES - exploring desert and mountain spirituality. New York, Oxford University Press. #
Both personal and scholarly, Lane writes elegantly of desert spirituality in general from the North American context.


4. Spirituality
Stockton, Eugene. D. (1998). WONDER: A Way To God. Australia, St Pauls Publications, Society of St Paul.# The third in series, a sheer delight to read.

Kohn, Rachael. (2003). THE NEW BELIEVERS - Re-imagining God. Sydney, HarperCollins Publishers. An ABC broadcaster, Kohn surveys several major trends in spiritual issues in Australia. Well researched and critically appraised.

Tacey, David. J. (1995). EDGE OF THE SACRED. East Melbourne, HarperCollins.
A lecturer in English from La Trobe University, this text has raised many questions about secular and transcendent, religion and spirituality.

Williams, Rowan. (2003). SILENCE AND HONEY CAKES - The Wisdom Of The Desert. Oxford, Lion Publishing. # Now Archbishop of Canterbury, Williams brings to life the classic Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 4-5th century.