So it's Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday. Tonight in devotions before our Church History class, the group shared this prayer. It touched me, so I copy it in here:
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,
for it is from your goodness that we have this day
to celebrate on the threshold of the Season of Lent.
Tomorrow we will fast and abstain from meat.
Today we feast.
We thank you for the abundance of gifts you shower upon us.
We thank you especially for one another.
As we give you thanks,
we are mindful of those who have so much less than we do.
As we share these wonderful gifts together,
we commit ourselves to greater generosity toward those
who need our support.
Prepare us for tomorrow.
Tasting the fullness of what we have today,
let us experience some hunger tomorrow.
May our fasting make us more alert
and may it heighten our consciousness
so that we might be ready to hear your Word
and respond to your call.
As our feasting fills us with gratitude
so may our fasting and abstinence hollow out in us
a place for deeper desires
and an attentiveness to hear the cry of the poor.
May our self-denial turn our hearts to you
and give us a new freedom for
generous service to others.
We ask you these graces
with our hearts full of delight
and stirring with readiness for the journey ahead.
We ask them with confidence
in the name of Jesus the Lord.
I think they got it off the internet somewhere, but it's a cool prayer. It also highlights for me the fact that I am going into a period of transformation -- making changes in my physical body so that I might take it a bit more out of the way and allow for the recognition of God's work in my spiritual body. As I left class tonight and went shopping, I found myself mindful: how am I going to get enough protein? How can I limit the carbs? What does that leave me with? Oh, maybe I have to actually give some thought to what I'm going to consume? And maybe I can use those piled up takeout containers.... Striving to eat clean, but I'm still doing a little processed stuff -- I got some of those heat and eat packs of Indian food. I thought I was getting vegan, but then realized that one of my saag dishes has some paneer in it. Hmmm... to eat it or not to eat it? Duh. It's a packaged meal. It'll keep...
There is a process, and I'm beginning it. It's hard to reconcile the idea of clean eating or vegan eating with my normal dining habits; every time I look at or pick up food will be an opportunity for transformation.
But on this Fat Tuesday in our Church History Class, we had the pleasure of a lecture from Dr. Bill Rusch, a noted scholar, ordained Lutheran preacher, and a personal acquaintance of both Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and of His All Holiness Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (effectively the head of the Eastern Orthodox Communion). I don't know how common or rare it is for one person to know both men personally; in light of Benedict XVI's decision to resign, Dr. Rusch had the opportunity to share some unique insights with us.
But that was after the lecture in his area of expertise, which is Martin Luther. I think there are at least two ways to teach history. You can teach it linearly, or chronologically, or you can teach it in the swirl method, where you contextualize and connect. Since there are always a number of social or political factors affecting any historical movement, there is necessarily some back and forth, hence my appellation "swirl method." Dr. Rusch did an amazing job of combining the two styles. He started off with a timeline of Luther and his life, which he then inserted into the greater context of European Christendom, and then he branched off into the intellectual, social and political effects of Luther's theses and their aftermath. He used this whole exercise to set the stage for the Lutheran understanding of justification, which he then compared to the Roman Catholic understanding of justification, always allowing time for ideas and concepts to sink in and for us to make the intellectual connections. And then suddenly we were into the 1999 Joint Declaration by the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches on the Doctrine of Justification. It wasn't quite that simple, of course, but that's the swirl description. It was an amazing lecture; after the proper lecture, he took questions and then we went into a discussion of Pope Benedict (soon to be Cardinal Ratzinger?)'s decision to retire. Again, he wove Canon Law into a fascinating discussion. Not to put words into his mouth, but one of my takeaways was that we so often identify the person who serves in the office of Pope with the power and authority of that Office. In his resignation (and presumed separation or drawing away or staying out of the public eye), Benedict XVI has stressed the humanity of the INDIVIDUAL holding the office. Especially given the Roman Catholic understanding of the Papacy, this is a very significant distinction. In the long history of the Christian church, I regard it as nothing short of profound.
So we have a radical act in the highest office of one of our oldest and most traditional Christian churches; we have a study of a social and/or intellectual upheaval over 500 years ago in that same institution (and the radical act of the healing of the resultant rift), and we have it all to contemplate as we capitulate to our last bits of hedonism or self-indulgence before purposing sourselves to deny a part of our flesh, as Christ did for us, so that we might grow in Him even as He grows in us.
Maybe I'll work on grammar and sentence structure during Lent, as well....
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