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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 8/29/2001 1:54 AM (GMT -6) |   | Topic: "The Sacrament of Time"
On an earlier string I posted descriptions of some restorations of Jewish celebrations that some Dutch Reformed friends did. Notably they used time and space in a para-liturgical manner. One was the going-around-the-house to find and expell yeasty breads in preparation for a Messianic-Jewish Seder. The other was booth-building for a Feast of Tabernacles celebration. Very meaningful. I have the next post planned. It is actually liturgical, without the "para." Vespers. With the interest in TAIZE (In Chicago at and the original at ) and its coverage in Christianity Today, with some liturgical forms shared, maybe some would like to share their thoughts, feelings, experiences.
PotOnWheel
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writerdad
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| Posted 8/29/2001 5:56 AM (GMT -6) | | POW: for my family we have incorporated various aspects of different rituals to make up our own family traditions. I have allowed my children to pick and help bring about our traditions. While I do believe traditions is important within the family and church, I also believe it needs to be balanced by the threat of legalism and knowing that the NT does not require much from us in the way of tradition. It leaves a lot of it up to the individual. Tradition should draw us closer to God, not become some requirement we must do.
By the way, if I may, I have thoroughly enjoyed all the Orthodox material you have brought before my eyes. I wanted to ask: are you Orthodox? If not, why not? Just curious. John 17:3 Harold
Edited by - writerdad on 08/29/2001 10:57:55 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 8/29/2001 11:50 AM (GMT -6) | | This is about the services called Vespers and Matins... Well, VESPERS on this post.
(From a book by Alexander Schmemann -- title mentioned at the end -- and was written in 1963.)
After the week and the year -- the day: the most direct and immediate unit of time. It is here, in the reality of daily life, that the theology of time, expressed in the experience of Sunday and Easter, must find its application. We realize, of course, that the daily cycle of services, abandoned long ago, is not very likely to be restored. Yet, what is to be restored, or rather, rediscovered, is the relation of the Church and of the individual Christian to the time of the day, the relation which was (and theoretically still is) the theme, the content of the daily services. For these were not meant to be "prayer breaks," periods of spiritual refreshment and "peace of mind," but truly liturgical acts, that is, acts performed on behalf of and for the whole community, as an essential part of the redeeming mission of the Church.
Contrary to our secular experience of time, the liturgical day begins with Vespers, i.e., in the evening. This is, of course, the reminiscence of the biblical "And the evening and the morning were the first day" (Gn. 1:5). Yet it is more than a reminiscence. For it is, indeed, the end of each "unit" of time that reveals the pattern and meaning, that gives to time its reality. Time is always growth, but only at the end can we discern the direction of that growth and see its fruits. It is at the end, in the evening of each day that God sees His creation as good; it is the end of creation that He gives it to man. And thus, it is at the end of the day that the Church begins the liturgy of time's sanctification.
We come to church, we who are in the world having lived through many hours filled, as usual, with word and rest, suffering and joy, hatred and love. Men died and men were born. For some it was the happiest day of their life, a day to be remembered forever. And for some others it brought the end of all their hopes, the destruction of their very soul. And the whole day is not here -- unique, irreversible, irreparable. It is gone, but its results, its fruits will shape the next day, for what we have done once remains forever.
But the vesperal service does not begin as a religious "epilogue" of the day, as a prayer added to all its other experience. It begins at the beginning, and this means in the "rediscovery," in adoration and thanksgiving, of the world as God's creation. The Church takes us, as it were, to that first evening on which man, called by God to life, opened his eyes and saw what God in His love was giving to hi, saw all the beauty, all the glory of the temple in which he was standing, and rendered thanks to God. And in this thanksgiving he became himself.
...Praise the Lord, O my soul, Blessed art Thou O Lord....
...O Lord, how manifold are they works.
.......In wisdom hast Thou made them all.
...The earth is full of Thy riches.
...I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live,
...I will praise my God, while I have my being (Ps 104).
And it must be so. There must be someone in this world -- which rejected God and in this rejection, in this blasphemy, became a chaos, and to discern, to see it again as full of divine riches, as the cup full of life and joy, as beauty and wisdom, and to thank God for it. This "someone" is Christ, the new Adam who restores that "eucharistic life" which I, the old Adam, have rejected and lost; who makes me again what I am, and restores the world to me. And if the Church is in Christ, its initial act is always this act of thanksgiving, of returning the world to God.
Through contrast with the beauty and wonder of creation, however, the darkness and failure of the world is discovered, and this is the second great theme of Vespers If Psalm 104 speaks truly, the world as we know it is -- by contrast -- a nightmare. Because we have first seen the beauty of the world, we can now see the ugliness, realize what we have lost, understand how our whole life (and not only some "trespasses") has become sin, and can repent it. The lights are now extinguished. The "royal doors" of the sanctuary are closed. The celebrant has put off his vestments; it is the naked and suffering man who cries outside of Paradise, who in full awareness of his exile, of his betrayal, of his darkness, says to God: "Out of the depth have I cried unto Thee, O Lord." In the face of the glory of creation there must be a tremendous sadness. God has given us another day, and we can see just how we have destroyed this gift of His. We are not "nice" Christians come apart from the ugly world. If we do not stand precisely as representatives of his world, as indeed the world itself, if we do not hear the whole burden of this day, our "piety" may still be pious, but it is not Christian.
Now comes the third theme of Vespers: redemption. Into this world of sin and darkness light has come: "O gladsome radiance of the holy glory of the Father, immortal, heavenly, holy, blessed, Jesus Christ." The world is at its evening because the One bringing the final meaning to the world has come; in the darkness of this world, the light of Christ reveals again the true nature of things. This is not the world it was before Christ came. His coming now belongs to the world. The decisive event of the cosmos has taken place. We know now that the event of Christ must transform everything to do with our lives. It was only because of Christ that we had the heart to glory in the creation. At the beginning of Vespers, only because He gave us the eyes to "behold God's gracious hand in all his works." Now in the time in which we can thank God for Christ, we began to understand that everything is transformed in Christ into its true wonder. In the radiance of His light the world is not commonplace. The very floor we stand on is a miracle of atoms whizzing about in space. The darkness of sin is clarified, and its burden shouldered. Death is robbed of its finality, trampled down by Christ's death. In a world where everything that seems to be present is immediately past, everything in Christ is able to participate in the eternal present of God. This very evening is the real time of our life.
And thus we are brought to the last time of Vespers: that of the end It is announced by the singing of the Nunc Dimittis. The words are attributed in the Gospel to the old man Simeon, who had spent his life in constant expectation of the coming Messiah because he had been told in a vision that he would not die before he saw the promised one of Israel. When Mary and Joseph brought the child Jesus to be presented in God in the temple, he was there and received Him into his arms, and the Gospel records that he said.
...Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
...according to Thy word.
...For mine eyes have seen They Salvation,
...which Thou has prepared before the face of all people;
...to be a light to enlighten the Gentiles,
...and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Simeon had been waiting all his life, and then at last the Christ Child was given to him: he held the whole world in his arms. He stood for the whole world in its expectation and longing and the words he used to express his thanksgiving have become our own. He could recognize the Lord because it is natural to take someone you love into your arms; and then his life of waiting was fulfilled. He had beheld the One he had longed for. He had completed his purpose in life, and he was ready to die.
But death to him was not catastrophe. It was only a natural expression of the fulfillment of his waiting. He was not closing his eyes to the light he had at last seen; his death was only the beginning of a more inward vision of that light. In the same way Vespers is the recognition that the evening of hits world has come which announces the day that has no evening. In Christ and through Christ it may become the beginning of a new life, of the day that has no evening. For our eyes have seen salvation and a light which is now pregnant with new life. We come into the presence of Christ to offer Him our time, we extend our arms to receive Him. And He fills the time with Himself, He heals it and makes it -- again and again -- the time of salvation.
(from Alexander Schmemann's "For the Life of the World" pp. 59-63)
PotOnWheel
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 8/30/2001 2:26 AM (GMT -6) | | MATINS...........
"And the evening and the morning. . . ." When we first wake up, the initial sensation is always that of night, not of illumination: we are at out weakest, at our most helpless. It is like a man's first real experience of life in all its absurdity and solitude, at first kept from him by family warmth. We discover every morning in the amorphous darkness the inertia of life. And thus the first theme of Matins is again the coming of the light into darkness. It begins not like Vespers with the creation, but with the Fall. Yet in this very helplessness and despair, there is a hidden expectation, a thirst and hunger. And within this scene the Church declares her joy, not only against the grain of natural life, but fulfilling it. The Church announces every morning that God is the Lord, and she begins to organize life around God.
In the church the first lights of Matins are candles, as a foretaste of the sun. Then the sun itself rises, dispelling the darkness of the world, and in this the Church sees the rising of the true Light of the world, the Son of God. We know that our Redeemer lives, and that in the midst of the absurdity of life, He will be again revealed to us. Through the misfortunes of life "compass us about," yet each morning we can proclaim with the rising sun the coming of the long expected Messiah. Despite everything, "this is the day which the Lord has made -- we will rejoice and be glad in it. Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.
As the light grows, the service refers the new morning in the new time. As Vespers referred evening to the whole Christian experience of the world as "evening," so Matins refers morning to the Christian experience or the Church as "morning," as a new beginning.
These two complementary, yet absolutely essential, dimensions] of time shape our life in time and by giving time double exposure is, indeed, to be applied to everything we do. We are always between morning and evening, between Sunday and Sunday. between Easter and Easter, between the two comings of Christ. The experience of time as end gives an absolute importance to whatever we do now, makes it final, decisive. The experience of time as beginning fills all our time with joy, for it adds to it the "coefficient" of eternity: "I shall not die but life and declare the works of the Lord." We are at work in the world, and this work itself, becomes meaningless, futile, irrelevant. In every city in the world there is each morning a rush of clean and shaven people getting to work. And every evening there is a rush of the same people, now tired and dirty, going in the opposite direction. But long, long ago a wise man looked at this rush (as forms change, but not the meaninglessness) and said:
...Vanity of vanities. All is vanity
...What profit hat man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun.
...One generation passeth away and another generation cometh;
..But the earth abideth forever.
...The eye is not satisfied with seeing; nor the ear filled with hearing.
...There is no new thing under the sun . . . (Eccl. 1)
And this remains true of the fallen world. But we Christians have too often forgotten that God has redeemed the world. For centuries we have preached to the hurrying people: your daily rush has no meaning, yet accept it -- and you will be rewarded in another world by an eternal rest. But God revealed and offers us eternal Life and not eternal rest. And God revealed this eternal Life in the midst of time -- and of its rush -- as its secret meaning and goal. And thus he made time, and our work in it, into the sacrament of the world to come, the liturgy of fulfillment and ascension. It is when we have reached the very end of the world's self-sufficiency that it begins again for us as the material of the sacrament that we are to fulfill in Christ.
"There is no new thing under the sun." Yet every day, every minute resounds now with the victorious affirmation "Behold, I make all things new. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. . ." (Rev. 21 5-6)
(from Alexander Schmemann's "For the Life of the World" pp. 59-63)
PotOnWheel
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Cibertus
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| Posted 8/31/2001 9:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Yo Pot man,
I remember running across something in your posts or links that refered to the Orthodox church's perspective on time. That it was not a created thing but rather it was "the mother that ate her children." i.e. time is a phenomenon of our own falleness. Could you redirect me to some material that expands on that?
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/1/2001 4:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Cibertus remembered: quote:
"the mother that ate her children." i.e. time is a phenomenon of our own falleness. Could you redirect me to some material that expands on that?
Boy, I can see why that one would stick in your cranium!
Lets see how good the search engine is for this site; and I'll try getting back to you and that one!
A *really* interesting book is "Time and Man" (c.1996, SVS Press) by Georgios I. Manzaridis from the Univ. of Thessolaniki, Greece. But I don't think any thing has been posted here from that particular book.....yet.
But a quick guess would be that it has to do with how Adan and Eve were not predestined (I choose this word in defiance of the Augustinian tradition's use of it!) to die--rather, they made that choice by leaving Him who is life. Doc and Modes would no doubt point out eloquently that sequence was present in Eden--had to, considering Adam's first job!!!!!--but what we know of "dying" wasn't present for Adam and Eve. That's just a guess, now!!!
So, let me go hunt'n.
PotOnWheel
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/1/2001 6:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Cibertus:
I'm STILL looking..
My wife knows that I'm not good with names (Translate that to terms and definitions; and being over forty my nouns are going--same as with my Mom.) A subject like TIME has so many perspectives. I do best trying to learn what I should NOT believe to be true. God isn't removed from time--the Greek philosophy thing; nor is he trapped within time, with time being bigger than God (what OV gets accused of, I think). I think I'm on track to say that God's creative acts are in/through/by time. (I'm not a good wordsmith.) But part of the difficulty is found not just with my limited skills and tired brain. Also a factor is that I'm a creature, making any discussion of what sequences are for the Triune God difficult--tempting a form of mental idolatry. And besides the creature/creator gap, the other thing is the place on our own "timeline" between the fall and the New Earth. Time has that "downer" meaning for mortal beings--obviously. But some Orthodox writers have pointed out that that itself is not all bad---that it is better to die and then be raised incorruptible than to just get bad-er and bad-er! They have a point.
I'M STILL GOING TO TRY AND FIND YOUR QUOTE--BUT I MIGHT DO IT ON A FASTER MODEM!
So, because that one about eacting children (I should go search for "consume"--maybe better luck.) sounded so depressing, well, becasue of that I'd like to post another quote. This is from Bishop Kallistos Ware (now an older, wise man) who teaches at Oxford. In "The Inner Kingdom" (SVS Press, c.2000) and the chapter "Time: Prison of Path to Freedom" he ends with a section called "Without the meaning there is no time."[
quote:
"Without the meaning there is no time."
In my reflections on time, as perhaps you will have noticed, a transition has taken place. Seeking to answer the question "What is time?" I have been led to speak not just about time itself but about personhood, freedom and love. If time is discussed in the abstract and treated as a "thing" that exists by itself, it proves ever more baffling and more elusive. St. Augustine voices a difficulty familiar to us all: "What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I try to explain to an inquirer, I do not know." We can only begin to understand the nature of time when we take into account a whole series of other matters as well, such as our experience of growth and decay, of being in relation, of learning to respond Without the meaning there is not time; and there is no such thing as absolute time, for all time is related to persons and their inner experience. Time becomes intelligible only when set in the total context of life (and death) -- indeed, the two terms "time" and "life" are in many respects virtually interchangeable.
It is the Incarnation, we have found, that provides us with a clue to the meaning of time. As "the moment in and our of time," to use Elliot's words, it shows us the interdependence of time and eternity; only sub specie aeternitatis does time acquire its authentic resonance and depth. And the Incarnation, as an act of live addressed to our human freedom, also indicated how time is to be understood in terms of personal relationships, of reciprocity and dialogue. Time, whether we choose to picture it as circle, line or spiral, is not a sexton or jailer, but the safeguard of our human personhood, the protector of liberty and love.
There are two moments in the Divine Liturgy which sum up these to aspects of time. The first is when the celebrant, immediately prior to the opening blessing, uses the words of the angels at the Incarnation, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace. . ." (Luke 2:14); and then the deacon says to him, "It is time for the Lord to act" (Ps 118 [119]:126). It is the vocation of time to be open to eternity; time is fulfilled when God's eternity, God's action, breaks into the termporal sequence, as happened supremely at Christ's birth in Bethlehem, as happens also at every Eucharist. The second moment comes just before the Creed, when the deacon says to the people, "Let us love one another. . ." And the people reply affirming their faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Such exactly is the true rationale of time: mutual love after the image of the Trinity.
There. I feel better now.
PotOnWheel
Edited by - POTONWHEEL on 09/01/2001 11:29:23 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Cibertus
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| Posted 9/3/2001 5:13 AM (GMT -6) | | Pot Man,
Don't worry about the quote it just the lead I wanted and its what you gave me. Thanks.
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Cibertus
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| Posted 9/6/2001 3:31 PM (GMT -6) | | WOW! Trying to find that book in the evangelical library system is like expecting to see a cow pie in an operating room.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/6/2001 4:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Greetings, O paper-cut inflicted one!
quote:
WOW! Trying to find that book in the evangelical library system is like expecting to see a cow pie in an operating room.
Now I'm interested. Did you find it. (How, where?)
WHICH of the three books mentioned in this string alone did you decide you wanted? quote:
Kallistos Ware's "The Inner Kingdom" (SVS Press, c.2000), or by Georgios I. Manzaridis' "Time and Man" (c.1996, SVS Press) *quoted by a Bethel Sem Prof.--so there is nope(!), or Alexander Schmemann's "For the Life of the World"
The original quote, I'm guessing, was from Evdokimov--but I can't find it, and ran out of time. It MIGHT have been him *quoting* a contemporary thinker--my amateur guess.
If there is any way I can be of further help, just ask.
BTW -- SVS Press is St. Vladamir's Seminary Press. To get books I just call their bookstore and give them my VISA number for UPS. The prices are really not bad!
Delivery is quick. And being a Sem. Press their stuff should be accessible on inter-library loan.
Which book were you hunting for?
Good luck.
PotOnWheel
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 09/06/2001 9:42:15 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/9/2001 2:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Something happened in the Reformed church this Sunday that also happened seven years ago -- the Sunday my youngest son was baptized. This Sunday we had "book ends." A child was baptized (You Swedish Baptists like me have to twist your brains and say "infant dedication"), which is one end of the bookends; we had the dedication of the Sunday School teachers, which is the middle; and we had an adult profession of faith (SwedeBapts...think adult baptism).
YES, yes, yes, I know that these are not exact equivalents...but I'm going to get back to my story now!
What is so neat about this all is that in our vision, and space, and moment is laid out what takes time. Like the TV cooking shows, where the prepared dish goes in one oven and a finished example pops out of different oven, there is something just neat about this all.
Had to share it!
BTW -- in liturgical churches this was the Feast of the Birth of the Birthgiver of God. Another set of bookends! Mary really had a birthday, just as surely as God really took on human flesh from a child of the fall. If Calvary and the Resurrection and Assension are one half of the bookends then Mary's birth is the other. Christ took on fallen humanity which was like us in every way except that he did not sin. A real human young girl said "yes" by her very free will to God's invitation; and invitation to the whole of humanity.
The same invitation that I said yes to, and was baptized in a Baptist church. The same "yes" that the folks above answered.
I believe in one holy catholic church. I believe in one baptism. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
Mary nurtured the creator of the world in her womb. That is how far God condescended!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY!
PotOnWheel
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 9/29/2001 4:46 PM (GMT -6) | | Here is something interesting, I think (from Schmemann) about days of the week.
Seems that for the first three hundred years Sunday was not a day of rest. It was the first day, and the eighth. But Sunday was the Lord's day. It was the day for Communion. Where later days got divided sometimes into days that matter (sacred) and days that didn't (profaine), it wasn't that way at first. So Sunday was not the only day but it was the day that gave all others including itself meaning. The first through seventh are all subject to the fall. But the eighth day is the day where the eschaton breaks into the present, where the new birth reaches into the present frustration of doing what one does not want and not doing what one wants.
Time matters. Matter matters too. (But that is another story.)
PotOnWheel
(ISA 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.")
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/22/2001 4:26 PM (GMT -6) | | I went to a conference with lots of Christian Architects. Something that jumped out was the connection between narrative of worship, path to worship, and the space that articulated it. It was said that Architecture does not "cause" worship. But it can facilitate.
The entry into the Holy Place was a facinating aspect.
Space, time, eternity and narrative all CAN work together.
The Vespers "path" in above entry is great!
PotOnWheel
(ISA 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.")
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 10/28/2001 9:14:44 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/28/2001 4:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Time is not just units of measure, it is MEANING. Meaning creates time.
The same can be said for SPACE.
The pastor's daughter, and two little girls made their profession of faith in front of the congregation. The liturgical readings and confessions and proclamations all worked with that. The sermon surrounded the event. The room "breathed" it. It was one--in meaning. Time and place were centered; and in so being, it extended beyond itself.
GREAT!
PotOnWheel
(ISA 64:8 "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.")
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/25/2001 12:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | I put a link to this thread from the "Do we need liturgy?" thread. Maybe there will be more action here. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/2/2001 9:18 AM (GMT -6) | | Well, the "Do We Need Liturgy Thread" has been interesting.
Anyone have any observations on Natural Theology? | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/23/2002 6:12 PM (GMT -6) | | If I post this...maybe E- will read it. I think that she might like it.
PoW | | Back to Top | | |
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Empiress
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| Posted 2/25/2002 2:23 AM (GMT -6) | | Oh yes PoW, I LOVE what you're talking about here. I actually have so much I could say, I don't know where to begin!
Maybe a slight testimony in accordance with your original post about our feelings is a good place to start...
The liturgy and the Daily Office feeds my soul in a way nothing else does. I was first introduced to this way of life while spending a summer in a Benedictine monastery as a volunteer where I learned to order my day around prayer, rather than order prayer around my day. There's a good reason why the Daily Office of morning, noon, and evening liturgical prayer has been in oontinual use throughout the millenia!
Later I was introduced to the fullness of liturgical life and the Sacraments in the Anglican Church where worship is God-centered. Since then I have sought to bring ritual into my daily life.
For instance:
Whenever I move into a new location, I pray through the house using the Anglican "House Blessing" ritual, dedicating it to God.
I follow morning, noon, evening, and night (Compline) prayers whenever I am on retreat, and also incorporate portions of these in my daily life.
When a friend or family member is sick, I follow the ritual for praying and anointing the sick according to the Anglican rite and have found it to be a very powerful experience for all involved.
One of the schools I attended for a year was anglo-catholic in orientation. Our days were lived according to a monastic schedule of morning prayer, Eucharist, and evening prayer. I never felt so centered in God as I did that year (even though I butted heads with the theology of many at that school!).
I do believe time is a sacrament in many ways...and our stewardship of the time God has given us is essential to living a fulfilled life in God. If we see prayer as the central act and use of our time, it will transform us. It's so easy to forget this though...I forget it! That's just one reason why it's so helpful to live in community.
I do have an excellent book recommendation for evangelicals interested in this topic, it's called:
Evangelicals On the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals are Attracted to the Liturgical Church, by Robert Webber.
This book is what started me out on the Canterbury Trail, as a former Presbyterian and the daughter of a Presbyterian minister.
Pax,
Miss E
Edited by - empiress on 02/25/2002 07:28:37 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/8/2006 6:47 PM (GMT -6) | | This is from Bishop Kallistos Ware (now an older, wise man) who teaches at Oxford. In "The Inner Kingdom" (SVS Press, c.2000) and the chapter "Time: Prison of Path to Freedom" he ends with a section called "Without the meaning there is no time."[
quote:
"Without the meaning there is no time."
In my reflections on time, as perhaps you will have noticed, a transition has taken place. Seeking to answer the question "What is time?" I have been led to speak not just about time itself but about personhood, freedom and love. If time is discussed in the abstract and treated as a "thing" that exists by itself, it proves ever more baffling and more elusive. St. Augustine voices a difficulty familiar to us all: "What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I try to explain to an inquirer, I do not know." We can only begin to understand the nature of time when we take into account a whole series of other matters as well, such as our experience of growth and decay, of being in relation, of learning to respond Without the meaning there is not time; and there is no such thing as absolute time, for all time is related to persons and their inner experience. Time becomes intelligible only when set in the total context of life (and death) -- indeed, the two terms "time" and "life" are in many respects virtually interchangeable.
It is the Incarnation, we have found, that provides us with a clue to the meaning of time. As "the moment in and our of time," to use Elliot's words, it shows us the interdependence of time and eternity; only sub specie aeternitatis does time acquire its authentic resonance and depth. And the Incarnation, as an act of live addressed to our human freedom, also indicated how time is to be understood in terms of personal relationships, of reciprocity and dialogue. Time, whether we choose to picture it as circle, line or spiral, is not a sexton or jailer, but the safeguard of our human personhood, the protector of liberty and love.
There are two moments in the Divine Liturgy which sum up these to aspects of time. The first is when the celebrant, immediately prior to the opening blessing, uses the words of the angels at the Incarnation, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace. . ." (Luke 2:14); and then the deacon says to him, "It is time for the Lord to act" (Ps 118 [119]:126). It is the vocation of time to be open to eternity; time is fulfilled when God's eternity, God's action, breaks into the termporal sequence, as happened supremely at Christ's birth in Bethlehem, as happens also at every Eucharist. The second moment comes just before the Creed, when the deacon says to the people, "Let us love one another. . ." And the people reply affirming their faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Such exactly is the true rationale of time: mutual love after the image of the Trinity.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 9/18/2007 11:13 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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