Fear

We are repeatedly exhorted to fear God that we may enter into God’s love. We are also told that perfect love casts out fear. Maybe, then, fear is a necessary component of faith before the perfect, loving fullness of time comes.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
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Assurance

Faith is an assurance of the fundamental goodness of existence, the assurance that, through all the misery and wrong, enduring it in flesh and blood is the One who comes, reconciling the broken pieces of a lamentable world, gathering them up as a hen gathers her brood.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
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Feast

Lent begins tomorrow. So eat. Drink. Like Christ himself, enjoy the fatness of God’s house, and imbibe from the river of his delights. The desert road is long, and dry, and barren, and we have been given the lushness of the river, the joy of repentance, to sustain us in the coming dryness. Today, God offers us one final night of feast. Alleluia.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
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Throne

God wants you whole. He loves you thriving and free; his glory is for you to be fully alive. You are his throne. We are his throne. We are where he chooses to dwell. And God does not simply want us as an idle object on which he may rest; he wants to dwell in us so that we may dwell in him.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
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Encounter

It is worldly weakness, not worldly strength, that enables us to encounter God. The structures of human hierarchy, whether social, economic, political, sexual, or religious, are worldly things, passing away. By rejecting worldly power and ambition, we may be open to the guidance of God’s Spirit, and be led to encounter God face-to-face in the person of Christ.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
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Wealth

All creation, and thus all that we might call material wealth, is the work of God. All wealth that we possess, whether meager or great, is given to us by God’s providence. God places us in a position of stewardship, authority, and responsibility.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
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Between Christianity and Christendom – Br. Lucas Hall

Br. Lucas Hall

Luke 9:51-62

“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”[i] This is the line that Jesus gives to a would-be follower. I think this is interesting, because there are three would-be followers in this story today. The next two seem reluctant, and Jesus speaks plainly to them about the need for a total commitment. But this first one is very committed. So is this line, this statement that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, what is it? Is it an admonition, in the same way the other two would-be followers are admonished? Is it a lament on Jesus’s part, as in other places in the gospels where he is frustrated by an insistent crowd? Maybe. To me, today, though, this reads more as a warning. An eager (perhaps overeager, starry-eyed, not quite sure what he’s getting himself into) but nevertheless eager would-be follower approaches, proclaiming his devotion, and Jesus sees fit to speak of the constant homelessness, alienation, and inability to rest that comes with this call. It seems meant to be sobering.

And there has long been within the Church a sense of unease at things being too comfortable. If things are going fine, without complication or difficulty, that suggests perhaps we’re not struggling where we need to be. The first few centuries of the Church, this struggle wasn’t difficult to come by. Blood, and tears, and prayer flowed in equal measure. But with the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire in the early 300s, much of the Church’s martyrdom, struggle, and witness stopped. Or, rather, it wasn’t obvious where it would come from. It’s long been pointed out that monasticism only rose to prominence in the Church right around this time, right around the time Christians were seeking greater difficulty, intensity, and challenge. The fact that any of us are here right now is in debt to this ancient pursuit of struggle. Read More

Destruction

In the Incarnation, Jesus has known destruction. He has known desolation. He has known the thousand deaths we are called to die. He still knows. And on the cross, Jesus shows forth this knowledge, offering his whole being, even to the gates of death.

– Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE

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A prayer for your day:

Jesus, the horror of death haunts all human life. Yet in your cross you share our pain and show us death’s destruction. I know you are the Way of life and will meet me at the gates of death, to lead me through.