Have you heard about this? I hadn't heard anything until I received a note from Christianity Today. It's an article about a pastor and some people from his church who tried a 30-day Leviticus Challenge. Take a peak! Kinda interesting. :)
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- Currently, I am posting my "musings on Ephesians." This was a 6 1/2 month process of allowing Paul's letter to Ephesus to speak to me about my situations. Some of it gets rather personal. But hopefully it can help you too.
2 comments:
Had not heard of it, very interesting. -S
After reading through the article, I am struck by the apparent, pervasive need by many to find projects or new ways to include historic ritual, particularly as an experiment.
Really, though, our life is no experiment. While the participants clearly seemed to have gained benefits from trying this out, putting it on for a while. Now that they're done, are they really changed?
It would seem much better, especially in light of historical Christian practice, to adopt a strict rule of life, based on traditional understandings of the place of prayer, service, and almsgiving in the Christian life. Having that rule, much like the Levitical rule, be the guide to one's life, creates a dynamic where it is equally apparent when we have failed to meet that mark. The Christian's rule, however, should be dynamic, worked out with a spiritual advisor to be challenging but realistic, according to one's circumstances, and updated with the changes in life. When one piece of it is easily attained, perhaps something more is added, or a deeper richness is found in some way. And the reverse can also be true. This consistency and stability, along with that of the Church and its sacraments (which, obviously, I would recommend availing oneself of without fail), provide the context to experience what these experimenters did, but on an ongoing basis. We all, in our quiet ways, should be finding where, when, and how, God's grace abounds in our failings, but even more that Christ's deep love, has no limit, no place or thing or action or inaction past which it cannot reach.
The person who commented that "the modern-day, post-Jesus equivalent" of the Levitical "sacrificial section" was Confession, got it part right. Confession only makes sense when it is placed side by side with the other sacraments. Baptism initiates us into the life of Christ. Communion nurtures us and makes us partakers in Christ's one, perfect and all sufficient sacrifice. Confession (or, more properly, Reconciliation) is the place where absolution is given penitents for their particular sins, freely confessed with a contrite heart and spirit, for the grievances we have committed against God, our fellow man, and ourselves.
You see, it's all of one piece, really. (Or I think so anyway. ;) When one discards the wisdom of the ages without examining it, or understanding its place in Catholic faith and order, you're not far at all from the place where I see a lot of people. Yearning for something they don't know, and going from experiment to experiment. Living the Christian walk isn't something one can do successfully on a trial basis, flitting from one thing to the next. Rather, it is built on the solid rock of Christ, in steady discipleship, seeking always to live into and up to the fullness of life in Him to which we have been called, while we were yet sinners.
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