The mixed chalice

Next time you attend a Eucharistic service, look closely when the bread and wine are brought up to the Altar. A small jug of water is also pres ented. Now look more closely still: after the wine is poured into the chalice, a small amount of water is also added. We call this practice the ‘mixed chalice.’

     The mixed chalice derives from an ancient Jewish custom and was most probably observed by Jesus himself at the Last Supper.

      The mixed chalice has been used in communion ser vices since then. The Anglican Church followed the practice before the Reformation, but only in 1926 did it became legal again in modern England.

      In the very earliest Jewish times, wine was always drunk undiluted; wine mixed with water was said to be ‘ruined’ (see Isaiah 1:22). But by the second century BC, the Greek custom of diluting wine had become so widely acc epted that the writer of 2 Macc a bees could refer to diluted wine as ‘sweet and delicious,’ and undiluted wine as ‘harmful’ (2 Mac 15:39).

In the following centuries, this dilution became so normal that ancient Jewish commentaries took it for granted; indeed, in some cases, it was forbidden to say the traditional table-blessing over wine that was not diluted. In this context, the wine of the Last Supper was almost certainly a sweet red wine and highly diluted.

     The early and mediaeval church attached allegorical meanings to the mixed chalice. It reflects the two natures of Christ: he was both divine and human, the wine was understood to represent his divine nature and the water his human nature.

     The mixed chalice was the invariable practice of the early church. It was rejected by Luther at the Reformation and not practised in the Calvinist tradition. The first version of the Book of Common Prayer (published in 1549) directed the continuance of this usage, but the instruction was dropped in the 1552 edition. Its revival in the Church of England during the nineteenth century became a matter of dispute between the Anglo-Catholics and their opponents. It is now very widely practised.

     The mixed chalice has been described as a sign of union of Christ with his people, a sign of the flow of blood and water from Jesus’ side at the crucifixion (John 19:34), and a sign of the union of Christ’s divine and human natures.

      In the eastern Churches, the water added to the chalice is hot, and is only added after the breaking of the bread. This aspect is meant to symbolise the descent of the Holy Spirit and the vibrant energy of faith. 

For more information, go to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_chalice

https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/mixed-chalice

http://philorthodox.blogspot.com/2008/03/mixed-chalice.html  

The book of Habakkuk

Habakkuk is the eighth of the twelve minor prophets in the Old Testament.

The author Habakkuk’s name only appears twice in the Bible: in Hb 1:1 and 3:1. The author calls himself a prophet in Hb 1:1. The highly liturgical nature of Habakkuk suggests the author was a Temple prophet. Such a profession required lyres, harps and cymbals during worship (e.g. see 1 Chronicles 25:1), which seems to echo Hb 3:19b.

      We know almost nothing about Habakkuk as a person: we don’t know his home town, secular occupation, or any facts concerning his parents or tribe, although it is possible that Habakkuk was a Levite as well as a Temple singer.

      Although his name does not appear in any other part of the Bible, one ancient tradition suggests Habakkuk was the son of the Shunammite woman whom Elisha restored to life, as recorded in 2 Kings 4:16. Another idea says he was the sentinel set by Isaiah to watch for the fall of Babylon (compare Hb 2:1 with Isaiah 21:6).

      Although we do not know where Habakkuk was born, the subject matter of the book makes it safe to conclude that he lived in Jerusalem at the time he wrote his prophecy.

Content The book’s author had literary talent, and he writes with a colourful palate of image and metaphor

      Unlike other prophetic books in the Old Testament, Habakkuk does not accuse Israel of its sin. Rather, his book comprises five oracles about the Chaldeans (who were also known as the Babylonians). In addition to the five oracles, Habakkuk includes a song of praise to God which takes the literary form of a psalm.

     Habakkuk is also unusual in that he openly questions the wisdom of God (Hb 1:3a, 1:13b). For example, early in the second chapter, the Prophet notes the injustice among his people and asks why God does not take action: ‘God, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save?’ (Hb 1:2).

Date of composition The prose implies the reign of Jehoiakim (609–598 bc), which is reasonable insofar as it was during this king’s reign that the Babylonians first grew in power. The Babylonians marched against Jerusalem in 598 bc. Jehoiakim died as the Babylonians approached, so his eighteen-year-old son Jehoiachin took the throne. Jehoiachin surrendered Jer us alem a short time later, which was followed by rep risals. Hb 1:12–17 implies Habakkuk was a first-hand witness of Babylonian brutality.

      The Babylonian rise to power started in 612 bc, so some think Habakkuk was active at about that time, making him an early contemporary of Jeremiah and Zephaniah. But Jewish sources never group him with these two other prophets, who are often placed together, so it is possible that he was earlier still.

The message of the book Of the three chapters in the book, the first two describe a dialogue between God and the prophet. The central message is ‘the just shall live by faith’ (Hb 2:4).

      This message informs all genuine Christian thought. For example, St Paul uses it in both his Epistle to the Romans (Rom 1:17), and his Epistle to the Galatians (Gal 3:11); and the idea also appears in the anonymous Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 10:38) as the starting point of the concept of faith. Habakkuk chapter 3 may be an independent (and later?) addition. It is now recognised as a liturgical piece, but its literary style suggests it was written by the same author as chapters 1 and 2.

Mary Sumner

Mary Sumner was born in 1828, in Swinton near Salford into a wealthy and cultured family. She was the third of four children. Her father was a banker and keen amateur historian while her mother was a woman of great personal piety who saw her calling as bringing up her children according to Scripture.

     The family moved to Colwall near Ledbury, Herefordshire, in 1832. Her mother was soon leading Scripture meetings for local mothers. The latest member of the family died about a year after they arrived in Herefordshire aged only six weeks, which made a lasting impression on Mary.

Mary was educated privately at home, where she became an accomplished singer and learned three foreign languages. Years later, she said that what she valued most about her family home was its Christian atmosphere.

      To complete her musical learning, she travelled with her mother and elder sister to Rome. While there, Mary met her future husband, George Sumner, the son of the Bishop of Winchester and a relative of William Wilberforce. They wed in 1848 and completed 61 years of married life.

George became an Anglican Vicar 18 months after the wedding and became a Vicar in Hampshire in 1851. Mary followed her mother’s example by dedicating herself to raising her children and helping her husband in his ministry by providing music and Bible classes.

      Years later in 1876, Mary’s eldest daughter Margaret gave birth, which brought back memories of her own sense of burden when becoming a mother. Mary decided that a new organisation was needed in the parish so she organised a meeting of local mothers to offer mutual support — and the first branch of the Mothers’ Union had begun. This plan was deemed quite radical as it involved calling women of all social classes to support one another and to see motherhood as a profession as important as those of men, if not more so.

      The first meeting was held in the Rectory, but Mary was so nervous that her husband had to speak for her and invite the women to return next week. Mary gathered sufficient courage to speak at this second meeting.

      This first incarnation of the Mothers’ Union was limited to her family’s parish and it might have remained merely a local experiment except that a few years later, in 1885, Mary was part of a Church audience at the nearby Portsmouth Church Congress. The Bishop of Newcastle had been asked to address the women churchgoers but felt that he had very little to say to women and invited Mary to speak in his place. Although she was again nervous, she gave a passionate address about national morality and ‘the importance of women’s vocation as mothers to change the nation for the better’. She declared the Mothers’ Union (then) motto, ‘Those that rock the cradle rule the world’. She also called for a Mothers’ Union prayer. A number of the women present went back to their parishes to found their own mothers’ meetings following Mary’s pattern. Soon afterwards, the Bishop of Winchester made the Mothers’ Union a diocesan organisation. The idea caught took hold: by 1909, the Mothers’ Union was Britain’s largest voluntary organisation for women.

      Mary died on 11 August 1921 at the age of 92 and was buried with her husband (who died 12 years before) outside Winchester Cathedral.

      Mary Sumner was a woman of deep faith with a heart for prayer and a quiet determination to make a difference in the lives of others. Her faith and resolve to follow God’s call to make a difference to families and society, laid the foundations for today’s worldwide movement. One of its most endearing features was the way its membership cut across all social classes. God’s love is for all.

Rain

It’s raining gently outside. A moment ago it was pouring down in torrents. The water from the sky is forming large puddles on the road and in my garden. When it last rained properly, in the spring, the rain quickly sank into the earth but today the ground has been baked so hard by months of hot, sunny weather that it’s become as impervious as stone. I need the water to sink deep but it can’t.

         We hear the word of God from many sources: we hear the Bible as it’s read in Church and we study its ancient pages at home. We may have texts on the walls of our homes. But like the rain, it can either enter our soul or it can flow over us and collect elsewhere. It needs to sink deep if it’s to nourish and help the dry areas of a spiritual life, and help the seed of faith to come alive … but can it do so?

      Using the principle of water on my garden, the best way to promote the word of God sinking deeply into a human soul is frequent immersion, to avoid any period of spiritual drought. A sudden experience of God followed by a long time away from Him has the same effect as the rain in my garden today. It does not penetrate and the soul remains arid.

      We all need God, and we need Him deep down in the inner recesses of our spiritual lives. We need Him often. We therefore need to immerse ourselves in God as often and as fully as possible.

The book of Obadiah

The Book of Obadiah consists of a single chapter of 21 verses, making it the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible. The prophet’s name means ‘Worshipper of God’, and could be pronounced ʿOvadyahu; in Modern Hebrew he is Ovadyah; ‘Slave of God’.

       Christians and Jews both attribute the book to a prophet who named himself in the first verse as ‘Obadiah’. Historical ambiguities in the text makes it difficult to date his ministry, but the prophecy itself implies a time after the Exile, so 586 BC seems a good guess. An ancient Jewish tradition said Obadiah was a convert to Judaism from Edom. He chose to prophesy against Edom because he had himself been an Edomite.

Petra was probably first settled in about 9,000 BC.
The current city in today’s Jordan was hewn from
the bare rocks of the cliffs in about 300 BC.

      In the book of Obadiah, the prophet describes an encounter with God concerning the mountain-dwelling nation of Edom. (This nation was located south east of Israel and includes Petra, a city hewn from rocks; its southern boundary was on the Gulf of Aqaba.)

      In this encounter, God talks against Edom’s pride and arrogance, then lists its violent actions against the sister nation of Israel: they refused to help Israel in their need, sold them as slaves, and even abused them while they were exiled to Babylon. In the prophecy, God promises to destroy Edom so completely that no remnant would remain. Egypt would take the Edomites’ land and the people would lose their racial identity. Its name will disappear. The children of Israel would eventually return from their exile and possess the land of Edom. In fact, Babylon overtook Edom 100 years later and it never recovered.

      We know almost nothing about Obadiah the man. He may be the same Obadiah who was the servant of Ahab (1 Kings 18:3,4), but few modern scholars hold this view.

      In some Christian traditions, Obadiah was born in ‘Sychem’, and was one of the soldiers sent out by Ahaziah against Elijah. And according to a very old tradition, he was is buried in the Palestinian village of Sebastia (near the West Bank), at the same site as Elisha and where later the body of John the Baptist was believed to have been buried by his followers.

For more information, go to:

       https://thebibleproject.com/explore/obadiah

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obadiah

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Obadiah

The visitation of Mary to Elizabeth

Henri Nouwen

Henri Nouwen was a priest, professor, psychologist, theologian and writer. He was born in the Netherlands in January 1932. His father was a tax official while his mother was book-keeper to a small family business. His interests centred primarily around psychology, pastoral ministry, spirituality, social justice and community.

       Henri trained as a priest in the Jesuit (Roman Catholic) Aloysius College in The Hague, and was ordained in 1957. He was soon heavily involved in a ministry of healing.

       Henri was always eager to learn about himself and the people he helped, so he re-trained as a clinical psychologist, becoming one of the first priests to realise the power of psychology when exploring matters of faith. His doctoral thesis explored ways of integrating spiritual ministry and modern psychology.

       Nouwen became professor of pastoral theology at the Yale Divinity School (1971 and 1981) and wrote extensively about his own experiences. While there, he started a new dialogue between faith and psychology.

       During much of this time he also struggled with his own sexuality (he was gay, but secretly), which contributed to colossal feelings of self-doubt. The conflict between his priestly vows of celibacy and a sense of loneliness and longing for intimacy caused a series of depressive breakdowns, which also helps explain why his biography was called Wounded Prophet.

       One of the major healing encounters occurred during a long retreat at the Trappist Abbey of the Genesee in 1974, which lasted seven months. Although he concluded he was not suited for Trappist life, he remained heavily influenced by Trappist theology and its radical commitment to love: a second strand was emerging in his spirituality.

       Nouwen moved to Harvard after this retreat and, while there, met Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche movement. L’Arche cares for people with profound learning and developmental disabilities. (Today, L’Arche runs 147 communities in 35 countries across five continents.)

       Henri stayed for a another, long retreat with Vanier at the first ever L’Arche community and, while there, finally found the sense of purpose that was previously missing. As a friend commented, ‘Henri had always wondered what a Eucharistically centred community would be like; he now found one at L’Arche’. After decades of teaching at academic institutions, Nouwen left to join the L’Arche community in Ontario. As a priest there, he used his psychology training to explore the boundaries of sacrificial love.

       While visiting another L’Arche community in France, he saw a poster of Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, which made a deep impression. He went to Saint Petersburg to see the painting for himself, and was captivated. He studied the painting for days then wrote his most famous book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which is a masterpiece of psychological analysis. In it, he looks at Jesus’ parable in Luke 15, gently psychoanalysing all the major characters in the story. In 2014, the Church Times ranked the book among the most influential 100 Christian books in print today. In all, Nouwen published 39 books and hundreds of articles. They discuss issues of healing, community, and finding self.

       Henri Nouwen died in the Netherlands on 21 September 1996 from a sudden heart attack, while en route to Russia to participate in a Dutch documentary about his book The Return of the Prodigal Son.