This actually came to me yesterday - I've been hard at work writing my next book, Praying Like the Early Church, but yesterday I took a day off to run some errands and have my "office hours" (which some of you know actually means I'm sitting at an Italian restaurant where no one can find me, drinking wine and reading and journaling, and thinking my thoughts, and just doing the non-work part of an author's work, and most important, not caring what time it is). Anyway, I was reading what I thought was an unrelated book, and as God often does, he pointed out to me a couple things in someone else's book that will be helpful in framing what I need to write in my own book. And this point came together for me in a way it hadn't before.
We are often told we should pray "in Jesus' name." And there is nothing wrong with that, but as I've discovered, that isn't how the early Christians prayed. That is actually a more protestant way of finishing a prayer, and I suspect it was emphasized specifically to be a replacement for the "catholic" way of ending a prayer, which is to say, the original Christian way of ending a prayer. And what is that? It's the sign of the cross. From as early as we can tell, Christians made the sign of the cross, and the words that go with it: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" - that is actually the name in which we should pray - the name of the Trinity. At least, that's the way the earliest Christians prayed. Making the sign of the cross was itself considered a prayer - a prayer for blessing, and for protection, even when the person doesn't say the words out loud, the outward sign on the body becomes not only the prayer but a proclamation of the gospel to any who might see it.
So from now on I'm going to work harder to kick the old habit of ending a prayer by simply saying, "in Jesus' name, Amen," and instead end every prayer with the sign of the cross.
(Side note - it turns out you don't need to say Amen to your own prayers. That's really for when someone else vocalizes the prayer, and then you say Amen to agree with it.)
Here's a short (about a minute) video I took going around the Holy Column in the church of Santa Prassede. This is the column that Jesus was tied to when he was scourged by Pontius Pilate. They don't always have the barrier down, so you usually don't get to see it from all the way around. I wanted to get video of the whole thing all the way around because I ran across a note in an ancient document that said that those who made a pilgrimage (at that time to the Holy Land, since it was still in Jerusalem) could visit the Holy Column, and could see marks left from the hands of Jesus where he gripped it as he was being whipped. I assume that this is pious legend, but I figured since the column has that dark & light marble, maybe there's a place where the dark parts look like hands. I did not see it, but if you do, let me know!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
Here is our next set of texts - as we get into John chapter 6, we first encounter Jesus feeding the multitudes - in this case 5,000 families!
Now, as you know, there is also an account o Jesus feeding 4,000, and so you may also know that some scholars might speculate that these are just different versions of the same story that circulated and were handed down orally, until they were written down. Even the fact that both stories occur in the same gospel would not stop that kind of speculation. So I thought the first question I would have to ask was whether the Church fathers thought this was one event or two - BUT (and you see where this is going) I forgot that Jesus himself makes reference to two separate events (in Matthew 16 and in Mark 8) so there is no question for the Church fathers - these are two separate events. So it seems that Jesus performed this sign (miracle) of the feeding of the multitudes on two occasions. It's not just one event told two different ways, and it's also ...
My voice was still recovering from a bad cold, so not sounding my best, but this was a great conversation about pilgrimage, for the Jubilee year - more of this coming in other interviews! (FYI, I think I was the third of three guests that day, so you will have to fast forward to find me)
It seems that one way or another we need to talk about different kinds, or different levels of heresy. What I have been calling heresy vs. heterodoxy, others call heresy on fundamental doctrines vs. heresy on less fundamental doctrines. In other words, Heresy with a capital H (over fundamental doctrines like the Trinity and christology) are the kinds of heresies that move one outside the boundaries of what Christianity is, and that's because the very definition of Christianity is defined according to these fundamental doctrines. To refuse to sign the Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325, or the Council of Constantinople in 381 - and indeed to reject any of the contents of the Creed today - means that a person is NOT a Christian.
So are the non-chalcedonians, such as the miaphysites (including St. Gregory of Narek, and today's Coptic Christians) - are they heretics? Well, like it is with a lot of things, that depends on your definition of heresy. If you include in your definition of ...
