When I was considering what kind of course to run this Lent – the first I’ve run in parish since becoming a Priest In Charge in my own parish – and the first to be run since the pandemic I was struggling to find a way forward.
The temptation when starting from scratch is to reach for the very new, or for the very old. What does my parish need? Would it be good to do a deep dive into one of the Gospels – or perhaps all of them? Would a thorough understanding of the geography of Mark help people engage with the story of Jesus as told in that Gospel better?
Ah, I know… I’ll do a course centred on the Eucharist – the mass – you can’t go wrong with a lent course that focuses on the model of a Christian life as expressed in the liturgy and the sheer beauty of the eucharist.
We could start with a talk on greeting – how we welcome people into church. Then onto a talk about confession, mercy & forgiveness, then onto the importance of scripture in our journey towards Christ before a long, deep and serious exploration of community prayer – all that before we even get to the liturgy of the eucharist.
The theologian and liturgist in me was excited.
But then, one afternoon as I sat in church watching people come in to pray – or more accurately – as I was fiddling with the wifi system attempting to figure out why the automatic iPhone controlled bell wasn’t working…. I watched a parishioner come in and head to the statue of our lady to light a candle.
As she got halfway down the church she stopped herself with such alacrity I thought she was going to fall over. She huffed at herself, turned on her heal and walked back to the door where she genuflected and crossed herself with water from the newly refreshed holy water stoup.
It had only been put back after the pandemic ban a week earlier and she’d forgotten it was there – she was on physical and mental auto-pilot and it was only as her mind turned to lighting that candle that her heart reminded her she’d missed something.
Even after two years of not carrying out this action her body, her heart – if not her mind – reached back in time and yanked some sort of physical memory. She’d missed something. Something wasn’t right. I suspect her body stopped before her mind even had chance to process what it was that was wrong.
I watched as she walked more slowly now, a difference in her stride as she approached the statue, took out a candle – lit it and said her prayers. Then she left, she hadn’t seen me up a ladder fiddling with cables – but from that hight God had shown me something very interesting indeed.
Something quite normal. Something that happens multiple times a day at St. Anselm, something so small and insignificant that it could be easily overlooked.
Walking past the church and seeing the door open and deciding to come in is a holy habit. The crossing of yourself at the door to church with holy water is a holy habit. Genuflecting as you enter to the blessed sacrament is a holy habit. Walking more slowly, more deliberately to the statue of Our Lady and inclining your head as you pass the altar is a holy habit. Choosing a candle to light, placing it in the stand, saying a prayer is a holy habit.
Each one of these actions have been learnt over time. They’ve been handed on through explicit instruction and through community or peer show and tell. Each one of these actions does something to us physically, it does something to our hearts, it does something to our minds – and as St. Paul teaches us – these things have to work together, or at the very least we should be aware of how they work together – to nod us in the direction of, and urge us into a deeper relationship with Jesus.
So then – thanks to this faithful lady I had the spark of an idea for a Lent course. What do these tiny things do to point us to Jesus? Why are they important? And perhaps most interestingly at this moment in time – what changed during the pandemic.
I know that for some the last thing we want to think about is the pandemic. As we emerge – or what feels like emergence – from the restrictions in our communities each one of us is being forced to examine how we interact as an individual, as a family and as part of a local community.
All of the little things we used to do without thinking – muscle memory perhaps – have been torn from us. We couldn’t cross ourselves with holy water when we entered church – although for many months I’m sure our hands reached out for the stoup only to find it dry or missing; and because we couldn’t cross ourselves we gradually stopped genuflecting or bowing. Because we stopped genuflecting as we entered church we stopped bowing as we crossed the altar and without these physical actions we stomped across church at the same speed with which we had arrived… as my wife calls it – London walking speed – which is at least 2mph faster than anywhere else in the country.
And so we find ourselves at the foot of Our Lady slightly out of breath, unprepared physically or mentally and we grab at the candle box, whack a candle in the stand and light it – muttering a prayer at the same speed with which we walked in. We turn on our heels and we leave as quickly as we arrived.
This physical behaviour is not wrong, there’s no judgment being made – but I find it fascinating to have watched this lady shift her physical behaviour in response to such a small thing – the refilling of the holy water stoup and what a big impact that tiny thing had on the rest of her visit to pray.
That small prompt left me 40ft up on a ladder pondering the changes in my own life of prayer – and more importantly – in my life in general.
As we were approaching Lent – a perfect time to re-examine ones life in general, and with particular focus on our relationship with Jesus – what was I not doing, what was I doing well? What old practices had fallen by the wayside (and may be a good thing!) and what new practices were producing holy fruit?
Then, up that ladder, a great idea came to me… here was the Lent course I’d been looking for!
And so here we are on a xx night in March exploring together holy habits.
The aim of the course over four sessions is to prompt us all to consider – deliberately and prayerfully – not just in these sessions – but over the whole of Lent – those things that we do, those things that perhaps we used to do, those things that we’ve seen others do – that prompt us and prod us into a right relationship with Christ.
What do I mean by right relationship? I mean relating to Jesus in our everyday life in all that we do. I mean aligning, or at least understanding, the connection between our physical actions, our hearts and our minds and how those connections can be deliberately used to point us to Jesus when we need Him most, or when we’re most distant from him and when the world pulls at our attention most.
The course attempts to identify those things that are small and instant – like crossing yourself at the church door – as well as those things that are big and take time – like Pilgrimage – which Fr. Sam will be talking to you about next week. It also attempts to help you think about feelings – things like gratitude – and how the deliberate calling on those kinds of thoughts can impact your physicality, your heart and even those around you.
It’s not a course that is meant to be exhaustive, but rather a prod – like a holy habit – that causes you to consider, to think to pray about and be deliberate about the way you live in the world and your moment-to-moment relationship with Jesus.
So, let’s start where I began – with the lady walking into church… in fact, let’s go further back than that and think about the church building full stop. What I’m talking about here – although focused on a building – is about our day to day life outside church – but the focus of the building here will allow us to talk through some of the actions and then in the discussion perhaps we can extrapolate those out into the rest of the world.
In many parts of the world it is quite normal when you pass a church, or some other sign of Christian life – even a hearse driving down the road – you will cross yourself. Now for a man who grew up first of all as a Methodist, before discovering the Baptist Chapel had a better ping pong table and moved there – crossing yourself is a very alien concept. Why do we do this in these moments? What is, or what should be, prompting that action.
Let’s think about that action – we touch our forehead, our stomach, and our heart. There’s physical symbolism there – but also words that pour from our mouths – or at least should do – Father, Son and Holy Spirt. Our minds, our bodies and our hearts – including our mouths are brought together in the action of and remembrance of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
When I say remembrance, I’m not using that word theologically or liturgically, but practically. The physical movement of our hands and our mouths and where our hand goes draws us into the thought of God in the trinity. The action itself can become so practiced and used that we cease to consider what it is we are doing or why we are doing it. But it is – at its heart – a blessing.
Historically the very earliest Christians were known to cross themselves – although not quite in this way. Those of you from a more catholic tradition will recognise an earlier form of this crossing – we still use it in the liturgy – it’s the moment when we read the gospel and we make the mark of a small cross on our foreheads, our mouths and our chests.
It started with just the sign of the cross on the forehead and the earliest recording of that was by Tertullian in about 200 AD – he wrote:
“In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross”.
By about 500 AD this had become what we recognise at the gospel, and over time it became one large cross – probably out of ease – one simple large cross that covers our body – but still importantly touches those places of mind, mouth and heart.
Interestingly over time the cause and the action have become reversed. The early Christians would cross themselves in order to bless themselves for the task at hand – the work in front of them – asking God to be in it and to bless it.
But now, the crossing is prompted by an action that prods us to think of God. We cross ourselves when we walk past a church or enter one reminding ourselves that we are a child of God – father son and holy spirit.
Some hang over of that self-blessing exists today when we see people cross themselves before a difficult act or in a moment of danger or worry – it is a cry to God for protection. Indeed the action of making a cross is the final act of the Priest in the Eucharist before you are sent out to proclaim the gospel.
So, we have an action that is both a blessing and a protection on oneself, but also a way to offer the things in front of us to the protection and love of God in the trinity.
It is why, when you start to look, you find the action of crossing yourself at the heart of so many Rules of Life. Indeed, the Rule that I live by asks me to cross myself when I wake and just as I fall asleep – an action of self-blessing and of prayer, asking God to care for me as I sleep and asking God to be in and part of my day as I wake.
It is, if you like, the simplest Rule of Life there is and one you can take away and do quietly yourself. In fact, if you don’t do this – try it over Lent and see where it takes you.
During the lockdown this was an action that I noticed I had stopped doing. And given my inability – all our inability – to be out and about and for those external prompts to cross myself – I found that small action each morning and evening to be a deeply personal and moving moment with God.
A gentle way to start the day and peaceful way to end it. Over time that has developed to an action that I continually preach on as the simplest Rule of Life:
Saying the Our Father after you cross yourself when your feet touch the ground when you get out of bed in the morning; and saying it as your feet leave the floor and you cross yourself when you go to sleep.
I’ve taken that a step further and recognising that I need an external prompt – I’ve placed a crucifix in my bedroom where I see it as soon as I wake – and it’s the last thing I see before I sleep.
So, we have a bodily action that is a least a 1000 years old, that Christians have been using since the very earliest days of the church to call on God, to bless themselves, to bless the work in front of them, and to encourage them to remember that God is in all things. Recognising that that action sometimes needs an external prompt and sometimes the action is itself a prompt.
This examination of this simplest of bodily gestures has helped me recognise where God is in my day and how I can call on Him – Father, Son & Holy Spirt – at moments in my day where I should point myself very squarely at Him.
If we take that back to our lady coming into church – before she enters church – she walks up the street and her hand comes up before she’s even thought of it and there she is – level with the church and crossing herself. This leads to a conscious thought that she should offer a prayer – the church door is open and in she goes. A physical prod that has pulled her closer to God in prayer and in action.
Now she enters the church not in a rush, but already in a state of prayer and already in a state of blessing – and that’s the crux of most bodily actions within the liturgy and our broader life – they are designed to slow us down, to pull us closer to God, to ask for his blessing in what we are doing, to be mindful of Him and Jesus teaching and how we can best deploy that in the world.
Our lady then has come through the doors of church and her hand reaches for the holy water. Another opportunity to cross herself, and this time with water that has been blessed for this purpose.
The purpose of course is to remind us of our baptism. To be reminded that our sins have been forgiven, that we come to God sinners and are washed clean in our baptism. That we fall before him in our sinfulness and seek his forgiveness, trusting in his infinite mercy and love. And all of that happens in that tiny short moment that we cross ourselves at the church door with that holy water. We are once again a child of God, tiny in his arms, cared for and carried with infinite grace.
This serves as another moment to slow us down. It shreds the armour of the world that we bring with us so that we are naked before God. We are week and we are humbled before him. The action of crossing ourselves with Holy Water does not make us strong, but makes us weak and vulnerable.
And now… now perhaps we are ready to come before God. We are ready to step into church proper and to walk to where we will pray.
As we walk – more solemnly now – we spy the tabernacle, and we drop to our knees. It is the only appropriate action. We’ve been made humble in our baptism, weak before God – and so – as we see His home here in the church – Jesus made flesh in the tabernacle – we bow… we genuflect. We recognise his kingship – not as overlord or dictator – but a king of love.
And of course this is where this action comes from. It’s an action more appropriate in a King or Queens palace than in a church. In fact – it’s a very modern physical action – and starts to appear in the liturgy around the 16th Century.
An interesting historical aside here is the use of which knee. Because this action was essentially pinched from the secular world it is distinguished for use in the holy space of a church by choosing a different knee.
In the palace one would genuflect to a King or Queen by dropping to your left knee. But in church and to God we drop to our right knee.
You see that play out when Priests drop to their knees for a blessing from their bishop – dropping not to their right knee – as they do to God – but to their left – as they do as an act of respect to a man.
But, the action has a similar practical impact as crossing yourself outside the church, then inside with the Holy Water… it slows you down and physically demands that you think about what it is you are doing.
Three moments as you come to pray in church that have prompted you to slow down, to think, to prepare yourself.
So now we have arrived at the statue of Our Lady. Calm, focused on God, Father Son & Holy Spirit and as we reach for a candle and our prayers assemble themselves in our mind we are more open to hearing the words of God in our hearts. We are more open, that God may examine us more clearly. We are in a right relationship with God as we prepare to pray.
We light our candle, we say our prayer, we stand still for a few moments and let the peace of God wash over us. We turn, slowly walk – bow as we pass the altar and out into the world once again.
The whole experience teaches us that these small, rather insignificant actions can both prompt and be prompted – that they then in turn prompt us to face God with a more deliberate mind, with a more deliberate heart and with more deliberate words. Being more open, more ready to receive and see the work of God around us not just in church but vitally throughout our whole day.