A Reprint from 2007

I'm at a blogging lull these days, so here's a reprint from earlier days:

"Imitate Me"

(March 5, 2007)

So says St. Paul in Philippians 3:17. Likewise, he exhorts us the same in 2 Thes. 3:7-9:

For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. (ESV)

And most pertinently,

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Hebrews 13:7 ESV)

Thus the Church kept the stories of the holy lives of the Saints and Martyrs.

As we discussed this Sunday morning in Sunday School, I met with a feeling of a little resistance. It was a feeling and could have been only that, but I sensed thoughts like, “Oh, Pastor’s going all Catholic on us again.” I tried to point out that knowing, honoring and imitating the stories of the “heroes of faith” is the practice of the Church since the beginning; we even have the Protestant Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: A History of the Lifes, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and the Protestant Martyrs (Hendrickson Christian Classics)”

We have a Lutheran version as well, found in the Feasts & Commemorations Calendar in the new Lutheran Service Book. Brief biographies can be found here and you can sign up for them to be emailed to you here.

It is not difficult to see the reason for such things: the Apostles call us to imitate them and “our leaders,” imitating their faith and life. How can we do this if we do not know who they are or what they did? Now our families and parishes all have stories of the saints who walked among them: Grandma Swanson who prayed for an hour every morning; Pastor Schmidt who worked tirelessly; the Founders of the Synod and so forth. But keeping our Justice League’s membership to such few localized examples impoverishes us to the “cloud of witnesses that surround us” (Heb 12:1). And what a cloud it is!

That many parishioners today know more about the life and works of Brittany Spears or Peyton Manning is argument enough that Satan has been at work. That protestants should not blink twice at knowing the biographies of their favorite athletes and entertainers but believe the stories and biographies of those who gave their life for Christ is somehow “Catholic” and “un-Biblical” is a tragedy worthy of our tears and repentance.

The Widow's Mite Reveals My True Poverty

Here is another wonderful post from Creative Minority Report, this one by Patrick Archbold.

The post concerns his reaction to a "reality" show called Secret Millionaires. On the show, wealthy people go slumming for a week or so and then are supposed to give a large donation to someone they met. The gem of the show is not the hubris and condescension of the wealthy, but the generosity and mercy of the poor.

Here's an excerpt:

This week we met woman who got hooked on drugs when her child died and spent fifteen years in and out of prison. She finally got her life back on track and henceforth devoted it to sheltering and helping other women, newly released from prison,adjust to life on the outside. She found women dropped at the bust stop straight from prison with nothing but $200. She takes them in and helps them back on their feet. She had nothing, but now gives everything she has, her widow's mite.

Unmistakable in the lives of these secret saints, albeit not emphasized on the show, is the role of faith. Their faith manifests in their lives as love and charity at levels I thought existed only in books about the lives of saints from bygone eras. People like this don't exist anymore, right? I, like the millionaires I find slightly icky, just write checks and congratulate myself even while knowing the checks could and should be bigger.

While I am far from a millionaire, I realize more now that there is more to charity than writing a check. I have a lot more to give than just money. I could and should be giving more of myself. If I did, perhaps then I would be more than just a poorer version of those very public millionaires, and I could be more like these secret saints and more like Christ.

St. Nicholas of Myra

St. Nicholas of Myra died December 6, 345 (or 352). He attended the Council of Nicaea, where he reportedly struck the arch-heretic Arius because he defamed our Lord. He was immediately banished from the Council and defrocked, but after other bishops all shared a common dream of the Blessed Virgin Mary imploring mercy on him, they re-instated him.

He was well known for his generosity and his love of children and the poor, though he always gave anonymously, sometimes throwing gifts in through windows in the night.
This site has some more details of his life and some of the miracles attributed to him.

The icon above is from St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai (13th Century).

Worship From That Side

There is certainly a different perspective I have worshiping God while sitting in the chancel than I do while sitting in a pew. It was demonstrated to me a few weeks ago on vacation.

The service rushed past. We used Divine Service I so I didn’t need to look at the book much. Instead, I sang those words and looked at my daughters standing next to me, helping them, encouraging them, cajoling them into participating. We sang the hymns, and one was entirely unfamiliar. Hard to sing, hard to pay attention to the words. It was slow and felt like this would be going on for some time.

The sermon was hard to listen to. Between listening on a clinical level, evaluating his delivery and so forth, and the distractions around me, I didn’t get much out of it. Communion liturgy went by quickly, but I was at the altar rail longer than usual. I had the sense of being a half-engaged participant, kind of like the feeling of being at a graduation ceremony. I felt detached during that hour, and it seemed as if the time before and the visiting after were more engaging and concrete than the hour siting, standing, listening, singing and praying when I remembered to.

Perhaps all this simply means I am made for standing up here, because I can’t stand out there very well. Perhaps it means that having children in church is really a big job like people tell me. Could it mean that the way we “do church” is wrong? That we need more engaging things like Rick Warren talks about? I don’t think so. Singing songs that may have moved me emotionally still would have meant me singing and being distracted by the kids, the guy who sang below every note, the huge bass voice in the back and my mother’s whispered singing that somehow I could still hear under everything else. A dynamic, flash animated, audio-visual sermon I still would have dissected. Dramatic dialogues and skits professional acted would have made the hour feel like a short play rather than a graduation ceremony. I don’t think any of those things designed to engage people really do if something else is wrong.

And that’s it.Something else was wrong. It wasn’t the vacancy pastor at my parent’s church that was bad. He did a fine job. The organist played well, only slower than I liked.The liturgy was done well, different than I do it, but well. Communion was conducted well. It wasn’t that these things were boring. I wasn’t bored. But I was distracted, I was unconnected, I was on auto-pilot or parent mode or whatever you want to call it. I had the problem.

It's like this: would you rather spend the evening reading God's Holy Word or the latest Dean Koontz novel? One of them would be more entertaining. One of them would tempt me to stay up too late reading. One could be called a "page-turner." Hint: it's the one that has a serial killer, a dog, and a government conspiracy. But we would never say that we should stop reading God's Word, or that God's Holy Precious Life-Giving Word is somehow less than a Dean Koontz novel. Or that the Holy Scriptures were not written as well. Or that something is wrong with the Bible because of how I feel about reading it. Something is clearly wrong with me when Dean Koontz is more appealing than Deuteronomy.

You could say that there's a divine reason the Scriptures cannot be read like a "page-turner" can. You could say that the spiritual encounter with the living God, with the Eternal Word who continues to speak in Scripture cannot be borne for too long. Priests and Pastors alike testify that presiding at the liturgy is an exhausting task. St. Christopher is right: when you carry Jesus you carry the world He bears as well. Likewise with Scripture: our finite souls cannot bear the infinite Word too long in our weakened state. Better--our sinful souls cannot bear the holy too long, even when it comes in blessing.

But that is my problem, not God's. It is my sin that is at fault, my weakness, not our Lord's. That the liturgy was a blur of the familiar and did not engage me that day was a fault of circumstance and sin. Not God's.

Evangelism When the Church Grew the Most

St. John Chrysostom preached in Antioch and Constantinople at the end of the 4th Century, when Churches were crowded, yet many hadn't been baptized and there were large numbers of pagans. In this time that marked the greatest growth of Christianity, here is how St. John preached evangelism:

Let us show forth then a new kind of life. Let us make earth, heaven; let us hereby show the Greeks, of how great blessings they are deprived. For when they behold in us good conversation, they will look upon the very face of the kingdom of Heaven. Yea, when they see us gentle, pure from wrath, from evil desire, from envy, from covetousness, rightly fulfilling all our other duties, they will say, "If the Christians are become angels here, what will they be after their departure hence? if where they are strangers they shine so bright, how great will they become when they shall have won their native land!" Thus they too will be reformed, and the word of godliness "will have free course, not less than in the apostles' times. For if they, being twelve, converted entire cities and countries; were we all to become teachers by our careful conduct, imagine how high our cause will be exalted. (Homily XLII)

...or Football players...

“You are a hopeless lot. You know the names of all the charioteers but not even the names of
the evangelists.”

— St John Chrysostom

(HT In Communion)

Reading the Psalms

The suffering of the Prophet David is, according to the account we have given of the title, a type of the Passion of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. This is why his prayer also corresponds in sense with the prayer of Him Who being the Word was made flesh: in such wise that He Who suffered all things after the manner of man, in everything He said, spoke after the manner of man; and He who bore the infirmities and took on Him the sins of men approached God in prayer with the humility proper to men. This interpretation, even though we be unwilling and slow to receive it, is required by the meaning and force of the words, so that there can be no doubt that everything in the Psalm is uttered by David as His mouthpiece. For he says: Save me O God, by Thy name. Thus prays in bodily humiliation, using the words of His own Prophet, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who at the same time was claiming again the glory which He had possessed before the ages. He asks to be saved by the Name of God whereby He was called and wherein He was begotten, in order that the Name of God which rightly belonged to His former nature and kind might avail to save Him in that body wherein He had been born. (St. Hilary of Poitiers, Homily on Psalm 54, NPNF II.09.04)

Benefits Against Our Will

Wherefore both against our will [God] befriends us often, and without our knowledge oftener than not.

St. John Chrysostom gives and example then, of St. Paul praying that the "thorn" be removed from his side, and God responding, "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." God was "benefit[ing] him against his will, and without his knowing it," writes St. John.

So we are to give thanks in every circumstances, and give glory to God for all things.

Let us then also, the more we advance in virtue, so much the more make ourselves contrite; for indeed this, more than anything else is virtue. Because, as the sharper our sight is, the more thoroughly do we learn how distant we are from the sky; so the more we advance in virtue, so much the more we are instructed in the difference between God and us. And this is no small part of true wisdom, to be able to perceive our own desert. For he best knows himself, who accounts himself to be nothing."(St. John Chrysostom, Homily XXV, The Gospel of Matthew; NPNF, Vol. X, p. 175)

Giving Alms to a Murderer

A friend of mine gave breakfast to a mass-murderer. Those are his words. My friend was the Samaritan, but this one he helped was not the beaten and broken one, but the thief who was about to do his evil business.

He was near a church (not mine), getting into his car when a clean-cut Indian walked up to him, early 50s maybe, wearing a button down shirt and clean trousers. "I love Jesus!" he called out. My friend said, "Me too...but I don't work here."

"I was hoping for a cup of coffee," the man said. My friend took the bait.

"Do you want coffee or breakfast or money?"

"Well, I was hoping for some breakfast, really."

So my friend invited him into his car and drove across town to McDonalds. The drifter told his story about going to Anadarko to meet his sister who came into money. The two stood in line at the counter and the man ordered what he wanted. My friend paid and gave the change to the drifter: $1.82.

"Is this it?" the man asked, looking at the money in his hand like it was garbage he had been handed. "Is this all you can spare?" My friend assured him that it was and this transaction was over. He drove off.

But the drifter didn't leave. He stayed around town for a few more days, went to church on the south side of town, was given a ride to the next town, and a few days later showed up here again. But this time he killed a woman in her front yard and then chased down another woman, leaving her body on the front yard too. The police arrested him a day or two later.

Many of his friends reprimanded him. "You'd better be glad he didn't have murder on his mind when he was sitting in your car," one person told him. But I didn't have any words of reprimand. It didn't surprise me in the least that he had given breakfast to a killer, nor do I believe he did anything wrong.

Christ bids us to feed and clothe poor, the hungry, those who beg. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to be discriminate in our giving. "Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys." (Luke 12:33 NKJV). But we are told to be kind to those who are evil; on the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:20-21 NKJV).

St. John Chrysostom said somewhere that we should not discriminate in giving alms, judging the truth and value of the person and their situation, but that we should simply give, and "let God sort it out."

And so my friend did that. He felt uneasy about it, and I can only imagine that feel of a close call...wondering what might have been, what could have been. Of course, if the murderer hadn't been fed that morning maybe something worse would have happened. Maybe he would have started a spree right then and there, and it was only the kindness of strangers giving him rides that stayed the beast within for a while. We can only see one direction, dimly, and do not have the whole story laid before us. We can only do what our Lord would have us do and trust in His goodness.

Lord have mercy on that man and on us all.

St. Mary the Mother of God

The Lutheran Service Book calls today “St. Mary, the Mother of our Lord,” but that, frankly, is slightly nestorianizing. She is the rightly called the Mother of God, not somehow the mother of the eternal Trinity, God forbid, but she is the mother of the Incarnate Logos, carrying the Son of God within her womb, which, we all know, makes her a Mother.

It is on this day that she fell asleep, and tradition has it, was laid to rest in Ephesus. Her tomb is there to this day. The Roman Catholic Church says she then was assumed bodily into heaven, which is an old tradition. The Eastern Orthodox Churches remain agnostic on this, calling today the Dormition (falling asleep) of the Theotokos (Mother of God).

In the interest of honoring the Theotokos and not debating her titles, person or reputation consider this:

Kings’ daughters are among Your honorable women; At Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir.

Listen, O daughter, Consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people also, and your father’s house;

So the King will greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him.

And the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift; The rich among the people will seek your favor.

The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; Her clothing is woven with gold.

She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors; The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You.

With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; They shall enter the King’s palace.

Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, Whom You shall make princes in all the earth.

I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations; Therefore the people shall praise You forever and ever. (Psalm 45:9-17 NKJV)

Christianity is Not a Ponzi Scheme

Nor minsters making ministers; missionaries making missionaries; evangelists making evangelists. Nor is it mobilizing or sending. Christianity is not about signing up, sending out, and making more. It’s about receiving the Kingdom of God. We don’t “make Christians” to go out and “make other Christians.” We baptize sinners and make them disciples, that they may take up their crosses and be raised with Christ our Lord.

What about Matthew 28:19-20? What about 1 Peter 3:15?

I don’t feel like debating the exegesis of these passages. Let us grant 1 Peter 3. Even if we should grant Matt. 28, one questions remains: what about the rest of Scripture?

Let us give up and Evangelical reading of all Scripture which sees these two passages as the hermenuetical lens through which everything else is understood. Let us remember that salvation is not a one-time event, but that daily we are to die and rise, as Luther said, so that at the end we may speak as St. Sisoes did at the time of his death, “Indeed, I know not if I have clutched at the very beginning of repentance.”

Sanctification Bandwagon

Bloggers all over have been noting and discussing the lack of sanctification in Lutheran (LCMS) preaching over the last decade or two. Rev. McCain has posted on this recently. I recommend his posts…but can’t find them on his site right now.

Why, though? Why are sermons preaching sanctification missing? Even more, why are there so many of us living unsanctified lives, by all appearances? Two reasons:
1. Lutherans struggle with antinomianism. Debate all you want, but it’s true. Of course we reject it officially. It’s unchristian. But in our practice we struggle against it. Luther’s oft-quoted, yet spurious “Sin boldly” doesn’t help.

And now for the unorthodox reason:

2. We have no saints.

Yes, I know the line about all of us who are baptizing being at once sinner and saint. I know what we say about Grandma Jenkins and Pastor Himmelreich, that they are the saints in glory even now. We have our own hagriographical pieces about Walther and Luther, and if you’re from Ft. Wayne, Loehe.

We have the Ancient and Accepted Order of titling Bible-people “St.” if, and only if they appear in the Bible, unless our congregation is named after him. Thus, St. Peter and St. Lawrence.

But in our commemorations there are no “saints.” We have no saints in our piety. We honor heroes aplenty, but nearly in the same way we honor Washington and Lincoln, giving thanks for the great things God gave them to do, their courage and insight. But we do not seek to emulate our Christian “heroes.” We do not tell stories about them that inspire us to “imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7) We give thanks for the accomplishments and faithfulness of those who have gone before us, but do not honor them as being more sanctified than we are, as being further along the path, as examples to be imitated. We take a modern, critical view of the miracles that they reportedly worked, erasing even more honor. Those in our commemorations become “Great Men and Women of (Christian) History, For Whom We Ought to Give Thanks to God For, But We Ought to Give Thanks to God For Everyone Anyway.”

In Roman Catholic circles one sometimes hears the insulting compliment, “He’s trying to be a saint.” It means of course, the person is living a very pious life. And maybe, just maybe, he’s trying to be perfect.

This insult/compliment is nonsense to Lutherans. How can one “try to be a saint?” The Good Lutheran Response to this is, “You are one already!” Which completely undermines the desire to live a life of sanctification. When the goal of living a life full of grace, a life of complete repentance, a life devoid of sin is taken away, when the examples of men and women who achieved this, or close to it, are removed, when they are not constantly being praised and lifted up as examples to us, as Hebrews tells us they ought to be, what do we have left?

Already struggling against some antinomian currents in our theology, and egalitarianism in our anthropology (we’re all saints and sinners, all the same, really), we have no goal to shoot for. Add to this confusion over the role of the Law in Christian Living (the so-called Third Use) and we’re left with sermons about Justification 52 times a year.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

His feast day was yesterday, but I wasn’t blogging then. In the East, his feast is on January 18 (with St. Athanasius) and June 9 (so perhaps my Olivia should have been Cyrilia??).

St. Cyril’s Christology was deeply influential on the Council of Ephesus which clearly defined the two natures of Christ. His Christological writings are without parallel in their orthodoxy. He has been called a Doctor of the Church and the “Seal of the Fathers.”

But he’s a problematic saint. Apparently he was not always a very nice guy. Where humility is praised, Cyril often exhibited the opposite. Even his hagiographers note his expulsion of pagans and Jews from Alexandria and his sometimes heavy-handed ways.

There are several responses to this. Roman Catholics and Orthodox could well respond that not even the saints in their earthly lives are perfect, but are repentant sinners like all of us. Lutherans could respond by emphasizing that the honorific “saint” is just that: a title given by the Church to honor one’s service to the Church (Ultimately I think this could amount to a dumbing-down of the doctrine of sanctification, but I’ll leave that to another post).

But St. Cyril’s heavy-handed ways need to be understood in the context in which he lived. While Patriarch of Alexandria at the turn of the 4th to 5th Centuries, St. Cyril also had a prominent role in state affairs. The official religion of the Empire was Christianity, and Cyril had authority to enforce this.

While this alone may not justify Cyril’s behavior at times–and shouldn’t– the other matter we must remember is that we live in wimpy times. Political Correctness has transformed our culture completely. I’ll say it again: we are wimps. Having our feelings hurt debilitates us. Causing offense is the unforgivable sin. Being offended is like death, and also makes us cry. Yes, our parishes and offices may be kindler, gentler places, and kindness and gentleness are Christian virtues, but pair that with political correctness and we have become big babies–myself included.

Ad Orientem has a great post about a new show on AMC called “Mad Men.” It’s about the business and social life of men in the 1960s. While the characters depicted in the blurb are behaving as pagans, and our society’s treatment of women has greatly improved (but has a ways to go), the men were not expected to be angels, perfect and inoffensive to everyone. There was no political correctness, just politics, and that could be rough stuff.

In parishes sixty years ago, I’ve heard that one could witness fistfights in the parking lot after voter’s meetings. Perhaps that is a good argument against voter’s meetings. But after the fight, the bloodied men would go and drink a few beers together. That’s the myth anyway.

Which world would you rather live in? One with great, nasty conflict, or this one where everything seems to run under the surface and we are slaves to our emotions and feelings? I don’t know how I would answer.

Comfort for Sinners with Habitual Sins

Do not be surprised if you fall back into your old ways every day. Do not be disheartened, but resolve to do something positive about it; and, without question, the angel who stands guard over you will honor your perseverance.
- St John Klimakos

Note that they are the “old ways.” For you may be a blasphemer, calling down curses on lousy drivers and bad weather; you may be a addict, craving alcohol or drugs, tobacco or sweets; you may be a gossip or a cynic; you may be selfish and prideful; you may have fallen into these temptations yesterday and the day before; you may never remember a time when you did not fight and succumb–or just succumb without much of a fight at all; but they are your “old ways.” Your weaknesses are not you, for you are of Christ. These temptations and weaknesses and sins are not your future ways, for those too are of Christ. And even though you may still fall into your old ways everyday, says St. John, “do not be disheartened.” All is not lost.

What positive things may we do about this? First, repent of your old ways. Call your sins “your old ways.” Remember that they are not your new ways, your future. Second, pray for mercy and then pray all the more. Say the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Say it over and over, not just as you feel temptation, but afterward. “Pray without ceasing,” says St. Paul. Third, read the Scriptures and attend the liturgy, receive the Sacrament often; read edifying things and so forth.
Old ways have a tendency to catch up to the present when, after prayer, we begin to rely on ourselves. Once you say that prayer and feel your spirit strengthen, feel firm resolve, do not give up praying. That resolve you feel is of our Lord’s mercy. You didn’t make yourself feel resolved. It is a gift from our Triune God. Likewise remaining in firm resolve to “sin no more” depends not on you, but upon the mercy of Christ and the grace of God.

Now as for that angel who “stands guard over you…” Certainly it is true we all have Guardian Angels. Jesus says, “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10 NKJV). Jesus speaks this about the child who is His Disciple. But our Lord is not just talking about young people, but about all people who “become like little children.” We are all Christ’s “little ones,” dependent upon Him and our Heavenly Father. And Christ speaks of “their angels.”

These angels of ours may also be offended, as Christ continues to say that if we despise one of His children, we should watch out, for his angel sees “the face of My Father.” And St. Peter laments that there are some great sinners who are presumptuous enough to speak ill of angelic beings.

How does your angel “honor your perseverance?” I don’t know.

"Imitate Me"

So says St. Paul in Philippians 3:17. Likewise, he exhorts us the same in 2 Thes. 3:7-9:

For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. (ESV)

And most pertinently,

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Hebrews 13:7 ESV)

Thus the Church kept the stories of the holy lives of the Saints and Martyrs.

As we discussed this Sunday morning in Sunday School, I met with a feeling of a little resistance. It was a feeling and could have been only that, but I sensed thoughts like, “Oh, Pastor’s going all Catholic on us again.” I tried to point out that knowing, honoring and imitating the stories of the “heroes of faith” is the practice of the Church since the beginning; we even have the Protestant Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: A History of the Lifes, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and the Protestant Martyrs (Hendrickson Christian Classics)”

We have a Lutheran version as well, found in the Feasts & Commemorations Calendar in the new Lutheran Service Book. Brief biographies can be found here and you can sign up for them to be emailed to you here.

It is not difficult to see the reason for such things: the Apostles call us to imitate them and “our leaders,” imitating their faith and life. How can we do this if we do not know who they are or what they did? Now our families and parishes all have stories of the saints who walked among them: Grandma Swanson who prayed for an hour every morning; Pastor Schmidt who worked tirelessly; the Founders of the Synod and so forth. But keeping our Justice League’s membership to such few localized examples impoverishes us to the “cloud of witnesses that surround us” (Heb 12:1). And what a cloud it is!

That many parishioners today know more about the life and works of Brittany Spears or Peyton Manning is argument enough that Satan has been at work. That protestants should not blink twice at knowing the biographies of their favorite athletes and entertainers but believe the stories and biographies of those who gave their life for Christ is somehow “Catholic” and “un-Biblical” is a tragedy worthy of our tears and repentance.

Love...True Love...

“For he who loveth rejoices not so much in commanding, as in being commanded, although to command is sweet: but love changes the nature of things and present herself with all blessings in her hands, gentler than any mother, weathier than any queen, and makes difficulties light and easy, causing our virtues to be facile, but vice very bitter to us.” (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXXII.12, NPNF, vol. 12)

Or as William Goldman described it:

Grandpa: [voiceover] Nothing gave Buttercup as much pleasure as ordering Westley around.
Buttercup: Farm boy, polish my horse’s saddle. I want to see my face shining in it by morning.
Westley: As you wish.
Grandpa: [voiceover] “As you wish” was all he ever said to her.
Buttercup: Farm boy, fill these with water - please.
Westley: As you wish.
Grandpa: [voiceover] That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying “As you wish”, what he meant was, “I love you.” And even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back. (from The Princess Bride)