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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Morning Prayer

Let me to-day do something that shall take
A little sadness from the world’s vast store,
And may I be so favoured as to make
Of joy’s too scanty sum a little more.

Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
Or sin by silence when I should defend.

However meagre be my worldly wealth,
Let me give something that shall aid my kind –
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.

Let me to-night look back across the span
‘Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say –
Because of some good act to beast or man –
“The world is better that I lived today.”

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

For God’s Holy Church

Father of mercy, your love embraces everyone, and through the Resurrection of your Son you call me and all the members of your church into your wonderful light. Dispel our darkness and make us a people with one heart and one voice, forever singing your praise, in Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.

by Mason Barge

Meditation

[The world is better that I lived today.]

Dedication

I  dedicate this day to you, mighty God. I pray that your Spirit will lift me up this day, and that your face may shine upon me all the day long, that I might do your will and lead a new life in Christ, reborn in the Spirit.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder ca. 1532.

Exodus 29 (ESV)

Consecration of the Priests

[Excerpts are given here. If you want to read all of Exodus 29, click the link or go to your own Bible.]

“Now this is what you shall do to them to consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. Take one bull of the herd and two rams without blemish, and unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers smeared with oil. You shall make them of fine wheat flour. You shall put them in one basket and bring them in the basket, and bring the bull and the two rams.

You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and wash them with water. Then you shall take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastpiece, and gird him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod. And you shall set the turban on his head and put the holy crown on the turban. You shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him. Then you shall bring his sons and put coats on them, and you shall gird Aaron and his sons with sashes and bind caps on them.

And the priesthood shall be theirs by a statute forever. Thus you shall ordain Aaron and his sons.”

Notes on the Scripture

Israel was a partial theocracy: an established (and in this case, hereditary) priesthood was central to society and government. Secular government would not evolve into monarchy for well over a thousand years; Moses would be followed by judges, and Joshua by great generals. It was rather like the government of Iran today, in many ways.

Where priests exercise political power, the priesthood seems inevitably to become corrupted by it. We will see this already occurring as early as 1 Samuel and, by the time of Jesus, the Hebrew priesthood is heavily entangled with the Herodian dynasty.

To stray into general speculation, one might say that this endemic corruption, rather than genuine theological issues, lay at the base of the Reformation, for much of what reformers and Protestants found truly intolerable was not the fundamental theology of the Catholic Church, but rather the Church leaders' abuse of theology in grasping for personal power and wealth.

For example, around 1500, one of the greatest sources of money for Rome was the selling of divorces. Few people, at least at that time, objected to the Church's refusal to dissolve a marriage and its power to investigate and find if there were grounds for annulment. What was intolerable was that the investigations' outcomes were fraudulent; rich aristocrats and royalty would pay huge sums (partially pocketed by individuals) to have grounds for annulment of an unsatisfactory marriage fabricated by Church powers.

Once the revolution of the Reformation began, it ran to extremes, and the pomp and glitter of Catholic worship was rejected along with the rest of Catholic and Orthodox doctrine. The Anabaptists (today's Amish and Mennonites) and Puritans formed their churches at the opposite extreme. In fact, some Old Order Amish today will pick preachers by drawing lots and have no church buildings at all; and when a community has a church, it will contain no altar or ornament, not even a cross on the wall.

Given the life and teachings of Christ, it is impossible to find fault with such an approach. But the more liturgical approach cannot be faulted, either, when one reads God's will for worship presented in Exodus. God Himself ordained a priesthood for the Hebrews, to stand as ordained and sanctified men to perform the rituals required for their worship.

But why would God ordain an institution that would fail? This is the message of Christ: the endemic corruption of mortal man and, thus, the futility of justification by works. As human beings, we cannot become perfect. It is only by the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God that we can become flawless and stand, one day, before God's full glory.

Daily Inspiration

“The Promise of Heaven”

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