HIGH SPIRITS: The Lectionary Life
Aitken, Jonathan
H I G H s P I R I T s The Lectionary Life by Jonathan Aitken February provokes the thought that this column should temporarily be renamed Low Spirits. For those of us who live and move in...
...Together they make a stirring biblical introduction to a 40-day season of repentance and redemption...
...For those of us who live and move in the northern hemisphere, the weather is miserable, the The arrival of the bleaK midwinter month of markets are plummeting, and pessimism abounds...
...Valentine should be commemorated for his martyrdom in Rome in AD 269...
...They included at least one of the Psalms of David from the Old Testament and a passage from the New Testament, usually from one of the Gospels...
...He explains in the preface to his Expository Thoughts on Matthew (first published in 1856 and still selling well...
...preacher C.H...
...Those wishing to relish them in the full should sup- In February, for example, we are reminded that plement their lectionary with a commentary...
...They are Psalm 51, King David’s abject poem of penitence after Nathan the prophet had castigated him for his affair with Bathsheeba and his murder of Uriah the Hittite...
...The by one other subsidiary pleasure of the lectionary, chosen passages can be explored at different depths...
...Some lewd verses by Chaucer based on the rural legend that songbirds select their mates halfway through the second month of the year appear to be responsible for the tradition that keeps alive the modern practice of giving flowers, chocolates, and heart-shaped cards to our loved ones on February 14...
...The classic lectionary is the Roman Catholic Ordo Lectionum Missae, whose original compilers Blessed Lord who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may 6 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 J o n a T H a n a I T k e n are said to have included Augustine of Hippo...
...The shelves of spiritual bookstores groan with Bible guides ranging from slender one-verse-a-day devotionals to weighty tomes with titles like How to Read the Bible in One Year...
...The monks who kept the daily offices also kept meticulous records of their readings...
...Christ around the world...
...Ryle’s brevity means that I can get through the appointed Gospel reading and his comments on it in ten minutes or so, which is no great sacrifice even in a crowded day’s schedule...
...These readings often blend into a common spiritual theme and have a measure of continuity...
...Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love...
...Matthew’s Gospel at a steady pace of about eight verses a day, my commentator is J.C...
...H I G H s P I R I T s The Lectionary Life by Jonathan Aitken February provokes the thought that this column should temporarily be renamed Low Spirits...
...Ryle, the 19th-century Bishop of Liverpool...
...Valentine’s Day...
...Scriptur But pro the ide structure to my da that ly qu the et vatively numbered in the hundreds of millions, from time is a joy as well as a duty...
...Nevertheless the thought that at the beginning of each calendar or ecclesiastical year we might accept some new spiritual discipline designed to deepen our relationship with God is surely as valid as ever...
...I find it historically as well as theologically reassuring to turn to my 2008 lectionary on, say, the first day of Lent and to be united across the centuries as well as across contemporary church divisions in the recommended lectionary readings for this date...
...My own inclination is to skip the tutorials of the great scholars (do I really want to know who wrote which chapter of Isaiah...
...I l a h mentaries, it rarely takes up more than com by reinforced E sound hope i arduous am not . ma v K en ing when life with the lectio nary - f on the 14th day of the month, St...
...Spurgeon...
...Brevity is not his talent, for his magisterial Treasury of David runs to five volumes...
...and John 8: 1-11, the story of the woman caught in adultery...
...The word “church” in this context means a surprisingly broad front of denominations, including Catholics, Protestants, and Pentecostals who have united in this endeavour to encourage God’s people to read the same passages of God’s word on the same date...
...every Psalm, this is a definitive work of reference that can be dipped into lightly as well as studied seriously...
...It is further enlivened all parts of the body of Christ around the world...
...This brings a second dimension of enjoyment to lectionary life because it is so easy to choose a commentator that suits your own theological, denominational, or personal taste...
...However, further and better particulars of this holy man are largely apocryphal...
...The origins of the lectionary (an exclusively ecclesiastical term) lie deep in the monastic world of the medieval church...
...So in that context I offer a recommendation that annually brings me good spirits, often high spirits...
...It is the discipline of living life with the lectionary...
...which is its regular highlighting of saints days...
...But how should we go about the task of reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting the good book...
...His biographies include Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday) and Nixon: A Life, now available in a new paperback edition (Regnery...
...Advice on this topic is not in short supply...
...If time is not pressing, then my favorite commentator on the Psalms is the prolific Baptist T i i s v e f fl a t - Scripture with unseen companions, a e d r - l l e w u o t s r e d e r he a point o h f r the g h lectiona t ry o is d that n p it conser t guides hs of an hem hour tic each ow o morning...
...Jonathan aitken, The American Spectator’s High Spirits columnist, is most recently author of John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway Books...
...Although our spiritual lives should rise above such transient negatives, it is not so easy to be positive, let alone in high spirits, after the joyful church seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany have given way to lugubrious Lent, which starts early this year on February 6. The ancient disciplines of Lent such as penance, fasting, or wearing sackcloth and ashes have little or no appeal to modern believers—perhaps rightly so since these traditions are out of tune with the zeitgeist of our times...
...They are designed to be read aloud at masses, communions, or services of morning and evening prayer...
...However, since it contains the views of all other known commentators of his age on each and f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R 6 9...
...The point of the lectionary is that it guides readers through well-trodden paths of Scripture with unseen companions, conservatively numbered in the hundreds of millions, from all parts of the body of Right now, as the lectionary is taking me through St...
...Again the bookstore shelves are groaning with every imaginable volume in this genre of biblical exposition...
...This is a long way from the ancient calling to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest “the Scriptures...
...The lectionary draws a discreet veil over the pagan processes by which Valentine became the patron saint of lovers...
...and to be inspired by the insights of legendary preachers...
...Joel, Chapter 2, “Rend your heart and not your garments...
...Perhaps I shall combine the ancient with the modern by presenting my beloved with the lectionary on St...
...A good starting point for the lectionarybased spiritual life is a date in the church calendar that many denominations call Bible Sunday...
...that his style will be “plain and pointed.… I have tried to place myself in the position of one who is addressing a mixed company and has but a short time...
...It is marked in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer by a majestic collect from the pen of Thomas Cranmer: in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them… These sonorous words emphasize the duty of regular Bible study...
...But these are no substitute for the lectionary, which is the official compendium of the church’s appointed readings of Scripture for every day of the year...
Vol. 41 • February 2008 • No. 1
