"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
It’s time for another Manvotional! A couple of weeks ago, the Art of Manliness posted an a section of a 1946 Army manual. I’ve recorded it onto MP3 below.
Manvotional (Download)
“Clenched Teeth” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
The unaccompanied MP3 is available here.
Today’s post is a story told by Ravi Zacharias in his book Jesus among other gods, the book from which I was quoting last week….
Dr. J Robertson McQuilkin was formerly the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary. He is one of the most remarkable people in our world. He is a conference speaker and author of note. But none of those credentials exceed his exemplary and heart-gripping love for his ailing wife, Muriel. She has walked down the grim and lonely world of Alzehimer’s disease for the last twenty years. Dr. McQuilkin gave up his presidency and numerous other responsibilities to care for her and to love her. He has penned his emotional journey in one of the most magnificent little books ever written. At one point in the book he recounts this incident:
Once our flight was delayed in Atlanta, and we had to wait a couple of hours. Now that’s a challenge. Every few minutes, the same questions, the same answers about what we’re doing here, when are we going home? And every few minutes we’d take a fast paced walk down the terminal in earnest search of – what? Muriel had always been a speed walker. I had a job to keep up with her!
An attractive woman sat across from us, working diligently on her computer. Once, when we returned from an excursion, she said something, without looking up from her papers… “Pardon?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said, “I was just asking myself, ‘Will I ever find a man to love me like that?’”
What a testimony that is to a great love and to a great hunger. Will any one of us find a love, a selfless love like that? We all recognize a sacred love when we see it, and we long for it. Sacred love is not without boundaries. There are lines that commitment will not cross, because when they are crossed it ceases to be love.
I never thought that going to Matins would generate so many blog posts! So…today I sat next to this icon of the Nativity:
In the centre of the icon is Mary the Theotokos, with the infant Christ in a manger, together with some animals (“The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib” – Isaiah 1:3). These figures are not in a stable, but in a cave, which reflects the Eastern tradition as well as the practice of the time for keeping animals. Above the cave are the other well-known nativity characters: angels, shepherds, and wise men following the star.
However, what I didn’t understand were the scenes depicted on the bottom-left and bottom-right corners of the icon. In the bottom-left we see St. Joseph sitting by himself with an odd look on his face and in the bottom-right there’s an illustration of what looks to me like an infant baptism taking place. What do these scenes represent?
My Dad’s birthday party (2007)
Today’s article is one which I’ve wanted to write for some time. You see, 2015 has been a very eventful year for me, but unfortunately much of it has been less-than-pleasant. In fact, I think I can say without exaggeration that this year has featured some of the most painful experiences of my life. Not least of these events was the death of my father in July. Up until now I haven’t said much about this publicly, but I would like to share a little bit about it today…
I had spent Independence Day with friends on Whidbey Island. It’s a truly delightful part of the world and I had a wonderful time there. We spent the day at the pool and had an evening of fine food and board games, followed by fireworks at the beach. The following morning, for some inexplicable reason, virtually everyone in the house rose early and went for a three-mile run. Since it was early on the day after a national holiday, we pretty much had the island to ourselves and in the crisp, early morning air, we passed several deer as we made our tour of the island. It was beautiful.
It was after breakfast that I received a message from my family back in England, asking me to call. A knot formed in my stomach; I had a suspicion as to the reason for this message. I excused myself and went out to my car, where I called my Mum. She confirmed what I had feared: my Dad was dying.
You see, my father had been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma several years before. After several rounds of chemotherapy, his health seemed to be under control, but in recent months things hadn’t been looking so good. Infections had become increasingly common, necessitating numerous speedy trips to the hospital. My Mum said that Dad had suffered yet another infection, but unlike the previous ones, this one was certain to kill him. She told me that the hospital staff said that there was nothing more they could do and that it was unlikely he’d last another twenty-four hours. After hanging up the phone, I composed myself and went back into the house, said my goodbyes and was soon on my way back to Seattle.
So a couple of weeks ago at Matins, I looked up into the dome of our church and saw the icon of Simon the Zealot. In the icon, you can see that he’s holding some grapes. Why is this symbol associated with this Apostle?
Fortunately, I recently spent some time with an iconographer and I asked him about their significance. He pointed out that Simon “the Zealot” is also known as Simon “the Canaanite” and that there is a tradition in the East that this Simon was the groom at the wedding in Cana towards the beginning of John’s Gospel. The grapes are a reference to the miracle the Lord performed there, turning water into wine.
With more probability, Baronius, following Nicephorus (Hist. l. 8. c. 30), thinks that the bridegroom at this marriage was the Apostle Simon, who was surnamed the Cananite from Cana.
– Cornelius La pide
The commentator Cornelius then goes on to make a very interesting comment which I think has some interesting implications:
As soon as Simon had seen this miracle of Christ at his wedding, he bade farewell to his bride and the world, and followed Him, and was chosen to be one of His twelve Apostles. This was the reason why Christ came to this wedding; and by coming, indeed, honoured marriage; but by calling him to Himself, He showed that celibacy and the apostolate were better than marriage.
– Cornelius La pide