Society of Saint Polycarp: Prehistoric Psychopathology and Its Cure

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Prehistoric Psychopathology and Its Cure

If there ever was a "spark of goodness" lurking inside a now fatally abscessed and fallen nature of man, it really should have kindled up and come to the fore during the Garden crisis, in an hour of extreme need.  But the Scriptural narrative is crystal clear about it.  There was no spark, beyond that of the crackling motor neurons which triggered a panicked leap into the bushes.

Too bad for man. Our gracious Lord God, after all, extended an unmerited mercy to the arrogant murderer Cain, when the rascal pathetically whined about his suddenly becoming stalker's meat (Gen 4:13,15). So who's to say what would have happened, had Adam and Eve simply bent the knee and whispered: "Against You, You only have I sinned and done evil in Your sight ... Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me (Nota bene: I deduce here from the tip of St. David's own pen, that he diagnosed that "spark" thing as having gone kaput, with a single bite).  Cast me not away from Your Presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the Joy of Your Salvation, and uphold me with a willing Spirit."

Curiously, in sharp contrast to brat Cain, our first parents made no tantrum about their own punishments being altogether tougher than they could possibly bear. And we're talking a strong dose of reality here: birthing with pain, pestiferous weeds, sweating sorrows, and an ignominious return to dust ... not some hallucinated victimhood, at the hands of bounty hunters. Instead, the first couple's psychological and behavioral instincts were to flee and hide from the Spark (of better, the Light) of Holiness; and in the special case of the Old Man, the floundering leader of the one-flesh unit, to slime God for creating something (i.e., Adam's wife, and a relationship), which had been earlier described as "good" (Gen 1:31; cf. Gen 2:18) .

So what stopped any self-serving, impulsively kicking ruckus by the 'One-Flesh?' Ah, well, not the lack of ability, certainly; for Cain's sparkless antics duly establish the heritability of stinking, deeply ingrained and horribly metastasized sin ... embedded in a nature which our Brother, our Lord Jesus Christ, carried absolutely flawlessly for us (see the Book of Concord's just whipping of the Flacian baloney, for details). Adam murdered his wife, with his cutting remarks; and Cain murdered his brother, maybe with a cutting hoe for all I know. Like son, like father. And the latter could whine; this we know, along the paraphrased lines of "God, it's Your fault. What'd I ever do, besides maybe take an innocent snooze and then eat some, to deserve this mortifying development?" The difference from junior's attitude, of course, is that the Old Man is never portrayed by Moses as summing things up as  "AND I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

No. I think Adam and Eve were spirit-calmed ... their pitiless demons cast out, like those of an agitated Gadarene... by the healing Promise of an Incarnate Rescuer-God (Gen 3:15), and the forgiving Divine gift of bloodied skins to cover their pock-marked nakedness (Gen 3:21).   For as Lutherans insist (or should), there's nothing like Word and Sacramental Mystery to sooth the savage soul.

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About our Society

The Society of St. Polycarp is made up of Lutheran clergymen and laity committed to the confessional, liturgical, sacramental, and spiritual renewal of the Church of the Augsburg Confession. Since our Church's problems are not political, but rather spiritual, we pray God to grant us repentance, and seek no political aim. Members of the Society commit themselves to the following Rule.

The Rule
1. Members of the Society confess Holy Scripture to be "the pure, clear fountain of Israel" and also "the one true guiding principle," i.e., the sole norm or "judge, rule, and guiding principle" of the same (FC Ep. Comprehensive Summary, 7; FC SD Comprehensive Summary, 3). We rejoice in the tradition of the Holy Doctors and Fathers of the Church, in whom Christ kept His promise that "the gates of Hell shall not prevail against (My Church)" (Mt 16:18), so that the Lutheran confessors could say that "the churches among us do not dissent from the catholic church in any article of faith" (AC Preface to XXII, 1, Latin). We reject all methods of interpretation that seek to understand the meaning of Scripture apart from the guidance of the Church, through which God gave us the Scriptures.

2. Members of the Society will promote the importance of daily prayer and meditation on Holy Scripture. Members will commit themselves to praying at least one of the daily offices, keeping fellow members as well as the Church Catholic herself in their prayers. The ideal use of the offices is in the corporate setting; however, the praying of the offices in private is to be carried out if there is no alternative.

3. Valuing Holy Absolution as "a voice from heaven" (Ap. XII, 40), members of the Society will avail themselves of the benefit of this sacrament, as well as promoting its use. Members will seek out father confessors of their own for regular and frequent private Confession and Absolution.

4. Members of the Society will promote the Sacrament of the Altar as the chief parochial service in the Church of the Augsburg Confession (AC XXIV, 34). Members will receive the Sacrament of the Altar often, as well as encourage others to receive it frequently, thereby restoring the traditional Lutheran understanding of the central place of the Sacrament in Lutheran worship. As the Lutheran Symbols assume the weekly celebration of the Sacrament of the Altar (AC XXIV, 34-38; Ap. XXIV, 1), members of the Society will promote this evangelical and catholic practice in their own parishes and in the work of the Society.

5. As the Sacrament of the Altar is the true Body and Blood of Our Lord that is truly present, distributed, and received (AC X, German), members of the Society are committed to the evangelical and catholic doctrine of closed communion, i.e., not admitting to the altar to receive the Holy Communion those who have not previously been examined and absolved (AC XXV, 1-2), let alone those of a confession of the Faith contrary to that of the Church of the Augsburg Confession.

6. Members of the Society will promote the historic liturgies of the Church Catholic, since such liturgies shape pastoral practice and teaching that is consistent with the evangelical and catholic Faith as it has been handed down in Holy Scripture, the Ecumenical Creeds, and the Symbolical Books of the Church of the Augsburg Confession.

7. As the Lutheran Symbols confess the Blessed Virgin Mary to be "the pure, holy, and ever-virgin Mother of God" (Theotokos, Gottes Mutter), as well as "that the blessed Mary prays for the Church" (Ap. XXI, 27; SA I, IV, Latin; FC SD VIII, 24), it is altogether fitting, proper, and consistent with the Faith of the Church Catholic to honor the Blessed Virgin in liturgical celebration. Members of the Society will seek to restore the traditional Marian feasts of the Church of the Augsburg Confession (i.e., the Feasts of the Purification, Annunciation, and Visitation) as a testimony of the grace of God through her, that we might imitate the Blessed Virgin in word and example, and in thanksgiving for the Incarnation of the Son of God through her humble submission to the will of God. Members of the Society will also promote the observance and celebration of saints' days and commemorations. This is wholly in keeping with the evangelical and catholic tradition of the Church of the Augsburg Confession, whose Symbolical Books acknowledge the saints as fitting exemplars of the catholic Faith worthy of imitation, as well as our heavenly intercessors (AC XXI, 1; Ap. XXI, 4-9).

8. As the Church of the Augsburg Confession understands herself as a part of the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, particularly as she exists in the West, members of the Society will take seriously the commitment to the proper ecumenicity this demands. Members will pursue dialogue with:
• Fellow Lutheran Christians to foster and promote Lutheran unity.
• Our separated brethren in the Roman Church, with which the Lutherans at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 clearly sought reconciliation.
• The Eastern Orthodox Church, following the example of the exchange between the Lutheran theologians of the University of Tübingen and Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople (1573-1581).
This reflects not simply the Lutheran commitment to the unity of all Christians, but ultimately the will of Our Lord Himself (Jn 17).

9. Members of the Society will make every effort to make a retreat once a year for the purpose of disciplined prayer and study, silence and reflection, as well as the celebration of the Sacrament of the Altar.

Conclusion
Following the example of our patron, members of the Society ultimately strive to be faithful to Our Lord, recalling His words to St. John the Theologian: "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Rev 2:10). Members also pray God's grace that we may be able to hand over to our posterity the tradition we have received as Lutheran Christians, and that we may be able to confess with our forebears at Augsburg that "nothing has been accepted among us, in teaching and ceremonies, that is contrary to Scripture or the catholic church. For it is manifest that we have most diligently been on guard so that no new or ungodly doctrines creep into our churches" (AC Conclusion, 5, Latin).