Society of Saint Polycarp: The Trancending Trinitarian Beauty of the Aaronic Blessing

Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Trancending Trinitarian Beauty of the Aaronic Blessing

"The Lord bless you and keep you ..."

Indeed, the Father Creator, through His beloved Word, keeps and sustains us in body, heart and mind. In His wisdom and loving mercy, He bids the material sun to gift both the powerful wicked and the meek good alike; He sends His rains, without distinction as to station or disposition.   All things will acknowledge this; some with trembling joy, some with great trembling fear, on a set day to come.

All praise to the LORD, the Father!

"The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you..."

Indeed, the dear Lord Jesus is the Risen God-man and the Face of the Father. The Father can only be known by and through His chosen and revealed Face. We humans were once fashioned in God's image; but the true Image of God is Christ Himself. Thank God that His Face has broken into our sin-stained history to redeem us. He has been gracious unto us through a most astounding means ... an executioner's cross, which sadly enough is perceived as foolishness and a stumbling block to many of Adam's children. But this astounding means is the power of God unto salvation, as our Lord will eternally remind us by the sacred wounds which are stamped on His flesh (as St. Thomas the Apostle well knows, by the way).   We are reconciled to God with those wounds; and so the Lord's Face shines on us.  That is a Hebraic code, one which promises that the Lord Jesus smiles on us with Divine pleasure, as we go about our earthly ventures in this life.  What a joyous thought that is! We who are reborn in God's Name and living water can live with vibrant confidence afforded by God's love, resembling of a mom beaming at her little one's trusting grasp, or at her baby's contentedly nourished lips.

All praise to the LORD, the Son!

"The Lord lift up His countenance upon you ..."

Indeed, the Lord Holy Ghost lifts up and steadily points to the Face of God, God's countenance.   Now, we cannot by our own paltry reason or strength, come to our Savior's Face to honor Him. No. We would run away; or rather, truth be told, we rascals would all be naturally inclined to come all too close and give the suffering and smitten Man of Sorrows a few more floggings, along with those of Herod's thuggish captains and Pilate's mobbish legionaries ... if given opportunity. But see here, the Holy Ghost's wishes will not be thwarted, ever, in His relentless and divinely reckless pursuit of God's elect. For He calls us by the Gospel means, enlightens and opens our blind eyes through such, and then -- lo and behold -- He elevates and SANCTIFIES us unworthies.  This Comforter and Counselor is a lifter of unsurpassed ability.

All praise to the LORD, the Paraclete!

"... and give you Peace."

Indeed, the Peace which transcends all human understanding; that is to say, the Tri-unity's Peace.  A saving Peace,  a Peace once upon a time suspended from a tree. Not a peace afforded by the world's mammon (which will eventually only tarnish or be stolen; or be devalued, or be lost under the sofa), or by the world's truces (all very temporary, in the grand scheme of things ... which is why we humans are prophetically given to labeling our big wars with numerals, items which only increase as history marches on), and by the world's quick pleasures (many of which are invariably escorted by gloomy Death in some form or another; be it STD's, or motorcar crashes, or by an unhealthy body-mass index).    True Peace carries no threat of Death or base disfigurement, to others.   Instead, True Peace carried a thing of certain death, a cross, and purposively turned such dismal thing into a something of divine beauty and triumph. True Peace died on a cross to crush Satan's head and kill Satan's minions of sin and Death; so that we might live together with True Peace, for an eternity ... to verily see and adore His Face, as we banquet in gusto with Him.

All praise to the LORD, the Trinity!

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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).