Christ the Bridegroom: #3

**This is the third of a three-part reflection on "Christ the Bridegroom." The essay was guest posted by a close personal friend of mine who was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church. This section begins with an Orthodox Hymn for Holy Tuesday.**

I see your bridal chamber
All adorned, my Savior,
But I have no wedding garment,
That I may enter therein.
Make radiant the vesture of my soul,
O Giver of Light, and save me!

There remains one aspect of our marriage with Christ, however, which seemed to elude my understanding. Namely, if our relationship to Christ truly feels romantic love for us, and if this relationship is a true marriage, where is its physical consummation?

After all, the very reason that sexual temptation had been so hard for me to resist had been because I didn’t feel that I could have any sort of physical connection with God the way I could with another human being. By the point at which I was asking this question, I had already come to accept that my longing for physical union could not be separated from my desire for spiritual and intellectual union as well, but my relationship with God seemed only capable of existing on the spiritual and intellectual planes. How, then, were all three parts of my being to be united in Christ?

The answer to this question is more obvious if you come from a Catholic or Orthodox background.

It's the Eucharist.

In the sacrament of Holy Communion, we are literally partaking in (taking into ourselves) the Body of Christ. His flesh becomes one with our own, just like the physical consummation of a marriage. In that sense Christ’s Passion on the cross literally merges with His romantic passion for us, and the very act of physical union (the Eucharist) becomes in itself salvational.

As I said before, this truth is perhaps more intuitive if you come from a faith background that believes in transubstantiation because you are literally consuming the Body of Christ, but it makes sense on the metaphorical level as well. In fact even though the great English reformer John Wesley saw communion as purely a symbolic act, he still felt that partaking in communion had the power to save souls and thus allowed it even to non-believers.

If Christ is our lover, however, and we are His bride, doesn’t it follow that we should be in love with Him in the romantic sense as well? I realize that this may be especially strange for men to contemplate, but the obvious answer to that rhetorical question is yes. At first this seemed nearly impossible to me because I had never thought it appropriate for me to be romantically in love with God. To me God was a father, savior, brother, priest and confessor, but I had never before pictured him as my husband and lover in the fullest sense of the words. I had never before considered what it would look like to be in love with him in the same sense as a human lover.

That was when I had the epiphany that Christ is the ultimate romantic hero that I had always dreamed of meeting. He has all the virtues I yearn for in a soul mate, and He is passionately in love with me. Who could ask for anything more?

Once I had accepted the full implication of my bridehood, I began to see the evidence of Christ the Bridegroom all around me, and to understand it more fully. The Song of Songs with all its fleshly, passionate imagery—a book whose spirituality seemed vague at best to me—suddenly not only made perfect sense, but also became one of the most beautiful books in the Bible. It also proves that God has been our lover since the beginning of time, and that Christ’s Passion and his role as the Bridegroom is simply fulfillment of a relationship clearly lined out in the Old Testament.

Looking at my own faith tradition, I realized that the Orthodox Church places such value on the image of Christ as the Bridegroom that they dedicate a whole day in Holy Week (Holy Tuesday) exclusively to that aspect of Him. In fact, Holy Tuesday in the Orthodox tradition is also called Bridegroom Tuesday. The services for Holy Tuesday focus on the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the congregation prays that we will remain vigilant, with hearts prepared to receive our King and our Lover. Then in hymns and odes we contemplate our own unworthiness to be united thus with Christ’s divinity. Continuing with the theme of repentance and building on the theme from the Old Testament of Hosea’s marriage to the prostitute Gomer as a metaphor for our own desertion of God, the Orthodox sing the Hymn of Kassiani (quoted in the last section), which tells of the prostitute who anointed Christ’s feet with perfume and wiped them with her hair.

Interestingly, it is an Orthodox man who gave us our only extended allegory of Christ as Bridegroom in fiction: Fyodor Dostoevsky , in "The Idiot." Indeed, the bridegroom allegory is the centerpiece of the novel. The majority of the narrative chronicles the romantic pursuit by Prince Myshkin (the Christ figure) of two woman: the tragic fallen Nastassya Fillipovna, and the beautiful and virtuous Aglaia. Some reviewers write that Prince Myshkin's 'love' for Nastassya Filipovna is only pity and Christian charity. After all, Nastassya is so embittered, so base in some of her actions, that it seems impossible for a noble prince to feel romantic love—that deep, abiding admiration and all-consuming passion—for a person like her. Yet a close reading of the text does not support that assertion.

In the first part of the book especially, Myshkin displays all the symptoms of a man deeply in love, complete with professions of adoration and stammering and blushing in Nastassya’s presence. Even when she completely degrades herself and involves Myshkin in her disgrace through their failed engagements, Myshkin still feels deeply enough for her to leave everything for her once again. Although he appears less passionate and adoring near the end of the story, his lack of zeal does not indicate any cooling of his romantic feelings for Nastassya but rather the natural concern he feels over the dangerous course of action she persists in and her seeming mental instability. The humbling thing we must remember, though, is that Myshkin’s love for the undeserving Nastassya is a direct allegory for how we are infinitely undeserving to be the bride of Christ. Thus, the fact that Myshkin’s love does not seem to make sense simply echoes the profound mystery of Christ’s love for us.

I began my journey towards understanding Christ as the Bridegroom and myself as the bride by lamenting my sins with Kassiani’s prostitute. On a certain level I will continue to lament my sins even though I know God forgives them and “remembers them no more.” But now I have moved beyond blank despair because I paradoxically know that despite my baseness, I am wedded to Christ, my true husband, and destined for the glory of being completely united with Him. Thus I pray the words of the Orthodox hymn for Holy Tuesday: that He may “make radiant the vesture of my soul,” so that I may enter the bridal chamber ordained for me.

Check out the rest of this essay at:
Christ the Bridegroom: #1
Christ the Bridegroom: #2
Christ the Bridegroom: #3

Commentary on Scripture: Romans 6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:1-2 ~~ Paul issues the authoritative smack-down of the antinomian heresy.

Romans 6:3-5 ~~ Paul speaks of the atonement and the sacraments in this passage. "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into that, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life." This passage indicates that the crucial moment of atonement, the prime salvific event, is not defined by the Cross. By dying Christ triumphed over death; by living, Christ ensured the future resurrection of the body. Baptism unites us to Christ in recapitulating the Cross, but it is His Resurrection that gives us eternal life.

Romans 6:5-11 ~~ An extended meditation on the passion and death of Christ, and how that transforms our lives by enabling us to die to sin by dying and living in Him.

Romans 6:7 ~~ "For he who has died is freed from sin." This is integral to the passage as a whole, but I can't help but think of it atomistically, as an general principle unto itself. This would have pretty serious ramifications to our theology of suffering and death, though I'm not sure if I could do such ideas justice here.

Romans 6:16-19 ~~ Paul applies the metaphor of slavery both to our prior condition of sinfulness, and to our redeemed condition of sanctity. He clarifies that "I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh." In Galatians, he contrasts between our slavery to sin and our sonship in Christ, which is a much more powerful and liberating analogy. On the other hand, that passage was primarily about the doctrine of liberty, whereas this passage seeks to counter the antinomian heresy (that advocates freedom even to sin) and therefore emphasizes our obedience.  When our heart belongs to God, all things are lawful (though not all things are profitable; cf. 1 Corinthians 10:23). When our hearts wrestle with sin, we must be very careful indeed.

Romans 6:22 ~~ It's a limited analogy, pertaining to our weakness in the flesh, but it still carries weight. "But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive the benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life." The verse that follows is better known, but this one's pretty spectacular as well. It should be noted that the following verse only speaks to our slavery to God (and thus, only to grace received as a free gift) rather than our sonship in Christ (and thus to the grace and glory that has become our inheritance).

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Overview: On the Eucharist

Ironically, it was an atheist who first pushed me to Catholicism.

Several years ago, PZ Myers (a fairly notorious "New Atheist") decided, just for kicks, to desecrate the Eucharist. There was quite an uproar after he posted the pictures online. When I first heard about this incident, I was sickened, disgusted, appalled... words don't do justice to it.

A few months later, I overheard something that affected me deeply. I describe it in my note The Eucharist. In brief: a mother described communion to her young daughter as mere "pretending." Obviously this wasn't an accurate presentation of Protestant views of communion. But this incident, along with the earlier one, forced me to a realization. For the first time in my life, I recognized that there was something unequivocally sacred about the Eucharist.

I also recognized that this instinctual understanding was not derived from my Protestantism. Consciously, my theology was informed solely by memorialism. Communion was a remembrance of the Last Supper: a symbol of the faith and an ordinance to the faithful.

But this was not sufficient. That was the moment I realized my Eucharist theology was entirely and wholeheartedly Catholic. I already believed in The Real Presence; I just didn't have the vocabulary to describe it.

This discovery brought me to another. If Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, shouldn't that be the focus of our attention? Shouldn't it be the centerpiece of our worship? Isn't the Eucharist precisely the foundation to the Communion of the Saints?  Indeed, isn't the Eucharist central to our identity as a Church, as the Body of Christ?

The Eucharist opened the door to Catholicism. My next series of posts, On the Saints, would dismantle the first major obstacle that had kept me out in the first place.

Holy Week: The Body of Christ

I'm not sure there's a more fitting time to reflect on the Church as the Body of Christ, as specifically that day in Holy Week that commemorates the body of Christ broken for us.

Instead of my usual essay-length reflection on a single theme, I want to reflect briefly on multiple themes that are drawn from this single image.

The Body of Christ is Eucharistic. This is the heart of the sacrament, the essence of our communion. "Take, eat; this is My body" (Matthew 26:26). When we eat of the bread and the wine, we partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

It is for this reason that Romans 8:1 speaks of "those who are in Christ Jesus" and Romans 8:29 states that "those whom [God] foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn of many brethren." It is for this reason that 2 Peter 1:4 calls us to "become partakers of the divine nature." It is for this reason that Catholics speak of divine filiation -- our divine sonship -- and the Orthodox speak of deification and theosis -- literally "becoming God."

The sacrament of Eucharist is the centerpiece of our Christian identity: it defines us as a Church and as followers of Christ. Every other meaning and attribute given below flows from this central point.

The Body of Christ is empowered by the Holy Spirit. At the inauguration of His public ministry, Jesus was baptized by his cousin John. At this point, Scripture records that "while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Hi in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased" (Luke 3:21-22). In the same way, Catholics celebrate the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, Protestants celebrate the conversion experience of being "born again," and certain Pentecostals and charismatics elevate "speaking in tongues" (glossolalia) and "baptism in the Holy Spirit." There is a profound connection within the Church connecting the Body of Christ with the "soul" of the Holy Spirit.

The Body of Christ is invisible. We assert this at a Christological level in the doctrine of the Ascension. We also find in Scripture references to "vast cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1) that demonstrate that the Church is comprised not merely of the Church Militant -- we who fight and persevere on this Earth -- but also the Church Triumphant that has entered eternal life. Even in the Eucharist, we bear witness to the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:9) that unites all the saints, both the quick and the dead.

The Body of Christ is begotten of God. Jesus Christ was set apart from birth, born blameless and holy before God. To repeat a point from a previous note, this is why Catholics insist on the Immaculate Conception of Mary. She is preserved from the stain of original sin and is perfected by faith so that Jesus might inherit a perfect and fully human nature Himself. As far as this applies to the Church, we assert that the Body of Christ is spotless and without fault. The Church is clothed only in the righteous deeds of the saints (Revelation 19:8): our failures do not diminish it.

The Body of Christ is visible. As a purely historical matter, Christianity asserts the fact of the Incarnation. From an eschatological point of view, Christianity asserts that Creation will be restored: that we will enjoy eternal life in the New Earth. This principle, that the Church is essentially visible, may strike Protestants as a particularly Catholic notion. But even Protestants accept that the Church is defined in the visible communities of believers that abide by the Gospel. "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst" (Matthew 18:20).

In my opinion, Protestants tend to be fairly gnostic in this regard, though perhaps 'Neoplatonic' is the better word. We prefer the glorified Body ascended into heaven over the incarnate Body that is torn all to hell, as it were. We prefer an invisible Church, if only because the visible Church is such a mess. It is for the same reason that Protestants use crosses instead of crucifixes -- we emphasize the Resurrection over the Passion, and therefore point to the empty cross

Recently Pope Benedict issued a statement in which he referred to Protestants as "ecclesial communities" rather than a full "sister Church." Some Protestants take offense at the perceived slight, but I wonder if this isn't exactly what Protestants have defined themselves as being. Isn't this why so many Protestants go "church shopping"?  We don't consider the Church to be intrinsically visible, and must therefore search for a visible community in which to ground ourselves. Ironically, it is the Catholic emphasis on the invisible Church that lets us move beyond 'church shopping,' for we will readily endure horrid music, botched liturgies, and tedious homilies in order to celebrate Mass with the Church Triumphant.

There are a number of other elements and attributes that I might also cover, that are more explicitly salvific: for instance, the Body of Christ as both suffering and resurrected. However, I want to keep the discussion of Catholic views on salvation and atonement for a later series of posts.

May God bless this Maundy Thursday and the rest of your Holy Week.

Communion of the Saints

One of the most admirable traits of Islam, in my opinion, is the unity of the global Muslim population.  Five times a day rings the call to prayer, and five times a day every Muslim is called to face Mecca and pray to God. When I first understood this, I looked and found nothing comparable in my own background, nothing to echo the sweeping grandeur of a worldwide church united in a single act of devotion to God. To be honest, it was more than a little disappointing.

From this relatively recent appreciation of the Eucharist, I see what I was missing. For Christ Himself said of the bread that "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me" (1 Cor. 11: 24), and the earliest descriptions of the Christian church incorporate the centrality of the Eucharistic meal.

In the first post-Resurrection appearance recorded by Luke, Jesus walked with two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, and when they arrived and "He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him" (Luke 24:30-31). When the two disciples returned to Jerusalem to share this with the eleven, "They began to relate their experience on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread" (Luke 24: 35). Likewise, after the events of Pentecost, the members of the early Church "were continually devoting themselves to the apostle's teachings and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:30).

But Scripture does not merely treat the Eucharist as a sacrament shared only among the living. Christ declares that "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom" (Matt. 26:29).

Indeed, Scripture bids us to "rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.... Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.... These are the true words of God" (Rev. 19:7-9). The Eucharist is shared among all the saints of God: it is the sign of our unity as the Body of Christ, that we partake of that body together.

Communion is by this measure more than a memorial and in a sense even more than a sacrament.  It is a pillar of our Christian identity, allowing us to anticipate the marriage supper of the Lamb, sharing the celebration "with so great a cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1) and with the triumphal cries of the host of heaven.

This is the "new covenant in My blood" (1 Cor. 11:25) instituted by Christ. This is the communion of the saints.

The Real Presence

My first encounter with Catholicism was at an international conference on religion and economics in Michigan. Because many attendees were Catholic, daily Mass was administered by the local parish priest, who was also the President of the hosting institution. I attended one morning, and found it an interesting though unfamiliar spectacle.  Later that day, however, I had a chance to converse with a number of devout Catholics who explained to me some of the Catholic doctrines that were so foreign to my Protestant ears.

The single doctrine that struck me as simultaneously the most objectionable and the most defensible was the doctrine of Eucharistic Adoration. After the communal hosts have been consecrated by the priest, but before they are set out to be consumed at Mass, the elements are sometimes set aside in a chapel, where devout Catholic may go to worship before them.

From a Protestant perspective, this practice is tantamount to institutionalized idolatry. However, as my Catholic friend was describing it, he noted that, by the Catholic teaching of transubstantiation, the consecrated hosts are no longer merely bread and wine, but are in reality the body and blood of Christ. With such an understanding, worship or adoration of the elements can only be seen as worship or adoration of Christ.

The doctrine of transubstantiation is often misunderstood among both Protestants and lay Catholics, mostly because it relies on Aristotelian concepts foreign to modern ears. From his mentor Plato, Aristotle inherited notions of the world of forms -- the objective reality that undergirds the realm of subjective perception.  Loosely speaking, when you sit on a chair, you are sitting on a corrupted image of a Perfect chair, on a physical (and therefore inconstant) manifestation of the Form of a chair. Aristotle's concept of forms was modified slightly from Plato, but he still argued that there is a real distinction between reality and the realm of the senses.

This distinction, in the Aristotelian system, is between substances and accidents.  Substances are the thing itself, its essence or "quiddity" (a Latinate word roughly meaning its "what-ness"). Accidents are properties of the thing that we use to identify or describe it, but which aren't essential to its definition. For instance, this chair is made of wood.  Is wood essential to the substance of a chair?  No, because a chair might also be made of metal or plastic. Accidents belong to the realm of the senses, but substances are the thing itself.

Therefore, when Catholics speak of transubstantiation, they speak of the accidents (the outward appearance and physical reality) of the bread and wine remaining the same, while their substances are supplanted by the substance (inner reality, essence) of the body and blood of Christ. Under the Catholic hermeneutic, the words "this is my body" and "this is my blood," are not merely metaphorical but in fact definitional: Christ stated that the bread and wine were to be substantially identified with Himself.

This is the foundation for the Catholic dogma of the Real Presence, and the Catholic discipline of Eucharistic adoration.

One common Protestant objection to the Real Presence is the argument that, if it's necessary for Christ to be present in the host and to be broken each time Mass is celebrated, that would severely undermine the sufficiency of the atoning grace that arose from His sacrifice on the cross.

This objection is well taken, but it seems to hinge on a rather crucial misunderstanding. As created beings, we live our whole lives in the contexts of time and space, and find it quite impossible to imagine anything outside them. But time and space are properties of the created order, and thus God as Creator transcends such limitations. In the original celebration of the Lord's Supper, Jesus referred to His body broken, and His blood poured out, prior to His crucifixion, yet He asked His disciples to eat and drink in remembrance of that future act. No wonder the disciples were confused!

God exists in what we might consider a timeless present: this is the meaning of His Name, the Tetragrammaton "I am that I am." In every moment He experiences and observes everything. This is, incidentally, the solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge and predestination. For now, it also resolves the issue of competing sacrifices. It seems to me that God is sacrificially present in the act of communion, not in addition to His sacrifice on Calvary, but in the same divine moment.

We partake of that single sacrifice, and share the same Holy Meal, without regard to our differences in space and time from the rest of the Church, because God is present throughout space and time.

This is, incidentally, a necessary counterpoint to the doctrine of the Real Presence. After all, as Christians we must concede that God is present everywhere and such presence is indeed real. But there is a difference in the act of communion.  There is a visceral sacredness, an almost oppressive sense that this is truly a Holy Meal, just as surely as the ground beneath Moses' feet was holy ground. The transcendent Lord of the Universe is peeking out, as though from from behind the veil, and even that partial and opaque glimpse can still unravel the strings of our soul.

The Eucharist

A few months ago, I was attending the morning service at my church on communion Sunday. As the pastor read from one of the standard passages and prayed over the elements, a little girl behind me started asking her mother: "Mommy, what are we doing?"  After some hushed conversation, presumably in a failed attempt to answer the daughter's questions quickly, I heard the mother finally say in muted exasperation: "We're just pretending."

I fought the urge to turn around and make a scene. This little girl's first lesson on the Holy Eucharist was that it was a game of make-believe, along the lines of playing house. I tried to remind myself that the answer was perfectly understandable -- after all, how would I explain communion to a young child?  But I still felt like the mother's response was profoundly wrong, as though it were a blasphemy against the Church and the people of God.

I grew up accepting the common Protestant definition of communion as an ordinance, a memorial done in remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ. But I had grown increasingly discontented with this answer as I grew older and wrestled with other theological traditions.

The Psalmist's words that "the heavens declare the glory of God" began to strike me as something more than mere poetry -- they hearkened at a reality, that Creation itself was imprinted with the fingerprints of God.  In Aristotelian terms, the final cause of Nature as a thing created is to magnify and glorify its Creator. Once you accept this view of reality -- once you realize that the world is invested with more meaning that subsumes and transcends the level of the senses -- it is almost impossible to think differently. The world is too colorful to think in hues of gray; the melody of nature is too sweet to ever compare to cold monotone. 

When Christ spoke the words over the bread and wine, that "this is my body" and "this is my blood," He changed those elements into something almost infinitely more.  Even if the words were purely metaphorical, we can see that the words would magnify and glorify the elements, because He allowed them to represent and reflect Him. Similarly, by choosing to represent Himself and His relation to the Church through the imagery of marriage, God transformed the nature of marriage into a profound testament to His love. Thus, even by the loosest standard of Protestant interpretation, the act of communion must be seen as a sacrament: a vessel of God's holiness.

God is present when we celebrate communion. The rest is semantics -- theologically profound semantics, but considerably less valuable than this foundational understanding.  Just as the mode of baptism ("sprinkle, dip or dunk") matters considerably less than the condition of the heart that receives it, the question of whether God is present locally within the elements (as in the Catholic and Orthodox understandings of transubstantiation, and the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation), or present generally in the ritual or the act itself, is of comparatively little importance.

But the sacred aspect of the Eucharist goes further.  For, when He spoke those words, He did not merely make the elements reflect His divine nature.  The blood of Christ is the blood of atonement, the forgiveness of sins, the essential act of atonement operating by the grace of God for the redemption of the individual soul and of a fallen Creation. And how can we forget that the bread does not merely reflect the body of Christ broken on the cross, but also the resurrected body, emanating glory, as well as the Body to which we all now belong? For the Church is the mystical Body of Christ.

Therefore, by partaking of the Eucharist, we do not merely participate in a memorial to His work, and we do not merely eat of glorified elements that reflect His nature.  We partake of the blood by which we are forgiven, and the body by which we are made whole.  We partake of our individual salvation and our corporate identity as the Church. Indeed, the Eucharist is how we are known as the Church -- for the sacrament of baptism is done for individuals, but communion defines us as a Body.

Since I was 18 months old, I've been diagnosed with severe anaphylaxis (allergy) to peanuts. Whenever I see that communion will be administered on a Sunday service, my first reaction is to get up, find an usher, and make sure that there are no peanut contaminants in the bread so I can participate.  Even if it's in the middle of the worship time, this takes first priority.  Communion is probably one of the most important elements of my Christian walk, and certainly one of the most sacred rituals in which I participate as a believer.

A Sacramental World

Names are important.  Many instances in the Old and New Testaments, God seems to go out of his way to name or rename certain individuals. Abram becomes Abraham; Sarai becomes Sarah; Zachariah became the father of John; Saul becomes Paul.  Certainly this emphasis on names was shared by the culture -- Adam named the beasts and Jacob named his sons, and these names had real meaning. My own name is meaningful: my parents named me Alexander David, meaning "leader of men, beloved of God."

Whether names are primarily social constructs, or whether they hearken to something spiritually or metaphysically real, I can't really say.  But, though Shakespeare reminds us that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, we should remember that we would not remember the smell if a rose went by another name.  Words have a rhythm and a timbre, and some words just mesh perfectly with they object they denote.

All that to say, I've struggled with the name of this blog.

It was originally "Confessions of a Protestant Medievalist" -- the latter being my personal self-description, based on my encounter with medieval (Catholic) theology and doctrines.  But it was so much of an "inside joke" that it won't convey the meaning of this blog to those not already conversant in those doctrines.

At times I considered switching it to "Heterodox Reflections" or something along those lines, indicating that my approach to certain problems and doctrines tend to shy away from the norm of my evangelical Protestant background.  But I find value in tradition, and I wanted to emphasize that I believe any shift away from my Protestant roots would arise in conformity to a deeper or earlier Christian tradition.

Thus, most recently, the name changed to "Orthodox Reflections." But I was not contented.  For one, the title was so staid -- so boring -- that it didn't really describe anything significant about this blog.  It would discuss issues, and it would be grounded in Christian principles, but the name lacked any information to differentiate this blog from any other.

However, I think I finally found the name, a phrase to suit this blog's purpose. After a lot of theological reflection I've found that perhaps up to half of my theology is now rooted in Catholic understandings of God and the Church. I can't consider myself Catholic, when I still diverge so strongly from certain doctrines of theirs, but I am increasingly influenced by Catholic ideas.

Chief among these is the notion of "sacrament" -- of physical objects or deeds being not only signs but also vessels of God's grace. The Roman Catholic Church officially recognizes seven such sacraments  -- baptism, confirmation, communion, confession, last rites, ordination, and marriage.  However the doctrine of sacraments is far broader than that.  While these seven rites carry unique importance in Catholic tradition and Christian practice, they are by no means exclusive.  The world itself is a Sacrament.  It was not necessary that God create, and therefore Creation itself was a vessel of His grace bestowed upon the created for His glorification.

We live in A Sacramental World.  And now my blog has a name.