My Eyes Grow Dim Through Sorrow: Lent Daybook 24

Look: The Pensive Christ, Folk sculptor - Eduardas Jonusas, Photograpger - Bernardas Aleknavicius - Source 

Commentary from Victoria Emily Jones: “Dating back to the late fourteenth century, this iconographic type shows Jesus sitting on a stone, bent over, supporting his head with one hand while resting the other on his knee. Sometimes he is crowned with thorns, sometimes not, but either way he bears an expression of exhaustion and grief and is thus associated with the Passion.

Although the image first appeared in northern Germany, it is now most commonly associated with Lithuania, where the figure is called Rūpintojėlis (pronounced roo-pinto-YAY-lis): “the One Who Worries,” or “the Brooding One.” (“The Pensive Christ” is not a strict translation, but that is the name that has gained favor in the English-speaking world; “Christ in Distress” is another.) As Christianity spread throughout Lithuania in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so did images of Rūpintojėlis, as the wandering woodcarvers (dievdirbiai) of native folk culture carved him into hollowed-out tree trunks wherever they went. Today he is found not only at crossroads and in forests but in churches, homes, cemeteries, and shops.”

Listen: Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (I call to you, Lord Jesus Christ), No. 5, BWV 639, Johann Sebastian Bach, Murray Perahia- Translation | Spotify | YouTube

Read:  Psalm 88; Psalm 91-92; Jeremiah 11:1-8,14-20; Romans 6:1-11; John 8:33-47; Psalm 95

Excerpts:

O Lord, God of my salvation, at night, when I cry out before you, let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry. …

You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O Lord; I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you?

Selah

… You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.

*

As for you, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble. What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done vile deeds? Can vows and sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you then exult? The Lord once called you, “A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit,” but with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. The Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by making offerings to Baal.

*

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

*

Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.

Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble; I will rescue them and honor them. With long life I will satisfy them and show them my salvation.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

*

They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham, yet you look for an opportunity to kill me because there is no place in you for my word. I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.”

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, you would do what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.” They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children; we have one Father, God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God, and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God.”

*

Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.” Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”

—Psalm 88:1-2, 8-10, 18; Jeremiah 11:14-17; Romans 6:1-11; Psalm 91:9-92:4; John 8:33-47; Psalm 95:8-11

Pray: Since today is Saint Patrick’s feast day, let’s pray “The Lorica [or Breastplate] of St. Patrick"

Note: The original meaning of “Lorica” is armor or a breastplate. It developed, in the Christian monastic tradition, to mean a prayer of protection. Apparently, Patrick sang this revision of an Old Irish prayer when he came under ambush on his way to Tara to "sow the faith". 

1 I bind unto myself today
the strong name of the Trinity
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One and One in Three.

2 I bind this day to me forever,
by power of faith, Christ’s incarnation,
his baptism in the Jordan river,
his death on cross for my salvation,
his bursting from the spiced tomb,
his riding up the heavenly way,
his coming at the day of doom,
I bind unto myself today.

3 I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven,
the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea
around the old eternal rocks.

4 I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
God’s eye to watch, God’s might to stay,
God’s ear to hearken to my need,
the wisdom of my God to teach,
God’s hand to guide, God’s shield to ward,
the word of God to give me speech,
God’s heavenly host to be my guard.

5 Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

6 I bind unto myself the name,
the strong name of the Trinity
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One and One in Three,
of whom all nature has creation,
eternal Father, Spirit, Word.
Praise to the Lord of my salvation;
salvation is of Christ the Lord!

Do: If you have time to watch a movie today, may I strongly recommend The Secret of Kells?!?  The gorgeously-rendered mythology behind the very real, magnificent Book of Kells, created by Irish monks to turn the medieval darkness into light. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It'll be a gift to anyone who watches it, no matter their age.

You might also enjoy:

From our sabbatical visit to see The Book of Kells on display at Trinity College, Dublin, July 2022

*Sunday Scripture readings are taken from Year A of the Book of Common Prayer 2019 (Anglican Church of North America). Daily Scripture readings are taken from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and include both Morning and Evening Psalms (Year 1)

LentTamara Hill MurphyLent Daybook 2023