Fencing Bear at Prayer

"The turn to experience [in mainline and evangelical Protestantism] is a failure because it's based on a misunderstanding of how experience actually works.  Focusing on your experience waters down your experience, because experience feeds on what it experiences, just as love feeds on news of the Beloved.  We can use the same picture to illustrate this point as in chapter 9.  In Christian faith, your experience is like the arrow on side A of the picture.  It's the verb in a sentence like 'I believe in Christ.'  The arrow is aimed at Christ, just as the verb is 'aimed' at its grammatical object, which is Christ.  Very significantly, it is not aimed at itself, which is why on side B, what the person on side A is experiencing, the arrow, disappears.  That is to say, the experience of faith is not about faith or experience but about Christ.   We don't believe in our experience, we believe in him.  So Christian faith and the experience that comes ...

"In the third place there is the physical, visible, palpable beauty of Christ . "This can be sub-divided: supernatural beauty , which His most holy flesh was granted in His glorification. It is to configuration with this that our body aspires; and to this it must be brought, when, in the resurrection that is to come our humble body will--according to the apostle's promise (Ph 3:21)--made like to the Body of His Glory. But first we must be conformed to the Passion of Christ and to His crucifixion. "But the natural beauty of Christ's Body, when He lived on earth, was so great, so lovely, that of it the psalmist sang: 'You are beautiful above the sons of men' (Ps 44:3). For perfect physical beauty, there are three requirements. The first is that the body should be tall and shapely; the second is that the parts of the body should be in due proportion; the third is good, healthy, clear colouring. As we read in the second chapter of Augustine's City ...

He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Christ's Descent into Hell and Resurrection: Icon of the Yaroslavl School, Church of Elijah the Prophet , 1680s. And for all those struggling with doubts about whether this "actually" happened, go here .

"Already [her son] was taken, already he was bound, already he was spat upon and struck, and it was said over him: 'He deserves death,' and it was shouted to the prefect: 'Crucify, crucify him.' These things were not hidden from the pious mother, who doubtless had come to Jerusalem at this time, whether for the festival of unleavened bread, or rather to see with pious eyes the agony of her Son, which had been specially revealed to her. And thereupon she heard from many: 'Don’t you know, woman, what has happened to your son?' "'I knew, she says, 'so be silent, and do not add to the pain of my wounds.' Thus however she was saying to herself: ‘"I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense" [Song of Songs 4:6]. I will go and I will see his agony, and maternally I will die with him ( commoriar ei ), because that prophecy which truth-telling Simeon said to me—"His sword will pierce through your own soul...

[Revised from original post] I'm not sure what this meter is. It's supposed to be iambic pentameters, but I'm struggling with hearing the beat: da-dum. Maybe it's dactyls. Poetry is hard! You all know the story, how Descartes read In Harvey of Caius that the heart pumps blood And came to insist that that's all it does. For ages now, we've believed this about Our hearts, that they were just muscular pumps, Nothing to do with our feelings or souls. Now it turns out that patients with transplants Tend to begin to resemble their donors Harboring hopes, thoughts, memories and fears Not their own, almost as if the hearts told Them their secrets just by pumping their blood. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. Perhaps, after all, all those pictures of Christ, baring his heart for love of the world Are more than just metaphors. What if the Heart really is the seat of the soul that Bleeds when we grieve for our loved ones and Clots when we cut ourselves off from t...