Christianity – Page 5 – The Hermitage Within: Spiritual accompaniment

Lent Challenge: 1700th Anniversary of Council of Nicea

February 22, 2025

This year, 2025, marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea (the photo above shows architecture in Nicea that is still standing, was present in the days of the Council of Nicea).

So, what’s the big deal about that?

The apostles were expecting Jesus’ second coming during their generation. Also, Christ died at a time when the Jews were just starting to supplement their oral tradition with more written texts. Thus, it didn’t occur to the apostles and the early Christian communities to immediately, after Jesus’ death, write down the essentials of Christianity for future generations. Why write down the essentials of Jesus’ faith when Jesus was coming back soon?

Thus, It took several decades for the gospels to start to be written. The earliest church didn’t have the New Testament that we have today….

So, by the year 325, any number of things were being said to be Christian teachings that were theologically “all over the map.” The Council of Nicea (the council happened in the then-community of Nicea, in what is now Turkey) was called by the Roman Emperor Constantine to definitively settle “What we believe.” Bishops from both the Eastern and Western churches met over the summer to hammer out “What we believe” [between approximately 250 – 318 bishops attended. Bishops traveled to Nicea from across the Mediterranean, North Africa, Asia, Jerusalem, etc. without the benefits of automobiles or airplanes, though they did have ship travel).

Among the matters that came out of that Council was the Nicene Creed.

Today, 1,700 years later, we recite either the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed at every mass. That’s our big deal about the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea.

Have you taken time to reflect on our Creed? If we were to read the Creed with strictly modern sensibilities, there’s enough to give just about anyone heartburn. Jesus was born of a virgin? Physically rose from the dead?

I grew up believing in having a personal relationship with a monotheistic deity and I loved church ritual. I struggled with what I would later call “biological implausibilities” (virgin birth, the Assumption, etc.). It took me decades to work through these “implausibilities.” Now that I am largely on the other side of working through these matters, I have a faith that is richer and deeper. It turns out that developing a maturing faith requires that we really figure out how we personally relate to our Catholic faith.

1700 years into the Creed, have you reflected on the Creed? For Lent this year, maybe try writing a line-by-line explanation of what the Creed means (Lent starts on March 5^th this year) If you’d like resources to assist with this Lenten project, a book that I read in college might prove helpful – a book by Fr. John A. Hardon called ”Pocket Catholic Catechism.”

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechis t (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

Book Review: Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies

February 20, 2025

Book: Introduction to Eastern Christian Liturgies

This is an interesting and broadly-written book for anyone interested in the what-and-how of religious services in the various Eastern Orthodox churches – Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, and Maronite traditions.

This densely-written academic text dives into intricate and comparative detail of many aspects of church services for each of these traditions – including historical developments of each tradition.

In this book, the reader learns:

In the early Syrian rite, baptism was viewed as “rebirth to something new” rather than the western view of baptism being our “death, rebirth, and rising with Christ” (pages 21-22).
I was surprised to discover that in the early centuries of the Syrian Orthodox tradition, the Syrians considered the Holy Spirit to be “Mother Holy Spirit” – complete with references in liturgical prayers about the Holy Spirit acting as the “womb” of people’s faith (page 23).

This book is worth reading.

From darkness to light

January 13, 2025

In the words of (Cardinal) Timothy Radcliffe, “We are all radically incomplete.”

In our incompleteness, each of us have areas of darkness. The fact, though, that all of us are radically incomplete provides comfort – we aren’t alone in experiencing the human condition (in Radcliffe’s statement that we are all radically incomplete, he immediately goes on to say “And we need each other”).

It is in the embrace of God’s love for us that we move from darkness to light.

It is because of all of this – such compelling aspects of our human experience (darkness, love, light) – that there are repeating threads of “from darkness to light” within the Christian faith tradition.

We celebrate the redeemer’s birth at the darkest time of the year (northern hemisphere) – the earthly appearance of the one who provides us with hope and light through the Resurrection (the Risen Christ).

We are now into January: each day is lighter and longer than the previous day. Joyousness. This is how I choose to look at the daily time of darkness and contrasting light at this time of year. In contrast, I met a person several years ago (2013?) who talked about – and focused on – “how short and dark the days are from October through February” (an accurate but dreary assessment!). I, on the other hand, choose to start counting in November who many weeks and then days there are until days start getting lighter and longer (i.e., counting toward the Winter Solstice). Then, I take joy each day after the solstice in having more light that day.

Days are getting longer now – for those of us in the northern hemisphere. When I drive to work in the early hours of the morning, I see the Seattle skyline in contrast to the night sky – a lovely image. I recently made a point of taking the photo of this Seattle skyline shown here before it gets too light in the early morning to take such a photo. In the midst of my dark drive to work, though, I also feel the joy of increasing light and God’s love for us.

A loving relationship with God does bring us from the darkest corners of our human experience to hope and love. Personally, I find the experience of this loving relationship in the stillness and deep surrender of contemplative prayer. And in being good to other people.

Monasteries of the Spirit (poetic ponderings)

January 8, 2025

Last year, I composed a poetic pondering about our human experience of faith. That blog post as well received, so I’m trying another poetic pondering with a look toward our personal faith engagement. (Note: I took the photo above at the centuries-old Clonmacnoise monastic ruins in Western Ireland.)

Monasteries of the Spirit

Monasteries of the Spirit are:

Grace-filled spaces, a place of rest and nourishment
Environments where we can encounter God’s love

Monasteries of the Spirit are also a space of last year’s poetic ponderings:

We move – seemingly unaware of the mechanics our own locomotion – through journeys of the soul prompted by the Holy Spirit
We sing with joy and weightlessness toward the upper mountain heights of God’s love
We wonder when happening upon liminal places

How do we be seek out Monasteries of the Spirit? Through an engaged faith journey:

Regular engaged participation in one’s faith tradition.

An active prayer life with attentiveness to – and surrender to – promptings of the Holy Spirit. These promptings nudge us toward an inner relationship with God through prayer.

May your faith journey be wonder-filled.

What Christians Believe

December 26, 2024

A woman I know started telling her co-workers that she attends church. She hadn’t told her co-workers about this in the two years she’d been working at her job. Her co-workers were surprised that a surprisingly normal and intelligent person such as her attends church. “So,” her co-workers would ask her, “Are you one of those Christians who believes that the Earth is only 3,000 – 6,000 years old?” and other such questions. “No,” she would reply, “Of course not.” She would point out in these conversations that The Big Bang Theory was formulated by a Catholic priest…..

So, what DO Christians believe? While some aspects of this question varies from one denomination to another, Christian leadership did come together in the year 325 in Nicea (a then-Greek city in what is now Iznek, Turkey) to specify precisely what Christian do believe. (I learned recently that ruins of some of the local Nicean architecture that existed at the time of the council in 325 still exists – I’d love to visit and see the remains of the architecture).

Christianity grew out of a historically oral tradition and Jesus’s followers thought in the decades following his death and resurrection that he was going to return in their lifetimes; thus, no one started writing what is now The New Testament for several decades. While it would be tempting to think now – 2,000 years later – that Christian belief in its’ current state has been statically known and accepted since the time Christ was alive, there was a lack of established Orthodoxy in the early days of Christianity. Thus, the need in the year 325 to communicate clearly what the Christian Church believes.

Join A Parish Catechist on Saturday, January 4th (8:00 am Pacific) or January 7th (7:00 pm Pacific) for a Zoom educational session about the specifics of “What Christians Believe” via the Nicene Creed. Sign up (register) here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084CA4A629A3F4C43-54130811-faith#/

Religious liturgical seasons and the faith experiences of individuals

December 14, 2024

With Christmas just around the corner, I have been pondering how to follow up on my previous post about the liturgical year and our faith journeys as individuals (the image above is a visual representation of Christianity’s liturgical seasons). In my last post, I wrote “On a personal level, Church seasons and religious holidays provide opportunities for us to journey deeper into our faith experience. When we truly engage in the processes provided in the Church’s liturgical calendar, what I have heard called ‘the genius of Christianity’s processes’ brings us into a deeper relationship with God. Our own inner workings are stirred in such a way that our spirituality broadens, deepens, and matures.”

There is a deep spiritual beauty in the flow of the church’s liturgical seasons that stirs us.

There’s also a question of whether one’s faith journey is expected to be organized around the liturgical seasons. Is Advent automatically when we should be prompted toward anticipatory hope (i.e., us looking forward to the Saviour’s birth)? While the established liturgical seasons offer rich faith development opportunities for us, each of us are also experiencing our faith journey at times and in ways that are specific to our own lives. For example, I’ve written about my re-conversion experience here; my re-conversion experience began unexpectedly in October, 2015 – during Ordinary Time. Similarly, I meet people who arrive at churches because they feel compelling faith stirrings that propel them into church pews. In the last couple of years, I have journeyed with several individuals who arrived at churches because they felt stirrings in which God was reorganizing their emotional lives in fruitful and amazing ways. They arrived in churches at times when they felt prompted by the workings of the Holy Spirit – not in accordance with a specific liturgical season.

Journeying with people whose inner lives are being transformed by the Holy Spirit is a blessed journey. Individuals having such experiences can’t be identified by looking for some outer clue (i.e., “look for the person where a specific color shirt standing at X location”). Rather, encountering people having such experiences requires talking with people – often, strangers – and listening to what they have to say (and, being attentive in looking for people having such experiences). People often want to talk about these experiences (I did!). Often, efforts to talk about such experiences can involve clunky or disjointed communication. We are all on our own journey toward a deeper relationship with God and it can be hard to articulate our own person encounter with the divine – especially if someone is new to such experiences. What I am finding is that there are ways to “talk around” such experiences – verbally acknowledge a person’s experience (“I recognize that you are having a profound inner experience”) and being present with the person. Reflectively find ways – even if the ways feel superficial – to compare notes on their and your faith journeys. Communicate joy that a person is experiencing a spiritual transformation.

What matters about liturgical seasons and our individual faith journeys? It matters that each of us be intentional about being on a faith journey. It matters that we respond to promptings of the Holy Spirit (those unexplainable inner promptings that come along occasionally). It matters that we be attentive to our inner experiences and look toward an ever deeper relationship with God (it can be tempting in today’s frenzied world to avoid one’s inner experiences). It matters that we learn to better love God and love our neighbor (putting faith into practical action in the aspects of our lives beyond our own internal experience). Engaging with religious liturgical seasons provides a communal structure for deepening our faith experience and for walking with each other in faith.

New book: honor the church volunteers in your life!

November 22, 2024

Churches are many things – religious institutions, places for religious worship, architectural buildings… Churches are also a place of community. Volunteers are integral to the daily functioning of churches and the experience of how church happens.

I have written a book rejoicing in the religious and social contributions of church volunteers. The book is currently at the printer with a scheduled arrival date of December 20, 2024.

Is there a church volunteer in your life? Would you like to recognize them – say, on New Year’s Day? Ordering them a copy of this book is a great way to acknowledge the contributions they make to their faith community and, by extension, to the communities where they live. Pre-orders are being accepted here (you can also learn more about the book at the web page provided)!

Advent is just around the corner!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!).

Surrendering to God transforming us

October 22, 2024

I was in high school when I was first introduced to surrendering to allowing God to change us. At the time, I was challenged by a particular type of life difficulty. I surrendered that difficulty to God and asked for assistance in having my life change. How I was living in the world did improve. I also developed the rudiments of an expanded prayer life. I still tell the story about my prayer life expanding at that time – I, as an adolescent, grew beyond the basics of childhood prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep” and literal conceptions of Jesus sitting on a physical throne in the clouds) and saw my prayer life expand incrementally toward more of an interactional relationship with God.

In recent years, I surrendered again to allowing God be present in my life. This time, the surrender was broader. “God change me in whatever ways you want me to be different.” Again, my life is changing. I am experiencing emotional reorganizations that I couldn’t have anticipated – transformations beyond what I would have brought about on my own. More freedom, increased life functionality, some measure of more contentment. Growing commitment to being useful to other people. This came about from a prompting of the Holy Spirit – a moment at a church service in October, 2016 when I felt – and responded to – an invitation to allow God to be more fully present in my life (that story is told here).

God wants to be present in our lives. God wants us to be the people we are meant to be, to be fully alive. In the words of Timothy Radcliffe, “We are all radically incomplete. And, we need each other.” We, with our human limitations, need God’s movement in our lives to become the people who we are meant to be. We move toward being complete when we allow God to be the center of our lives and to act in changing us. Acts 17:28: For in God we live and move and have our being.

Allowing God to become the center of our lives, we cease to be the center of our lives. Ceasing to be the center of our live can feel threatening (“But what about me? I’m all I’ve got?”). It turns out that when we step out of the way, God brings freedom into our lives – we become the people we are meant to be and we become more useful in the world. God loves us!

Book Review: The Search for the Twelve Apostles

October 17, 2024

I took a recent interest in “Early Christian Literature” – Christian literature written after the time of Paul. I was rather surprised to not find a systemic overview of the early centuries of Christianity.

I then happened upon this book, The Search for the Twelve Apostles by William Steuart McBirnie, Ph.D. The author spent decades traveling to the Holy Land, Europe, etc. to find and visit places where the twelve apostles spent time and to study their lives.

As I read this book, I am finding the topic interesting. The author starts the book with a description of his trips to places where the apostles spent time and his own discovery that not much is written about the early centuries of Christianity.

The chapters dedicated to each apostle are written in a rather dry academic style, but I don’t fault the author – I appreciate his effort to write about the lives of the apostles. I am glad to be learning where each apostle likely spent time.

Book Review: Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place

October 11, 2024

I just took a break from reading another book to read (re-read?) Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.

When I recently happened upon a copy of The Hiding Place, I thought “Yes, I read this.” Perhaps I did read it in high school or in my twenties. I decided to read it again – this time for its’ Christian insight. As I read it this time, I didn’t remember the details of the book. If I read it before, I think I probably read it as a historical account of WWII.

The book absolutely is a historical account of WWII and of a family who participated in Dutch resistance. It is also the account of a family who deeply put their Christian faith into practice.

Most evenings, I pick up the latest faith book I am reading to read a few pages before I go to sleep. Last night, I finished The Hiding Place and then found myself unable to sleep because of the distress of reading about the horrors in Germany’s concentration camps. I was also compelled – as the author intended – about the author’s conviction that we are compelled to forgive. At the end of the book, she wrote of spending time after the war – and after being released from Ravensbrück concentration camp – helping WWII survivors to heal and educating people about forgiveness (prompted significantly from her sister’s witness on this topic before dying). At the very end of the book, Corrie Ten Boom wrote of encountering a guard from Ravensbrück where her beloved sister Betsy perished. Forgive even him? She had to reach deep into herself to try forgiving, then ask God to help her forgive. Ten Boom wrote compellingly that it was God who made it possible for her to forgive.

For anyone trying to live a life of faith, this book is a must-read. Corrie Ten Boom absolutely challenges us to go farther than we think we can in putting our faith into practical practice.

The Hermitage Within: Spiritual accompaniment

Going inward to reflect, taking love into the world

Tag: Christianity