I remember once waiting with my two-year-old son for my wife, his mother, to come home after being away much of the day. We were on the back porch playing together. When he heard his mother’s car pull into the driveway he stopped everything. He looked up. His eyes widened. I thought he would run … read more
I’ve been reading some of the popular work of an excellent social and moral psychologist named Jonathan Haidt. He published his work, The Happiness Hypothesis in 2006 as a result of teaching “Psychology 101” at the University of Virginia for 10 years. He decided he wanted students not just to learn facts, figures and dates […]
Psalms 55; Isaiah 10:20-27; Luke 3:1-9 Listen to the author read their meditation and prayer: The Rev. Nathan Jennings, Advent Meditation Advent means “coming.” The Greek would be “parousia,” showing up, arriving. What does it look like when God shows up? In our passage from Luke today, it looks like a prophet crying […]
Wednesday – December 2 Psalm 119:1-24; Amos 3:12-4:5; Matthew 21:23-32 Listen to the author read their meditation and prayer: The Rev. Dr. Nathan Jennings Advent Meditation The Psalmist sings, “oh, that my ways were made so direct that I might keep your statutes.” In the face of the word from Amos today, we beg the […]
There have been a series of popular bumper stickers in recent times with the words “coexist,” or “tolerance” or “believe” written with the various symbols of world religions. Much like the “Darwin fish” that have arisen to mock the once popular automobile Christian fish symbol, there has now arisen and interesting mockery of this series […]
There are key differences between rest, entertainment and festival (I depend upon the insights of Josef Pieper for these distinctions). The celebration of a feast cannot be called entertaining because its object is not the participants but the transcendent reality acclaimed. That doesn’t mean that folks can’t have fun at a festival, quite the contrary. […]
A Blues Brothers mystagogy was originally posted on The Living Church's Covenant blog on May 19, 2015.
My wife and I recently had a chance to entertain ourselves by watching The Blues Brothers, that 1980 classic, again.
Every other time I’ve watched this movie, the repeating theme wherein the “brothers” insist that they are on a “mission from God” came across to me simply as part of the joke of the movie or as a blasphemy (as it did to Aretha Franklin’s character in that famous scene), especially when I found myself in a rather pious mood.
This time I felt rather differently. Between the last time I watched this old comedy and this recent viewing, a lot of life, growing up, sorrow, and spiritual direction has intervened. I believe the brothers were indeed on a mission from God. And I believe it is “proved,” time and again throughout the movie by the constant intervention of grace.
Nathan Jennings came to Seminary of the Southwest in 2005, returning to his hometown. Currently, Nathan serves as the J. Milton Richardson Associate Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies. Nathan's academic interests include liturgical theology, dogmatic theology, ascetical theology, and theological hermeneutics.
This year will be the third year that we, as a community, will be celebrating the “Triduum” together. In the past, we have expected students to attend their field parishes for formation in the Triduum. We decided to give it a go for a few years here at Seminary of the Southwest, to see if the Triduum might not become for us an important part of our own formative traditions.
But what is the “Triduum,” anyway? It is not a word found in our Prayer Book. It is Latin for “The Three Days.” These “Three Days” refer to the three focal days of Holy Week surrounding Christ’s Last Supper, betrayal, death, burial and resurrection. It comprises four services over three days. The four services are: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and the Great Vigil of Easter. These take place from Thursday evening before Easter Sunday through Saturday night (or, in some places the Great Vigil occurs just before sunrise on Easter Sunday itself).
Psalm 119: 1-24; Isaiah 2: 1-11; Luke 20: 19-26
From the Rev. Nathan Jennings, PhD, Associate Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies