Society of the Holy Trinity Retreat, Dec 6-7, Part I

Retreat was held at St. Cyril's Academy, Danville, a beautiful abandoned high school that does still host a preschool, the convent of the Sisters of St. Cyril and Methodius, and a retreat center, of which the Society has had the run of past Decembers.

Worship was held in the Basilica, a gorgeous worship space that is as evocative as you can imagine. Starting with Evening Prayer at 5:50, we went through the entire office, with Compline at 10:00, Morning Prayer at 7:50, and Eucharist at 10:30.

I met Matthew Schuster, a first-year seminarian at Gettysburg who is hanging in there.
:) And I hope gaining a lot from the experience, as I did, and I'm sure you did too. I think we come into these places as certain people, and leave still those people. I don't know too many people who change radically as a result of their experiences there. Can you think of some folks who do?

Conversation focused on the Rule of the Society, with special attention given to a section not included on the website. Mainly, we discussed issues pertaining to the call of a pastor in this society, the crisis of authority, and so forth. Something I had not thought about:

The concept of the ministry being an "order" rather than an "office." Argument in favor: the term "ordination" which is still used for the conferring of the "holy orders," as opposed to "installation" of the office in a particular place. The idea is that an individual represents the "order" of ordained ministers, rather than simply being elevated to an "office" which in theory can be occupied by anyone. When a pastor is "just like" anyone else, and in theory does not know more than anyone else, there is no real reason to listen to him/her if he/she says anything that is uncomfortable. However, a member of an "order" can be expected to be bearing an authority that is not his/her own.

I realize that this may not be congenial to Word Alone-attuned ears. The idea itself was a revelation to me, and I don't know that anyone really ever said anything about it at Gettysburg. But the more I think about the atmosphere there: the fact that no one wore clerics there, the idea that non-ordained people were regularly preaching, the neglect of the term "Pastor," points to a ALC pastoral understanding of the office that pretty much was unchallenged.

I mentioned that every time I attended Mass, and prayed the Eucharistic Prayer, which included, "We pray for the Holy Father, His Holiness John Paul II, our bishop, N., and all the bishops, together with the clergy and the whole family of Christians you r Son has won for you," I felt uncomfortable with the hierarchical nature of the whole thing. To which came the response that the Church IS hierarchical. Hmmm. Not sold on the whole thing yet. But this comes from a pastor who is not afraid to say no to Luther.

Finally, (for this post), I have decided that the way I am going to be able to keep the Office is by one office of readings each day, rather than trying to do two. If I can read the Psalms for Morning Prayer when I get up, so be it. But making it a priority to do one office per day hopefully will keep me on track. It was simply mentally exhausting to not have the space at home to do Morning Prayer when I got up, and too tired after 9:00 to do Evening Prayer.