A --- Happy the Blameless
Aleph Beati immaculati
The gospel for tomorrow, Sunday, February 13 is Matthew 5:21-37, may God help his preachers bring a loving message of comfort, assurance and salvation out of these hard sayings. Not only is much of this portion of the Sermon on the Mount awkward for Christians today; but it’s not fair to pound the pulpit with Jesus sayings that scholars cannot determine with reasonable confidence whether Jesus in fact did say them or not or what he said. Mark, Matthew, and Luke each have Jesus saying substantially different; in Luke, Jesus is absolute; Matthew has him allow an exception; and what Jesus says in Mark reflects Roman rather than Mosaic law. Furthermore, times and cultures and values are no longer those of the first century C.E. and few of us would wish to return to those days.
So instead of the gospel I’m looking at the Hebrew hymn for Sunday, Psalm 119:1-8. The hymn is an acrostic: there are are 22 eight-verse stanzas in this hymn, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet; but the Revised Common Lectionary appoints only one stanza for the day, the first stanza, verses 1-8. Being an acrostic, the psalm works its way stanza by stanza through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In the first stanza each of the eight lines begins with the Hebrew letter aleph. This doesn’t show up in English, so you can’t see it. But all the way through Psalm 119, in the Hebrew original, each stanza has its own letter and each of the eight lines of the stanza begins with that letter. This Hebrew fascination with the acrostic style can make for forced poetry, but the psalmist plows ahead with ingenuousness, giftedness and imagination, and makes it work!
It’s a lovely song, especially the opening stanza. Here’s our BCP translation, Aleph the first stanza, and Taw the twenty-second and final stanza:
Psalm 119
Aleph Beati immaculati
1 Happy are they whose way is blameless, *
who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Happy are they who observe his decrees *
and seek him with all their hearts!
3 Who never do any wrong, *
but always walk in his ways.
4 You laid down your commandments, *
that we should fully keep them
5 Oh, that my ways were made so direct *
that I might keep your statutes
6 Then I should not be put to shame, *
when I regard all your commandments.
7 I will thank you with an unfeigned heart, *
when I have learned your righteous judgments.
8 I will keep your statutes; *
do not utterly forsake me.
Taw Appropinquet deprecatio
169 Let my cry come before you, O LORD; *
give me understanding, according to your word.
170 Let my supplication come before you; *
deliver me, according to your promise.
171 My lips shall pour forth your praise, *
when you teach me your statutes.
172 My tongue shall sing of your promise, *
for all your commandments are righteous.
173 Let your hand be ready to help me, *
for I have chosen your commandments.
174 I long for your salvation, O LORD, *
and your law is my delight.
175 Let me live, and I will praise you, *
and let your judgments help me.
176 I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; *
search for your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
+++ +++ +++
How am I doing?
Cleveland Clinic recommended that I be under the care of a home health agency, I accepted their recommendation, and they made the local arrangements. A nurse comes out to draw blood and check my vitals. A graduate physical therapist comes out twice a week to see how I’m progressing and do physical therapy with me -- first it was walk around the house, walk down Calhoun Avenue to the bay and back up my front steps. Friday it was walk round the block, then when back home walk up the stairs and down. Some stopping briefly is necessary in all this. However I did walk comfortably straight up the stairs without stopping. A month ago I could six steps up and rest, six more steps up and stop for a nitroglycerin sublingual pill, and the last six steps and rest! So, that’s progress. Blood pressure is running 120/61 range. Before surgery it was varying around 95/60 or lower. So I’m making super progress! I feel immensely better than I did at the Christmas Eve service, during which I had to take nitroglycerin at least four times!! And I’m off the defibrillator machine that I wore from October through January.
Friday we went over to the school and I walked around a bit, watched the kids on the kindergarten end, looked at a couple of possible locations for moving the school’s portable classroom building to the Cove Campus. Mainly enjoyed visiting a few minutes with Amy.
Tass, Jeremy, Caroline and Charlotte are to arrive from Tallahassee mid-morning Saturday, returning home Sunday. So I will not try to go to church Sunday. Coming to see if Papa is really doing as well as we claim, they are only staying one night. I like it when they stay two nights or more, because the house is filled with the shrieks of little girls and their daddy playing with them, and the presence of one of my three beloved daughters! The little girls go to Holy Comforter Episcopal School, which they love.
I’m still having trouble believing that I Am Alive, and that we no longer are concerned about sudden heart failure and cardiac arrest! For this, Linda and I are so thankful.
Fr. Tom+