Apostolic Backstory
“The Lord took me from following the flock...”
In seeking to channel the distinctive flavor of ancient Celtic Christianity, the Orthodox monastery on the Isle of Mull has cultivated a unique aesthetic in its iconography, of which the above image is a good example. The flavor is at once Celtic, Byzantine, and simple; a neo-medieval kind of vibe. Here, the early martyrs Tiberius, Modestus and Florentia (Gallic saints who died ca 303 in Agde under the persecutions of Diocletian) are depicted as composing the Body of Christ in a rather literal fashion. Their shrine in Saint-Thibery, France was a part of the famed pilgrimage route of the Santiago de Compostela.
Useful in meditating on this image is the tension that the representation of these particular saints bears within itself. On the one hand, they are … well … saints — and only saints, only great and lauded heroes of the faith — who compose and represent the Body of Christ. On the other hand, the fact that these particular individuals are to us rather obscure and forgotten means that they can stand in for the anysaint, the anybody united to Christ and in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, since that what it is to be a saint.
We know and experience the people of God to be a people that by bears this kind of distinction within itself. On the one hand, we constitute together the beloved, covenant people of God whom he has chosen for himself and united to himself as members of his Body. On the other hand, we are a people of “saints:” a people whose identity from time to time finds special focus and representation in particular individuals who publicly live, embody, and demonstrate this identity before the world in a remembered (if not especially remarkable) fashion, such that their biographies become a part of our sense of who we are, and their teachings a part of how we hear the voice of the Spirit of Christ speaking in, through, and to his Church.
He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
— The Apostle Paul (Eph 1:4)
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Texts for This Week
Prayer
Let your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of your humble servants; and, that we may receive what we ask, teach us by your Holy Spirit to ask only those things that are pleasing to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the same Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Scriptures
Here I am, Lord
Wisconsin-born Jesuit songwriter Dan Schutte (one of the storied St. Louis Jesuits) wrote this well-beloved (but oft-maligned) piece in 1979, for the deaconal ordination of a friend. It has thence become a hit among Roman Catholics and number 10 in a list of the top hymns of the UK, being covered by the monk-minstrel John Michael Talbot and enjoying several arrangements and orchestrations across Christian traditions. Featured here is a version produced by the BBC program, Songs of Praise.
